Journalists covering protests in US risk getting caught up in police kettling tactic
On September 17 last year, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk was covering protests over the acquittal of a former police officer in the killing in 2011 of man named Anthony Lamar Smith. At about 11 p.m., officers formed a line across Washington Avenue near Tucker Boulevard in downtown St. Louis, and officers in full…
Journalists covering US white supremacists must weigh risks to selves and families
Michael Edison Hayden was one of the first foreign journalists on the ground after the Nepalese earthquake in 2015– the “ground was still shaking” when he arrived, he said. He’s reported from the disputed territory between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, and gone door-to-door in Phoenix, searching for a mass killer. But, Hayden said, reporting…
Tweaking a global source of news
The only way Abdalaziz Alhamza and his fellow citizen journalists could get out news from the Islamic State’s self-declared capital in Syria to a global audience was by posting materials on Facebook and YouTube. “They were the only way to spread news since many militias and governments prevented most, if not all, the independent media…
Dangers from inside the newsroom
By Christiane Amanpour/chief international correspondent for CNN and CPJ senior advisor In November, I stood before top news media executives in the United States and called on them to stamp out sexual harassment in their organizations. “The floodgates are open,” I told the audience at the annual International Press Freedom Awards gala of the Committee…
The president’s phantom threats
During his tumultuous campaign, Donald Trump declared war on the press, pledging to “open up our libel laws” and impose fines on critical journalists if elected. Within a month of taking office, he vowed to go after leakers, comparing them to Nazis, and urged then-FBI director James Comey to jail reporters who published classified information.…
Weinstein-BlackCube surveillance claim exposes aggressive tactics to kill a story
Those with deep pockets can go to great lengths to push back against journalism they find objectionable. Billionaire Peter Thiel deployed a team of lawyers in a move that bankrupted the news site Gawker in 2016–and last month President Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to block the publication of an unflattering book. But there’s another, much…
How US vote to extend NSA program could expose journalists to surveillance
The U.S. Senate last week approved a six-year extension to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISA), in a move that could put journalists at risk. Because people targeted by Section 702 are often of interest to the press as well as the NSA, journalists are more likely than most to have…
In response to Trump’s fake news awards, CPJ announces Press Oppressors awards
Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the…