Features & Analysis

  

When police patrol protests in military gear, journalists face a hostile reporting environment

When St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson was covering protests against police violence in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, he said other reporters often asked him what it was like to get teargassed night after night. These days, he told CPJ, he rarely gets asked that question: “Now all of my journalist friends have been teargassed.” Tear gassings, rubber…

Read More ›

Australia’s journalist union on Facebook, Google, and who should pay for news

Facebook threatened to prevent Australian users and publishers from posting news on its platform last week, raising questions about who benefits when people share journalism on social media—and who has the power to stop them. The company was responding to drafts of a news media bargaining code and related legislation published on July 31 by…

Read More ›

Four press freedom trends to watch amid Belarus’s antigovernment protests

The images coming out of Belarus look like scenes from a blockbuster film: A president clinging to power striding out of a helicopter holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle, while his gun-toting teenage son and heir apparent walks alongside him in a helmet and military vest; the protesters calling for the president’s removal singing songs, playing music, and taking off their…

Read More ›

With colleagues sentenced to prison, Algerian journalists fear their new president’s attitude toward the press

Two weeks after the imprisonment of a high-profile Algerian journalist, a former reporter has been sentenced to prison for his online commentary, cementing fears that Algeria’s new president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, is on track to match his predecessor’s record of enacting restrictive policies toward the press even as he has promised democratic reforms.    On August 24,…

Read More ›

Belarusian photographer Tatsiana Tkachova quit her state-owned newspaper when it failed to cover violence against protesters

As anti-government protests continue to engulf Belarus after the August 9, 2020 election, there’s a revolt brewing inside some state media outlets, where journalists are striking and quitting over what they see as their employers’ failure to accurately cover the protest movement and the government’s harsh response. Thousands of people have been detained at the demonstrations including…

Read More ›

Outlawing TikTok may not impede journalists, but U.S. and India bans could set a risky precedent

“Allison, can Trump ban TikTok?” Dave Jorgenson, The Washington Post’s self-described “TikTok Guy” asks in an August 3 video on the app. His colleague Allison Michaels responds: “The answer is yes, but how he can do it is kind of complicated…”   It would be a typical exchange between journalists, but for the surreal setup: Jorgenson is standing over a birdbath, asking…

Read More ›

‘We’re scared shitless out here’: Four reporters on covering the federal response to Portland protests

“This was civic combat, but without live fire.” That’s how freelance photographer John Rudoff described the situation in Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest city where demonstrations in support of Black Lives Matter and against police brutality are now in their 13th week.  Portland’s protests received global attention when they took a violent turn in July as…

Read More ›

Hospitalized Belarusian journalist Alena Scharbinskaya tells of beatings inside Minsk detention center

Alena Scharbinskaya, a correspondent with the independent satellite broadcaster Belsat TV, was among dozens of journalists detained last week in Belarus when protests erupted after the re-election of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, whose victory has been contested by many voters and the opposition. She was kept for three days in the now-infamous detention center known among locals…

Read More ›

Russian journalist Abdulmumin Gadzhiev: Jailed ‘without a single proof of his guilt’

Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, religion section editor of the independent newspaper Chernovik, has been in pre-trial detention in Makhachkala, in the Russian republic of Dagestan, since his June 14, 2019, arrest on terrorism charges, according to CPJ research. On March 27, 2020, authorities filed new charges against Gadzhiev, accusing him of participation in an extremist organization, as…

Read More ›

Turkish courts play whack-a-mole with independent news outlets

In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…

Read More ›