Censored

A journalist details one fight over records requests in the United States By Michael Pell In December 2010, Robin Gordon faced an ultimatum. She had found that a debt collection company had purchased a $291 tax lien on an apartment she owned in Atlanta, Georgia, after her mortgage company failed to pay a small portion…

Agencies exploit every loophole to evade disclosure requirements By Jason Leopold On December 13, 2016, I filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI seeking a wide range of documents about a series of highly controversial decisions the bureau made in the weeks leading up to the U.S. presidential election that Democratic lawmakers…

American journalists grapple with the Trump presidency By Alan Huffman The word “unprecedented” is often used to describe Donald Trump’s antipathy toward the American media, as it is of many of his other approaches to governance.

Independence means isolation for journalists in Sisi’s Egypt By Ursula Lindsey When President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took office in Egypt in 2014, after leading the army’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, he promised to restore peace and prosperity through strong leadership.

Even as the country collapses, South Sudan’s government will brook no criticism By Jacey Fortin JUBA, South Sudan – The shooting began around 5:15 on a Friday afternoon. Dozens of journalists had gathered in the pressroom at the Presidential Palace–a walled compound also known as “J1”–in the capital city. Following a few days of rising…

Barred from Syria, a journalist must make sense of what she’s told By Alessandria Masi The morning after the attack, my deputy editor and I lit cigarettes as we squatted on the green couch in our closet-size Beirut office, hanging out the window and talking about what we thought had really happened in Syria.

Governments and non-state actors find innovative ways to suppress the media By Joel Simon In the days when news was printed on paper, censorship was a crude practice involving government officials with black pens, the seizure of printing presses and raids on newsrooms. The complexity and centralization of broadcasting also made radio and television vulnerable…