Indian police open criminal investigation into The Wire and 3 journalists
New Delhi, June 16, 2021 — Authorities in India’s Uttar Pradesh state must immediately drop their criminal investigation into journalists Rana Ayyub, Saba Naqvi, and Mohammed Zubair, and the independent news website The Wire, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday, Uttar Pradesh police filed a criminal complaint stating that they were opening a…
CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations
Washington, D.C., May 10, 2021 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Biden administration to make public why the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly subpoenaed journalists’ phone records, and to commit to respecting journalist and source relationships. The Justice Department secretly obtained call records from April 15, 2017, to…
Foreign correspondents in China face COVID-19 restrictions and expulsions, FCCC finds
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China found that “media freedoms deteriorated significantly in 2020” in its annual report, released Monday. The report, titled “Track, Trace, Expel: Reporting on China Amid a Pandemic,” surveyed 150 club members representing news organizations from 30 countries and regions. In 2020, China used the COVID-19 pandemic to impose restrictions on…
Al-Jazeera’s Ghada Oueiss on hacking, harassment, and Jamal Khashoggi
In a mid-2020 Washington Post opinion piece, Lebanese Al-Jazeera broadcast journalist Ghada Oueiss described hackers stealing private photos and videos from her phone and posting them online. The leak resulted in a sharp escalation of online attacks, Oueiss told CPJ in a January 2021 call. Since the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi…
CPJ calls for accountability for attacks on media during US Capitol assault
New York, January 8, 2021—U.S. authorities must thoroughly investigate the many attacks on journalists during the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol this week, and hold the perpetrators to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On January 6, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. as both houses…
‘Three people threatened to shoot me.’ Journalists describe covering mob violence at the US Capitol
Yesterday’s pro-Trump protests in Washington, D.C. — during which a mob broke into the Capitol building and forced journalists, lawmakers, and staff to shelter-in-place for hours — were full of anti-press sentiment. The words “Murder the Media” were etched on a door inside the building, according to The New York Times, and individuals in the crowd repeatedly threatened…
CPJ calls on Cuban security forces to stop threatening Washington Post columnist Abraham Jiménez Enoa
Miami, October 6, 2020—Cuban authorities must immediately cease harassing and threatening journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa, and allow him and all journalists in the country to work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On October 2, state security agents dressed as civilians strip-searched and handcuffed Jiménez and transported him to their headquarters, where he…
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…
Prospects bleak for recovery of US media presence in China
The slugfest between China and the U.S. over the treatment of media workers in each country appears to have paused. Rather than expel each other’s journalists, as they did a few months ago, each side in early July imposed registration and reporting requirements on those remaining—still many more Chinese in the U.S. than Americans in…
U.S. video journalist shares tips for covering COVID-19: ‘We have to get creative’
In early March, Jon Gerberg was in Detroit, Michigan, covering the Democratic primaries as a video journalist with The Washington Post. But as the COVID-19 virus has spread in the United States and around the world, Gerberg’s coverage has changed to focus on the pandemic.