CPJ Impact

• The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan will host “Press Freedom: On the Frontlines and Online,” a panel discussion on global threats to press freedom both on the ground and on the Internet, particularly in Asia. CPJ Board Chair Paul Steiger will moderate a panel featuring CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon; Nobuhisa Degawa, NHK correspondent for Middle East Affairs and former Iraq bureau chief; Maria Ressa, head of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs; Nobuyoshi Sakajiri, deputy foreign news editor of Asahi Shimbun; and CPJ Asia Research Associate Madeline Earp. After the discussion, CPJ will host a luncheon featuring keynote speaker Koïchiro Matsuura, who recently stepped down from his position as UNESCO director-general.
• CPJ Senior Program Coordinator for the Americas Carlos Lauría will host a joint event with for the Foundation for Freedom of the Press in Colombia (FLIP) in Bogotá. He will be joined on a panel by Colombian journalist and CPJ Board Member Maria Teresa Ronderos, Executive Director of FLIP Andres Morales, and FLIP President Ignacio Gomez. Maziar Bahari, Newsweek’s Tehran correspondent who was imprisoned in Iran after the crackdown in June 2009 and CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz will participate in a press event at the United Nations in New York with CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. They will follow the press conference with a panel discussion at Columbia University, hosted by Ann Cooper and the Graduate School of Journalism.
• CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova and CPJ Europe Consultants Elisabeth Witchell, Jean-Paul Marthoz, and Borja Bergareche will lead a breakfast briefing in Brussels, meeting with EU officials to focus on impunity concerns in Russia. CPJ Middle East Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem and Middle East Consultant Kamel Labidi will present regional findings and discuss the media crackdowns in Yemen, Morocco, and Iran at a press conference in Cairo.
• In Nairobi, Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes will hold a briefing focused on exiled Somali journalists, many of whom face threats and harassment on a daily basis as they try to survive in Nairobi.

This year’s edition features a preface about the increased vulnerability of freelance journalists working around the globe by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria.

If you’d like to order a copy of the book, please go the Brookings Institution. Attacks on the Press will be released simultaneously on our Web site, www.cpj.org.

Simon describes the years-long fight for justice in places like the Philippines and Russia, two of the world’s worst countries for impunity in the cases of murdered journalists. High-profile cases like those of Anna Politkovskaya in Russia, or Marlene Garcia-Esperat in the Philippines are emblematic of a larger problem that needs a systematic and organized approach like CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity, he argues. With the help of groups like the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which generously funds the work of CPJ and regional organizations like the Inter-American Press Association, press freedom advocates are able to more effectively combat impunity around the world.

Read the full article at Index on Censorship.

“Earthquake in Haiti: Reporting in the Ruins” also features pieces by guest blogger Garry Pierre-Pierre and CPJ staffers. You can read the entire series, including Chery’s most recent piece “Provisional media death toll rising in Haiti,” on the CPJ Blog.

Abdinur told us how receiving CPJ’s award was an integral step toward the formation of SOMEPED. “I was recognized for being committed to advocating for free press and that is why I’m so encouraged to bring something that could make sense for my country and people,” he said. “We need as journalists to champion for peace.”