Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

CPJ announces its four 2024 IPFA awardees

CPJ’s 2024 International Press Freedom Awards honorees; from left to right, Quimy de León, Samira Sabou, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Shrouq Al Aila. (Photo credits: Nelton Rivera, courtesy of awardee, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Ali Jadallah)

The Committee to Protect Journalists has announced the names of the four exceptional journalists it will honor with its 2024 International Press Freedom Awards in New York City on November 21.

“CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awardees symbolize the vital work carried out by reporters everywhere to report facts in the face of fierce attempts to suppress truth,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.

The journalists are:
Shrouq Al Aila, a Palestinian journalist, producer, and researcher who runs Ain Media production company and reports from the Gaza Strip.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist and editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) released from jail in Russia as part of an August prisoner exchange.
Quimy de León, a Guatemalan journalist, medical professional, and historian who co-founded the Prensa Comunitaria news agency.
Samira Sabou, an investigative journalist in Niger who has been arrested, detained and subjected to years of legal harassment because of her reporting on governance issues.

CPJ will also posthumously honor Christophe Deloire, who served as director general of the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), with the 2024 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.

CPJ announces $1M initiative to protect climate journalists

A photojournalist makes his way through smoke as he covers a wildfire in Orange County, California in December 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake)

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today announced the Climate Crisis Journalist Protection Initiative, which will ensure that journalists reporting on climate issues are able to do so freely and safely. The initiative will provide climate journalists with assistance, safety training, and other forms of support.

CPJ has raised nearly one-third of the funds needed for the $1 million initiative, which CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg unveiled Monday at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative meeting. The annual meeting is a venue for civil society groups to publicly commit to action on global problems.

“Climate change is the issue of our time and one that requires journalists to be able to report freely and safely. This initiative will help ensure that,” Ginsberg said at the meeting.

The Committee to Protect Journalists promotes press freedom worldwide.

We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan