Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

‘Attacks on journalists harm us all’

Turkish police officers block a main road to prevent May Day demonstrators from marching through Taksim Square, a famous square banned for May Day celebrations, in Istanbul, Turkey May 1, 2024. — Turkish police officers block a road to prevent May Day demonstrators marching through Taksim Square in Istanbul on May 1. Police shot at least two reporters covering the event with rubber bullets (Photo: Reuters/Dilara Senkaya)

Marking World Press Freedom Day on May 3, CPJ’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg writes about the role press freedom plays in protecting democracies around the world.

“With half the world’s population casting ballots in elections this year, independent reporting on the candidates and the issues is essential,” said Ginsberg in an op-ed published by Project Syndicate. “Yet from Washington and Westminster to Buenos Aires and Budapest, efforts to intimidate, curtail, and constrain the free press are becoming more frequent and brazen.”

“Attacks on journalists harm us all,” noted Ginsberg. “Journalists perform the public’s due diligence on candidates, probing their professional records, the veracity of their claims, and the credibility of their promises. By reporting on policy achievements and failures, they help corroborate – or contradict – a candidate’s official narrative… Without such information, there can be no democracy.”

At the World Press Freedom Day Conference in Chile, CPJ joined 11 press freedom and journalistic organizations in adopting the Santiago +30 Declaration urging states to protect journalists and ensure they can work safely without restrictions.

CPJ: Authorities must allow journalists to safely cover US campus protests

FOX 7 Austin photojournalist Carlos Sanchez arrested and being led away by authorities on April 24. (Photo: KXAN/YouTube) — FOX 7 Austin photojournalist Carlos Sanchez was arrested on April 24 while covering a protest at the Universty of Texas at Austin. (Photo: KXAN/YouTube)

With tensions over pro-Palestinian protests escalating on college campuses across the United States, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on university authorities and law enforcement agencies to allow reporters to freely cover the demonstrations.

“Journalists – including student journalists who have been thrust into a national spotlight to cover stories in their communities — must be allowed to cover campus protests without fearing for their safety,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen on Wednesday. “Any efforts by authorities to stop them doing their jobs have far-reaching repercussions on the public’s ability to be informed about current events.”

Journalists Attacked

Hamza Al Dahdouh

MURDERED

Hamza Al Dahdouh, 27, a Palestinian journalist and cameraman for the Qatari-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera, was killed alongside freelance video journalist Mustafa Thuraya in an Israeli drone strike on January 7, 2024.

On the day of the attack, Al Dahdouh and Thuraya joined a group of more than 10 journalists to report on the aftermath of an Israeli strike on a home that occurred on January 6. As they were returning from the assignment for Al-Jazeera, the strike targeted the two journalists’ car in Nasr village, known locally as Moraj, northeast of Rafah in southern Gaza.

Al Dahdouh is the son of Gaza’s Al-Jazeera bureau chief, Wael Al Dahdouh, who had previously lost four other family members in Israeli attacks.

Learn more about Al Dahdouh