USA / Americas

New York, April 25, 2026—Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been reunited with his family and is in a place of safety, a legal team acting for his sisters said on Saturday. The award-winning U.S.-Kuwaiti journalist was detained on March 3 in Kuwait, where he was visiting family. “We are delighted that Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been released…

Update: In an April 29, 2026, statement, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s attorneys clarified that the journalist was acquitted on only one of three charges. Washington, D.C., April 23, 2026 — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a Kuwaiti court’s acquittal of U.S.-Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on all charges following nearly two months of detention.  “We are relieved…

The Defense Department oversees the country’s armed forces and commands a nearly $1 trillion budget in 2026. A departure from longstanding norms and Constitutionally guaranteed media access at the Pentagon carries significant implications for press freedom in the United States as well as for public understanding of the impact of U.S. military spending and actions. Here are five things you need to…

Washington, D.C., April 17, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on lawmakers to protect press freedom by rejecting an unamended extension of the warrantless surveillance of electronic communications permitted under Section 702 of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the use of this warrantless surveillance, has itself…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a government agency that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in the United States. Although the agency is supposed to be independent of the executive branch, recent actions by the FCC and comments by its chairman, Brendan Carr, represent a worrying politicization of the agency. In…

Washington, D.C., April 2, 2026— The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and partners in the Journalist Assistance Network (JAN) condemn Russia’s unabashed attempt to silence independent journalism and the civil society that supports their critical work by designating the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) an “undesirable organization.”  In response, the JAN issued the following statement…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, April 1, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to secure the release of U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped in the capital Baghdad on Tuesday. “The abduction of Shelly Kittleson in broad daylight reflects an alarming breach of journalists’ safety in Iraq that highlights the…

The Committee to Protect Journalists has endorsed an updated reporter privacy protection bill that would strengthen and modernize journalist protections against unreasonable government searches and seizures in connection with their reporting. Introduced in the U.S. Congress by Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Becca Balint on March 27 as S.4268 and H.R. 8093, the Privacy Protection…

Washington, D.C., March 20, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists is heartened by a United States District Court decision on Friday in the case of New York Times v. Pentagon, in which the judge decided in favor of the newspaper, and calls on the Pentagon to heed the court’s decision and abandon last year’s changes to…

Washington, D.C., March 20, 2026—A decision by the US broadcast regulator to approve the merger of Tegna and Nexstar broadcasting companies — in clear violation of its own norms and regulations — is a concerning sign of government sponsored media concentration in the United States, the Committee to Protect Journalists warned on Friday. The Federal…