USA
2010
Police block journalists from covering White House demonstration
The U.S. Park Police have taken responsibility for having prevented journalists from covering a White House demonstration on April 21, 2010. A single, uniformed Park Police officer ordered reporters and camera crews to move back after gay rights activists handcuffed themselves to the White House gate. The officer ordered journalists to move toward the far…
FOIA needs new muscle behind it, not just promises
These are busy days for Freedom of Information. On April 5, the watchdog Web site that knows no borders, WikiLeaks, posted a classified U.S. military video showing U.S. forces firing on Iraqi civilians, killing many, including two Reuters journalists, as well as wounding children. Two days later, the Pentagon posted a redacted U.S. military assessment of the same incident concluding that U.S. troops fired “in accordance…
CPJ seeks Pentagon investigations in Iraq journalist deaths
Dear Secretary Gates: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by a video recently disclosed by the Web site WikiLeaks showing a U.S. military strike that took place on July 12, 2007. The attack killed an unspecified number of individuals, including Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant, Saeed Chmagh.
Virginia authorities seize images from student paper
Attorneys representing a student newspaper and a county prosecutor have agreed to temporarily seal images seized from the newspaper and transfer them to a third party until the dispute over the images is settled, reported The Breeze, the student-run publication of James Madison University in Virginia. But the Rockingham County Commonwealth Attorney’s office is still pressing for at least some of…
Technicalities: 10 Questions on WikiLeaks
Monday’s release of graphic video footage of an attack by the U.S. military on two Reuters journalists vividly depicted the dangers involved in covering a battlefield. It also thrust into the spotlight WikiLeaks, the enigmatic Web site responsible for obtaining, decoding, and publicizing the footage. Here’s 10 questions answered on WikiLeaks, including how it works, its goals, and some…
CPJ asks Obama to raise poor press record with Kazakhstan
Dear President Obama: In advance of your April 12 meeting in Washington with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, we’d like to draw your attention to the deteriorating press freedom conditions in Kazakhstan. Unchecked violence and the arrest of independent reporters, politicized prosecution and harassment of critical outlets, and draconian media and Internet regulation laws tarnish the record of the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
New York Times to pay damages to Singapore’s leaders
The New York Times Co. apologized on March 24, 2010, to Singapore’s prime minister and his two predecessors for a February 15 article that described the island nation’s leaders as a political dynasty, according to international news reports. The company and the article’s author, Philip Bowring, agreed to pay damages of 160,000 Singaporean dollars (US$114,000) in…
French weekly gives issue over to Haitian journalists
The French weekly Courrier International opened its columns on February 4 to Haitian print media journalists in a special edition being circulated worldwide. The paper’s managers did it to express solidarity with Haitian journalists following the earthquake, which completely paralyzed the publication of the country’s dailies. The two dailies in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, were honored in the special edition. Haiti Liberté,…
Only man accused in Brad Will murder goes free
For those following the case of Bradley Roland Will, left, a U.S. activist-journalist killed while reporting on a protest movement in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in 2006, a long wait ended on February 18. After 16 months in prison, Juan Manuel Martínez, a grassroots activist from an impoverished neighborhood in Oaxaca, left his cell…