USA / Americas

I am a hugger. Maybe it’s my Texas heritage, but the value of wrapping people in a warm embrace at the right time has stayed with me, like a hint of twang, in the 40 years since I left the state. And hugs have been just the right thing many times during the decades that…

Late on the evening of September 16, 2000, 31-year-old Ukrainian investigative journalist Georgy Gongadze left a colleague’s house in Kiev and headed home to where his wife and young daughters awaited him. He never made it.

Even today, the words scribbled across the pages in angry ALL CAPS are hard to look at. “HOW DO YOU GET A NIGGER OUT OF A TREE? CUT THE ROPE!!” “BEFORE THIS WORLD ENDS, THERE WILL BE A RACE WAR…” “ALL YOU PEOPLE DO IS CRY BITCH WINE [sic], BITCH.” “HAVE YOU PLAYED THE RACE…

“Yeah… I went too far,” he said, which by most accounts would be an understatement. Among the Twitter comments this Internet troll posted to or about a female writer and activist were: “Rape her nice ass.” “I will find you.” “The police will do nothing.” The man, who agreed to be interviewed only under a…

The Islamic State beheadings of journalists shook up the media industry. The safety of reporters generally and conditions for freelancers in particular became a news story. Politicians responded.

Dear Secretary Kerry: Your support for press freedom and journalist safety is welcome and can play an important role in helping to protect journalists around the world. There are specific actions that you could take that would ensure the agenda you launched last year continues and leaves a lasting legacy.

Dear U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to bring to your attention the deteriorating climate for press freedom in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. As you prepare to head to these countries later this week, we ask that you put press freedom on the agenda of your meetings with high-level government officials.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has signed a petition organized by digital rights groups Access and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, urging President Barack Obama to publicly commit the U.S. to a policy of supporting strong encryption. Since the Save Crypto petition’s launch on September 29, it has gathered nearly 18,000 signatures, including about 30 from…

Digital Europe The EU has been striving to recover what Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger described at a May 2015 press conference as digital sovereignty in a global market dominated by U.S. companies, but if this ambition is not strictly framed by human rights standards, press freedom on the Internet may be…