Joel Simon/CPJ Executive Director - Committee to Protect Journalists

Joel Simon was the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists from 2006 to 2021. His writing on media issues has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian. and The Wall Street Journal, and he is a regular columnist for Columbia Journalism Review. Under his leadership, CPJ was honored with the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, a News & Documentary Emmy, and the 2018 Chatham House Prize. His book, The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom, was published in November 2014, while We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom was published in 2018. Follow him on Twitter @Joelcpj.

Jon Lee Anderson on courage and journalism

May 12, 2010 10:00 AM EDT

Last week, I attended an unusual event called the Courage Forum at which half a dozen speakers, from tightrope artist Philippe Petit and Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal to Virgin founder and chairman Richard Branson, talked about about overcoming fear.