Profiles

Julie Payne is the manager of the Toronto-based press freedom organization Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. Payne is also the manager of the global network for journalist assistance, Journalists in Distress.

Maria Salazar Ferro is director of CPJ’s Emergencies Department, overseeing the organization’s assistance and safety work worldwide. She is president of the board of the ACOS (A Culture of Safety) Alliance, a coalition aimed at improving protections for freelancers. She joined CPJ in 2005 and has served as coordinator for the Journalist Assistance Program and…

Gene Roberts is a former chairman of CPJ and is the chairman of the Journalist Assistance Committee of CPJ’s board. He has taught at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland since 1991, following 18 years as the executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Journalist Assistance Program Associate Sheryl A. Mendez is an editor and photojournalist who has worked in international hot spots such as Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. She has a master’s degree in International Affairs specializing in conflict and security from the New School for Social Research in New York.

Lisa Schnellinger is an advisor to Pajhwok, which she helped to create, and has worked with Afghan journalists since 2002.

Shazdeh Omari is CPJ’s news editor. Former copy chief for The Village Voice, she has worked as a reporter and editor in the United States and Greece. Omari was born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, where she learned to read, speak, and write Urdu.

Nigerian journalist Lanre Idowu publishes Media Review, a monthly journal of the media, and has a weekly column, “Media and Society,” in NEXT.

Walfran Torres Gómez, a Colombian journalist, worked for the newspaper El Sur Caribe and local broadcasters in the northern province of Cesar before relocating to Bogotá.