‘We expect anything’: A Russian union leader vows to keep helping journalists facing state repression
As journalists flee Russia fearing prosecution for their coverage of the invasion of Ukraine or their affiliation with outlets deemed “foreign agents,” the country’s Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU) is trying to help them. A non-governmental trade union with some 600 active members, the group defends labor rights, provides assistance to journalists, and stands…
CPJ joins call for US Congress to reauthorize Global Magnitsky Act
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 57 other civil society groups in a letter on Wednesday, March 23, calling for the U.S. Congress to reauthorize and strengthen the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The 2016 law allows the U.S. to place targeted economic and visa sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for serious human…
Opinion: Putin tolerated some critical voices in his 22-year assault on Russian media. His war in Ukraine ends even that.
On the morning after Boris Yeltsin stunned the world by resigning and turning over the Russian presidency to Vladimir Putin, The New York Times published a “man in the news” column that struggled to define the new leader. Putin was a man who “would never deceive you,” promised his political mentor and former St. Petersburg…
‘A rush of relief’: Tanzanian investigative newspaper allowed to publish after 5-year ban
In 2017, Simon Mkina was the publisher and chief editor of the muckraking Tanzanian newspaper Mawio when authorities announced that they were suspending the publication for “jeopardizing national security” by reporting on two former presidents’ alleged links to mining misconduct. Mkina was forced to lay himself off, along with 57 other employees, and he became…
Calling the war ‘war’: Meduza’s Galina Timchenko bucks Russia’s censorship on Ukraine
The Kremlin was infuriated by editor Galina Timchenko’s coverage of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. So it pressured her boss to fire her. Timchenko left Moscow with much of the staff from her popular website, moving to Riga, Latvia, where they could work free of Kremlin censorship. That may sound like today’s news, but it actually…
Brent Renaud brought heart and compassion to his filmmaking
Brent Renaud was renowned not just for his war reporting, but for the compassion he brought to his work. From Iraq to Somalia to Mexico, his videography explored human vulnerability and human connection at the worst of times. A U.S. soldier in Fallujah calls his mother on Mother’s Day; a physical therapist coaxes a young…
‘Hard, emotional and painful’: Journalists in Ukraine on covering Russia’s invasion
The shooting death of U.S. reporter Brent Renaud in Irpin, outside Kyiv, on Sunday, March 13, underscored the extraordinary dangers facing journalists covering Russia’s war in Ukraine. Renaud was the second journalist killed since Russia’s February 24 invasion; other reporters have been shot at, shelled, robbed, and detained by Russian forces as they cover the…
CPJ joins letter calling for sanctions on Russia not to restrict internet access
On March 10, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 40 other civil society groups in a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, calling for his administration to ensure that sanctions imposed on Russia in retaliation for the country’s invasion of Ukraine do not interfere with Russians’ access to the internet. The letter notes that, as…
Russia-Ukraine watch
How the war is affecting press freedom in the region Updated March 24, 2022 Five journalists have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Ukrainian journalists covered the war in the face of missile and rocket attacks and their Russian counterparts faced harsh crackdowns on their reporting of…
Opinion: How the West can help the media victims of Putin’s war
Russia’s independent journalists are fleeing. That’s not only a tragedy for Russians but also for the rest of us who need to know what the increasingly isolated leader of a nuclear superpower is doing. Since sending tanks into Ukraine on February 24, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to jail anyone who dares question the invasion…