Uribe’s angry tweets do more than antagonize
More than a year after he left office, Álvaro Uribe Vélez confessed that “it was not in him” to live as a former president. And in fact, having dominated Colombian politics for eight years, it has been impossible for Uribe to fade from the public eye since leaving office in August 2010. Instead of retiring…
The Maldives backslides on press freedom
CPJ has been watching the Maldives with concern since its first democratically-elected President Mohamed Nasheed relinquished power in February following what he describes as a military coup. New President Mohamed Waheed Hassan says Nasheed’s resignation was voluntary and refuted criticism that his rule marked a return to the ways of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, a dictator…
What to know about covering the conventions
If May’s NATO Summit in Chicago is any indication, journalists covering events outside the national political conventions in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., later this summer can expect that everyone–mainstream media, bloggers, citizen journalists, protesters, and bystanders–will have a camera of one kind or another. With the widespread proliferation of cellphone cameras, capable of recording…
Ugandan press finds unexpected ally in judiciary
With a medical drip attached to his hand, camped outside police headquarters along Parliamentary Avenue in Uganda’ capital, Kampala, William Ntege was determined to get his video cameras back. Police had beaten Ntege, a journalist with the private broadcaster WBS, and damaged two of his cameras as he covered elections last year, according to local…
Victory for press freedom in Sarkozy video case
“Champagne.” Augustin Scalbert’s tweet on Monday could not have better expressed the joy and relief at Rue89, a leading French news website. After four years of legal procedures, a Paris judge had just announced he was dropping all charges against the journalist “for lack of evidence” in a case that was seen as a litmus…
Afghan donors must address media repression
One thing that had better be high on the agenda this weekend at the meeting of 70 or so international aid donors for Afghanistan in Tokyo is the recently released official draft version of the Mass Media Law (a copy of the draft can be found here). I mentioned the new draft in a June…
Shallow victory for China’s journalists, protesters
Shi Junrong, Xi’an Evening News bureau chief in the city of Wei’an, ran into trouble recently after he reported on the costly brand of luxury cigarettes favored by local officials. He announced on his microblog that the paper suspended him soon after, according to the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia.
The New York Times takes on China’s censors
Well, that didn’t take long. Just days after The New York Times’ soft launch of its Chinese-language edition and accompanying microblog accounts, Berkeley-based China Digital Times website reports that the @nytchinese Sina Weibo feed is no longer accessible in China, along with two accounts hosted by Netease and Sohu. We couldn’t pull them up this…
Film ‘Reportero’ features tenacious Mexican magazine
A week before Sunday’s crucial presidential elections in Mexico, CPJ participated on a panel with filmmaker Bernardo Ruíz and Mexican journalist Sergio Haro about the perilous conditions for journalists in that country, where CPJ research shows 48 journalists have been murdered or disappeared since outgoing President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006.