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 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…
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…
How the war is affecting press freedom in the region Updated June 16, 2022 Russia’s February 24 full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked a sharp escalation in threats to press freedom in the region and beyond. Journalists in Ukraine have been killed covering the war, while many of their Russian counterparts have fled or faced persecution….
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…
Last week, Taisia Bekbulatova, chief editor of Russian independent news site Holod, began frantically looking for plane tickets. Bekbulatova, who is based in Georgia, wanted to evacuate her Russia-based staff after the country passed legislation threatening up to 15 years in prison for the publication of “fake” information about the invasion of Ukraine. “It was apparent that the law was…
On March 7, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 43 other press freedom, digital rights, and civil society groups in a letter calling on Bangladesh’s communications regulator to withdraw new proposed policies that could stifle free expression online. A package of proposed regulations, titled the “Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Regulation for Digital, Social Media…
As the Russian military continues its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is also fighting a different kind of battle at home in its attempts to quash independent news coverage and dissenting narratives about the attack it launched on February 24. Across Russia, journalists have been detained and their outlets investigated, blocked, and restricted from using social media. On…
Russia’s silencing of Ekho Moskvy over its Ukraine war coverage marks an end to an iconic radio station with a brave history dating back to the late Soviet era. Even in the heady final years of glasnost (“openness”), hiding truth from the Soviet public was pretty easy for the country’s Communist leaders. When hardline Communists…
Russian independent broadcaster Dozhd TV announced during a live broadcast on Thursday that it would suspend its operations after Russia’s media regulator blocked its website for spreading “deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel.” Dozhd TV had drawn the ire of Russian authorities because of it used the word “invasion” to report on Russia’s war in…