Slideshow: Colvin, Ochlik at work
International journalists Marie Colvin, 55, and Rémi Ochlik, 28, were killed Wednesday during shelling of the besieged city of Homs in Syria. « Previous Image | Next Image » Pictured are Colvin, an American reporting for the Sunday Times, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (AP/Ivor Prickett); Ochlik, a French photojournalist (AP/Julien de Rosa); Colvin with Libyan…
As live streaming expands, challenges intensify
The world lost one of the only direct windows into the carnage in Homs, Syria, when Rami al-Sayed’s video live stream went dark Tuesday. A citizen journalist, al-Sayed was live streaming the Assad regime’s bombardment of Baba Amr and the brutal after-effects when he was struck by shrapnel and bled to death soon after, according…
Risk and reporting
Last night at London’s Frontline Club, CPJ launched its global survey of press freedom conditions, Attacks on the Press. The topic of discussion was the safety of journalists covering conflict and the panel consisted of journalist and documentarian Jenny Kleeman, ITN safety guru Colin Pereira, and journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari, who was imprisoned in…
Attacks on Zaman test EU-Turkey ties
Last week, suspected supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, took their confrontation with the Turkish state to Western Europe, attacking the French and German offices of one of Turkey’s most influential newspapers, Zaman.
Threats and menace: Pakistan’s war on words
In Pakistan, the term “a war of words” can take on a menacing dimension beyond the metaphorical. Words–written, spoken, or reported–regularly land journalists in trouble, a very literal, physical sort of trouble. Reporters have become accustomed to being threatened, and over the years they’ve seen threats sometimes build to abductions, beatings, and even death. Such…
At Attacks launch, a look at Cairo’s post-revolution press
What a difference a year makes. In January 2011, we had to scrap plans for our regular Middle East launch of Attacks on the Press at the headquarters of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo. Just a few blocks away, in Tahrir Square, journalists were busy fending off their own attackers as pro-regime thugs…
In Ecuador, a crushed and silenced democracy
The sentence against Ecuadoran newspaper El Universo, its opinion editor, Emilio Palacio Urrutia, and its three top executives, Carlos Eduardo Pérez Barriga, César Enrique Pérez Barriga, and Carlos Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, for supposed offenses against Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa in Palacio’s article “NO to lies,” is a worn-out manifestation of the perverse concept of public…
Rwandan exiled journalist comes out of hiding
I must have received at least a dozen communications from worried friends and colleagues, asking the whereabouts of the chief editor of the highly critical Rwandan website, Umuvugizi. By mid-January, no one had heard from John Bosco Gasasira, nothing new had been published on Umuvugizi since January 11, and his cell phones were switched off.…
Ekho Moskvy board shuffled ahead of Russian election
The Russian blogosphere erupted with comments today following an announcement that the board of directors of the iconic radio station, Ekho Moskvy, will be changed. The timing of the development–weeks before presidential elections–and the potential consequences for Ekho’s editorial policy threw listeners into a frenzy of worry and speculation.