CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, October 2011 CPJ announces 2011 press freedom awards Four courageous journalists from Bahrain, Belarus, Mexico, and Pakistan will be honored with CPJ’s 2011 International Press Freedom Awards at an annual awards dinner in New York on November 22. Following his release after four years in prison, Azerbaijani editor…
Appeal against Risen keeps source protection in focus
A reporter’s right to protect confidential sources, a topic of debate both in the U.S. and internationally, will undergo another round of legal scrutiny after federal prosecutors formally appealed a decision shielding journalist James Risen’s sources in a CIA leak case.
Javier Valdez Cárdenas, Mexico
2011 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee In 2003, together with reporters from the daily Noroeste, Javier Valdez Cárdenas founded Ríodoce, a weekly publication covering crime and corruption in Sinaloa, one of Mexico’s most violent states. Valdez is known for his prolific coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime. Early one morning in September 2009, unidentified…
Mexico murder may be social media watershed
María Elizabeth Macías Castro’s killers made sure their actions were understood. In a macabre, carefully orchestrated mise-en-scene, they placed her body in front of a poster with the ominous note. Nearby they left a computer keyboard, with a pair of headphones on her decapitated head.
When a bug fix can save a journalist’s life
One of the most exciting aspects of working on Internet technologies is how quickly the tools you build can spread to millions of users worldwide. It’s a heady experience, one that has occurred time and again here in Silicon Valley. But there’s also responsibility that attaches to that excitement. For every hundred thousand cases in…
Motive unclear, but murders become rallying point
The brutal, September 1 murders of two women from the world of mass communications drew international headlines as the latest attack against the Mexican news media. But the sensational case–the two were found strangled in a park in the heart of Mexico City–illustrates the complexities of determining motives amid the pervasive violence afflicting Mexico. Since…
Cuba pulls veteran correspondent’s credentials
New York, September 7, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Cuban government’s decision to not renew press credentials held by a 20-year veteran correspondent for the Spanish daily El País and radio network Cadena SER. Mauricio Vicent, whose access to official events had been restricted by the government for the past year, is now…