Sunday Times Archives - Committee to Protect Journalists

People take pictures with cells phones during the formal announcement of election results in Pretoria on May 11. Journalists covering the election had to contend with online harassment, doxxing, and threats. (AFP/Phill Magakoe)

Discredited, threatened, attacked: challenges of covering South Africa’s election in the digital age

July 1, 2019 3:10 PM EDT

In the lead up to South Africa’s elections in May, the Electoral Commission of South Africa accredited CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal as an international observer, monitoring press freedom. Quintal found that unlike 1994–when she covered the violence of the country’s first democratic elections–journalists in 2019 cited online harassment and threats as the biggest…

British photojournalist Paul Conroy, pictured on his way to a hospital in the U.K. in 2012, after surviving a bombing in Homs, Syria. The attack and Conroy's escape from Syria are featured in the documentary, Under the Wire. (The Sunday Times/Ray Wells)

‘We face a different danger,’ war photographer Paul Conroy says

May 22, 2019 3:47 PM EDT

In a Q&A with CPJ, British war photographer Paul Conroy discusses his last assignment with Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin in Syria, in 2012, and the dangers for photojournalists, especially when covering conflict.

Free Syrian Army fighters are filmed as they run towards the fence of the Menagh military airport, trying to avoid snipers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's countryside on January 6, 2013. (Reuters/Mahmoud Hassano)

The rules of conflict reporting are changing

April 27, 2015 11:01 AM EDT

On the icy-cold morning of February 22, 2012, Marie Colvin, a 58-year-old Irish-American reporter, was killed by the blast of a rocket in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, Syria.

CPJ calls for probe into French journalist’s death in CAR

May 13, 2014 4:06 PM EDT

New York, May 13, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an immediate investigation into the death of French freelance photojournalist Camille Lepage, 26, in the Central African Republic. In a statement issued today, the French government said that French troops had discovered Lepage’s body in a vehicle driven by fighters of the anti-Balaka Christian…

Mandela’s Legacy of Media Freedom Stands Its Ground

February 12, 2014 2:11 AM EST

How robust are the institutional safeguards that underpin Nelson Mandela’s vision of a strong and independent South African media? By Sue Valentine Nelson Mandela, pictured in May 2011, sometimes accused critical black journalists of disloyalty during his presidency. (AFP/Elmond Jiyane)

Attacks on the Press: On Syria’s Front Lines, Dangers from All Sides

February 14, 2013 12:05 AM EST

A hard slog with low-life smugglers is a small price for avoiding Syrian forces. By Paul Wood

Attacks on the Press: Killed in 2012: A Worldwide Roundup

February 14, 2013 12:04 AM EST

Killed in 2012: A Worldwide Roundup The number of journalists killed in the line of duty rose sharply in 2012, as the war in Syria, a record number of shootings in Somalia, continued violence in Pakistan, and a worrying increase in Brazilian murders contributed to a 49 percent increase in deaths from the previous…

As Syria becomes riskier for both staff and freelance journalists, news organizations are more reliant on images from citizen journalists. An example is this image showing devastation in Aleppo, which was taken by the Aleppo Media Center and transmitted by The Associated Press on Sunday. (AP/Aleppo Media Center)

In Syria, the quandary of freelance news coverage

February 6, 2013 10:07 AM EST

Forces on all sides of the Syrian conflict that have tried to censor news coverage through violence have won a round. By sharply increasing the risk for reporters covering the civil war they have forced news organizations to think twice before sending their staff to the battlefields. In a worrying development they even have led…

How times change in Sri Lanka, and how they don’t

June 4, 2012 12:48 PM EDT

For a good historical perspective on the abuse of journalists in Sri Lanka, Iqbal Athas, the recipient of a 1994 International Press Freedom Award from CPJ, wrote a center-page spread for the 25th anniversary edition of the Sunday Times, a popular weekly in Colombo. Athas, a critical journalist who specializes in defense issues, works as…