CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
Dangerous Pursuit: Jagendra Singh and Journalist Murders in India from Committee to Protect Journalists on Vimeo.
Since 1992, 40 journalists have been killed for their work in India. 27 were murdered. None have been brought to justice.
As the traditional media business model crumbles, leading to massive layoffs in newsrooms—with investigative journalism teams often among the first casualties—collaboration is becoming indispensable. Networks with few actual employees but the ability to pool expertise and spread the expenses of costly investigative endeavors across a wide range of partners are making vast and complex investigations possible.
This week revealed a remarkable example of one such effort. About 100 media outlets around the world—including Suddeütsche Zeitung, the Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, German broadcasters NDR and WDR, theMiami Herald, Univision, and many others—began publishing reports exposing a sprawling worldwide system of offshore companies that enable financial secrecy.
Collectively known as the Panama Papers, the reports were based on a leak of over 11.5 million records—perhaps the largest data leak in history. Spanning 40 years, from 1977 through 2015, the leak provides an unprecedented window into the money that flows through the dark corners of the global financial system.
(via NYTIMES)
I have covered life and death in Southeast Asia for the past decade, a job that has entailed puzzling over a missing Malaysian plane one day (two years later, it’s still missing) and interviewing former C.I.A. mercenaries who were being hunted by the government in the jungles of Laos another. I seemed to spend almost as much time dodging the authorities as interviewing them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder on Thursday of Brazilian radio journalist Gleydson Carvalho in the municipality of Camocim in the northeastern state of Ceará and calls on authorities to bring the killers to justice. Carvalho was presenting a program on Radio Liberdade FM when two unidentified gunmen entered the station’s offices during a musical interlude and shot him, according to news reports. He died while en route to a hospital, the reports said. The journalist had frequently criticized local politicians and repeatedly received death threats on his Facebook page, news reports said.
The devastation caused by the earthquakes in Nepal is a reminder of the indispensable role played by relief workers, medical teams, and other key actors on the front lines. Among them are many journalists who, on the most basic level, serve as witness to those affected and share their stories with the world.
As Nepal wrestles to recover in the months ahead, journalists will be all the more vital as they keep a watchful eye on the state, the international community, and flow of critical resources. But far too frequently journalists fall prey when they criticize and expose, and Nepal is no exception.
Image: Navesh Chitrakar
Acclaimed journalist Marques de Morais on trial for defamation in Angola
On Tuesday, less than a week after receiving an award for his journalism from the London-based freedom of expression group Index on Censorship, veteran journalist Rafael Marques de Morais will stand trial in Angola on charges of criminal defamation.
The trial follows claims made by Marques de Morais in his book Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola. Published in Portugal in 2011, it documents allegations of murders, torture, forced displacement of civilian settlements, and intimidation of inhabitants of the diamond-mining areas of the Lundas region of Angola, which was a Portuguese colony until 1975. In the book, the journalist claimed that guards from a private security firm and members of the Angolan military were responsible for the torture and killings, according to news reports.
After the book was published, seven Angolan generals filed a criminal defamation suit against Marques de Morais in Portugal. In February 2013, the Portuguese Prosecution Service chose not to pursue the case, with the prosecutor stating “the author’s intention is clearly not to offend but to inform,” according to news reports.
Image: Illegal Angolan diggers search for diamonds outside the north-western Angolan town of Nzagi on the border of the former Zaire. This wealthy area, formerly controlled by UNITA rebels, is one of the major diamond producing areas in the country, but without government licenses the impoverished diggers are forced to sell their gems at a quarter of their price on the local black market. Picture taken May 1, 1998. REUTERS
5 maps that show the beats journalists covered when they were killed.
Since 1992, 1118 journalists have been killed for their work.
The lavish caviar-laced dinners and impromptu galas and exhibitions Baku holds for western delegates should not obscure the fact that Azerbaijan’s repression of domestic dissent is reaching new heights. Oil and gas should not be reasons to coddle an odious regime.
- Azerbaijan’s Image Cracks with Arrest of Watchdog Journalist
“We started Atlatszo in 2011 because the mainstream media in Hungary have become a tool of political and economic interest groups, and it is often not the journalists but the media owners and politicians who decide what can be published.
Commercial media companies become more and more cautious, journalists are forced to avoid sensitive topics. The result is a very limited freedom of the press in Hungary.
There are many taboos, many important stories that remain untold, and numerous corruption cases go undisclosed, even if there are whistleblowers who provide evidence.”