CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
For two weeks this summer, we embedded with the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist rebels fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State militants.
“Seven hundred million photographs and videos are shared on Snapchat every day. Every minute, another hundred hours of video are added to YouTube, and nearly thirty thousand photographs appear on Instagram. Facebook mounts four thousand photographs every second. “The miraculous is everywhere,” a Sprint ad for the iPhone promises. “We can share every second in data dressed as pixels, a billion roving photojournalists uploading the human experience, and it is spectacular.” And it is spectacular. But a billion roving photojournalists are uploading, too, the unending, unsparing collective misery of humanity.”
– Jill Lepore, for the newyorker
The Journalists in Syria that have been captured. A video by the Wall Street Journal.
Shirley Sotloff’s son Steven is being held by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In a video released to The New York Times, she spoke directly to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
via the New York Times
US: Surveillance Harming Journalism, Law, Democracy
Large-scale US surveillance is seriously hampering US-based journalists and lawyers in their work. Surveillance is undermining media freedom and the right to counsel, and ultimately obstructing the American people’s ability to hold their government to account.
National security journalists and lawyers are adopting elaborate steps or otherwise modifying their practices to keep communications, sources, and other confidential information secure in light of revelations of unprecedented US government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions. Government surveillance and secrecy are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy.
Sameh al-Aryan, cameraman for Hamas’ al-Aqsa TV, captures moment he and another journalist, Rami Rayan, are killed.
“The concept of “network neutrality” has been so central to our experience of the Internet, and such a driving force for innovation and expression, that most of us have taken it for granted. This Op-Doc explains the basic idea: when you visit a website, the phone or cable company that provides Internet access shouldn’t get in the way. Information should be delivered to you quickly and without discriminating about the content.”
Brian Knappenberger @ the New York Times Op-Docs
In April, the Ethiopian government imprisoned nine journalists, including six bloggers from Zone 9, in one of the worst crackdowns against free expression in the country. Ethiopia is the second worst jailer of journalists in Africa, trailing only Eritrea, according to CPJ research.
Ethiopian government officials accuse the Zone 9 bloggers of working with foreign human rights organizations and using social media to create instability in Ethiopia. The group wrote about political repression and social injustice, and their blogs were frequently blocked inside the country. Two months after their arrests, they have yet to be officially charged.
Beenish Ahmed, a freelance journalist, describes some of her experiences reporting on education in Pakistan.
While this issue was made urgent by the shooting of Malala Yousafzai by Taliban gunmen in 2012, the country’s educational “emergency” began long before then. Ahmed discusses the conspiracy theories suggesting Yousafzai had ulterior motives and explains one reason why the coverage and accolades for her campaign for girls’ education might have become so controversial.
View Beenish’s project: Education: Pakistan’s Other Emergency