Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Hundreds of jailed journalists the new norm, CPJ census finds
- Hundreds of journalists jailed globally becomes the new normal
- Serbian investigative journalist targeted with arson attack
- CPJ to release annual report on killed journalists
- Militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham threatens to execute Syrian journalist Amjed al-Maleh
- Israel raids Palestinian news agency, detains journalist in the West Bank
- Major setback for press freedom in Canada
- Nicaraguan police raid independent Radio Dario
- CPJ Safety Advisory: Covering protests in France and Belgium
Reporter Without Borders
- Serb authorities cannot keep ignoring threats against journalists
- RSF calls for Puntland policeman’s arrest for trying to murder journalist
- Egypt : Wael Abbas and Momen Hassan finally released, RSF calls for the withdrawal of all charges against them
- SAUDI ARABIA: Eight measures to end human rights crisis in Saudi Arabia
- Bahraini photographer sentenced to more than 100 years in prison
- RSF decries blocking of 54 Bangladeshi news sites before election
- Time is pressing, 20 years after Burkinabe journalist’s murder
- German journalist held in Venezuela facing 28 years in prison on spying charges
OPC Freedom of the Press Committee Annual Report
As promised last year, your committee has attempted to broaden its activities over the past year. We have been partially successful.
We have written many more articles touching on press freedom for the OPC website and the Bulletin. We organized another discussion forum for the website, this one exploring what it takes to qualify as a journalist and whether bloggers, new media writers and the like have rights to cross police lines, shield their sources and the like.
We have written 54 of our traditional letters protesting abuses of the press to governments around the world, including our own. As I said last year, this represents no increase, and we did not plan one; we were keeping the franchise alive while exploring added activities.
The year’s major initiative came in trying to exploit the new social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to generate traffic for our Web site, raise the profile of the OPC and of course increase general interest in the cause of press freedom. With the help of an intern, Marissa Miller, we posted actively all last summer and most of the fall. During that time, the OPC’s Twitter following rose to more than 600 – not a lot by movie-star standards, but more than twice what it had been. I judged that to be a moderate success, but the effort would benefit from a stronger voice in the Tweets and a more provocative choice of subjects. I hope the experiment will continue.
As I also said a year ago, this will be my last appearance as chair of the Freedom of the Press Committee. After 19 years on the job, with a couple off to be president of the club, I am simply burned out, and the committee needs new leadership with the fire and dedication that the late Norman Schorr brought to it for so many years. My hat is off to him, and to all the members of the committee who have given time and energy to the cause over the years. Thanks to all of them, and to the club for its support.
And goodbye.
Respectfully submitted by: Larry Martz, Chairman