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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged press freedom

1. June 29, 2012 06:50 AM

   A fatal year

   2012 on track to be the deadliest on record for journalists

   By Curtis Brainard

   PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the deadliest on record, the International Press Institute (IPI) announced here on Sunday. The media freedom organization’s executive director, Alison Bethel McKenzie, choked up and struggled to speak as she addressed the group’s annual conference. “From Somalia to Syria,...

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2. November 9, 2010 01:42 PM

   Gag Time in Cairo

   An interview with Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Eissa

   By David Lepeska

   Few leaders stay in power for thirty years without occasionally embracing their inner gangster. So it is that the aging, possibly ailing Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, facing the end of his reign, has again all but eliminated the space for free expression in the run-up to this month's parliamentary polls and next year's presidential vote. In the past few months,...

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3. November 19, 2010 12:08 PM

   Has Tunisia Mesmerized Journalists?

   Tunisia is one of the world's worst places for journalists—but you wouldn't know it

   By Justin D. Martin

   Tunis, Tunisia—The first time I heard the word “Tunisia” was as a child watching The Cosby Show. In one episode, the show’s affable hero, Cliff Huxtable, tries to secure an original vinyl recording of Charlie Parker’s song, “Night in Tunisia.” If Cliff Huxtable was enamored of it, Tunisia had to be a special place. When the episode was over I...

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4. December 7, 2011 11:48 AM

   Hell Yes to Hell No

   New book flags ways US targets dissent

   By Justin D. Martin

   Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America | By Michael Ratner & Margaret Ratner Kunstler | The New Press | 176 pages, $17.95 A number of twentieth-century legal decisions helped establish the US as having one of the freest press systems on earth. In 1925, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects citizens not only...

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5. October 12, 2012 07:00 AM

   Hey coach, lighten up!

   Steve Spurrier and his coaching cohorts get pissy with the press

   By Robert Weintraub

   Steve Spurrier, the wisecrackin’ ol’ ballcoach at the University of South Carolina, has the Gamecocks in rarefied air. After demolishing Georgia last weekend, a team that traditionally stomped Carolina, Spurrier’s squad is undefeated and ranked third in the nation. A huge game looms Saturday, when South Carolina visits LSU, last year’s national runner up, in Baton Rouge. But with...

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6. June 4, 2012 11:00 AM

   In Thailand, moderate comments or go to jail

   A new low in the Land of Smiles

   By Erika Fry

   For 20 days in the 2010, a user comment, later deemed by Thai officials as offensive to the king, was posted to a message board on the Thai news website Prachatai. Last Wednesday, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the Prachatai webmaster who failed to delete that comment in timely fashion was fined 20,000 baht ($635) and given an eight-month suspended prison sentence. It...

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7. February 16, 2011 04:40 PM

   Returning to Egyptian Journalists Their Basic Freedoms

   Egypt's new leadership must prioritize media rights

   By Justin D. Martin

   CAIRO— The revolution in Egypt belongs to brave, stubborn Egyptians who faced down the clubs, gas, and gunfire of Hosni’s henchmen. Many Egyptian journalists also helped usher in a new era for the world’s largest Arab country, transparently reporting the brutality and back-alley thievery of a shrivelled tyrant who met his deserved end. One reason Egypt’s uprising took thirty years...

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8. November 4, 2011 02:17 PM

   Speech in Israel Is Not Free

   There's more to democracy than just holding regular elections

   By Justin D. Martin

   Both Israeli and US policymakers are fond of calling Israel and the United States likeminded democracies. “America has no better friend than Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to applause from a joint session of Congress in a 2011 address. “We stand together to defend democracy.” Vice President Joe Biden has basically called Israel his second America. “No matter how...

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9. October 19, 2011 02:13 PM

   Trial Begins Tomorrow for Journalists Imprisoned in Ethiopia

   Their Swedish colleagues demand justice

   By Lauren Kirchner

   Two Swedish journalists who have been imprisoned in Ethiopia for almost four months will face terrorism charges in Addis Ababa tomorrow. Freelance photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye were arrested on July 1 when they crossed the border from Somalia into Ethiopia’s Ogaden region to report on human rights violations, as Reporters Without Borders reported at the time. The...

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