CPJ Releases Annual Press Freedom Report

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its sweeping annual report on press freedom, Attacks on the Press, which outlines government crackdowns and rising extremism that has made this “the most deadly and dangerous period for journalists in recent history,” according to a CPJ press release.

The collection of essays explores rising challenges that journalists face, including unprecedented risks in Syria, violence from trafficking organizations in Mexico and Paraguay, and increasing censorship and arrests of journalists in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt and across the Middle East. 

“Journalists are being caught in a terror dynamic, in which they are threatened by non-state actors who target them and governments that restrict civil liberties including press freedom in the name of fighting terror,” Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, said in the release.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international correspondent and a member of CPJ’s board of directors, wrote a forward for this year’s report.

“It would be terrible enough if the tragedies that befell journalists in 2014 had been isolated episodes–if we could write the year off as a nightmare and move on,” she wrote. “But with well over 1,000 journalists having been killed since 1992, and with the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo early in 2015, it is clear that the threats are not limited to bad years, nor are they going away.”