Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in New York City, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists. The American Journalism Review has called the organization "Journalism's Red Cross."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since the late 1980s, CPJ has published an annual census of journalists killed or imprisoned in relation to their work.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History and programs

The Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981 in response to the harassment of Paraguayan journalist Alcibiades González Delvalle.<ref name="archivalcollectioncolumbia">Template:Cite web</ref> Its founding honorary chairman was Walter Cronkite.<ref name="archivalcollectioncolumbia"/> Since 1991, it has held the annual CPJ International Press Freedom Awards Dinner,<ref name="archivalcollectioncolumbia"/> during which awards are given to journalists and press freedom advocates who have received beatings, threats, intimidation, and prison for reporting the news.

Since 1992, the organization has compiled an annual list of all journalists killed in the line of duty around the world.<ref name="Gladstone">Gladstone, Rick (19 December 2016). "Fewer Journalists Were Killed on the Job This Year, Group Reports Template:Webarchive". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2017.</ref> For 2017, it reported that 46 journalists had been killed in connection with their work, as compared to 48 in 2016, and 72 in 2015, and that of those journalists killed, 18 had been murdered.<ref name="Gladstone" /> In 2024, 124 journalists were killed, surpassing the previous high of 113 in 2007. Of those 124, 103 were in the line of duty, and 85 of them were by one country alone, Israel, just as 78 had been killed by Israel in 2023, in each year all but three having been Palestinian journalists.<ref> https://cpj.org/special-reports/2024-is-deadliest-year-for-journalists-in-cpj-history-almost-70-percent-killed-by-israel/</ref>

In 2008, the organization launched an annual "Impunity Index" of countries in which journalists are murdered and the killers are not prosecuted.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The organization is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of more than seventy non-governmental organizations that monitors free-expression violations around the world and defends journalists, writers, and others persecuted for exercising their freedom of expression. In May 2016, A United Nations committee voted to deny consultative status to CPJ, primarily led by countries with poor press freedom like China, Sudan and Russia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The ban was overturned and CPJ was granted consultative status in July 2016.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 2016, the Committee broke with its tradition of staying out of politics and warned about the danger it perceived Donald Trump posed to press freedom in the United States and around the world.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 2017, U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte was convicted of criminal assault in state court stemming from his assault of The Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs the previous month.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto1">Template:Cite news</ref> As a stipulation of his settlement with Jacobs, Gianforte donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said it would use the funds to support the new U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In July 2025, the Committee urged international action to protect Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and other journalists in Gaza, highlighting the deliberate risk faced by local reporters as the "last eyes and ears of the outside world" in Gaza.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Citizen Lab
• Democratic backsliding
• Freedom of the Press Foundation
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
• Reporters Without Borders
• Safety of journalists

External links

• Template:Official website
• Template:Twitter