New York, November 10, 2003— The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today announced the appointment of three new board members.

They are: Dean Baquet, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times; Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of The Oregonian, and Paul E. Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

“Our new board members share a passion and commitment to protecting journalists and promoting press freedom around the world,” said CPJ board chairman David Laventhol. “They will be an asset to the organization as a whole, as well as to the hundreds of journalists worldwide who depend on CPJ’s support.”

The new board members head award-winning newspapers—their publications have collectively won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes—and bring a wealth of local and international experience.

Baquet started his career as a reporter with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has been an editor at the Chicago Tribune and national editor at The New York Times. In 2000, he was appointed managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, which has 23 foreign bureaus and is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the United States. In 1988, while at the Tribune, Baquet won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

In addition to editing The Oregonian, the largest newspaper in the northwestern United States, Rowe chairs the Knight Foundation Journalism Advisory Board, has served as the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and is the immediate past chairman of the Pulitzer board.

Steiger, who joined the Journal in 1966 as a reporter in the San Francisco bureau, serves on the Pulitzer Prize board and has received numerous awards, including the first American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Leadership Award. In addition to serving as the paper’s managing editor, Steiger is also a vice president of Dow Jones & Company and publisher of the Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, and The Wall Street Journal Europe.

CPJ is a New York–based independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to promote press freedom by fighting for the rights of journalists worldwide to report the news freely, without fear of reprisal. Today, CPJ is active in more than 130 countries.

CPJ’s board represents a broad spectrum of American journalism. Board members accompany the staff on missions, support efforts to win the release of imprisoned journalists around the world, and oversee the activities of the organization.

The other board members are: Franz Allina, Terry Anderson, Peter Arnett, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Josh Friedman, Anne Garrels, James C. Goodale, Cheryl Gould, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Alberto Ibargüen, Gwen Ifill, Walter Isaacson, Steven L. Isenberg, Jane Kramer, David Laventhol, Anthony Lewis, David Marash, Kati Marton, Michael Massing, Geraldine Fabrikant Metz, Victor Navasky, Frank del Olmo, Burl Osborne, Charles L. Overby, Clarence Page, Erwin Potts, Dan Rather, Gene Roberts, John Seigenthaler, and Paul C. Tash.