Features & Analysis

As protests over U.S. immigration enforcement raids began throughout the country last week, journalists rushed to cover the rapidly evolving story. Focus turned to Los Angeles, California, as President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines, notably without California Governor Gavin Newsom’s consent.  Journalists on the ground in LA quickly became part of the…

Journalists at El Faro knew the risks when they published a series of interviews with gang members alleging long-standing ties between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and criminal groups. They didn’t know how quickly the crackdown would escalate. Within days of publication last month, sources close to El Salvador’s attorney general’s office warned that arrest warrants…

New York, May 30, 2025—A punishing spate of laws targeting foreign-funded media will dramatically curb Georgia’s independent voices and force many news outlets to shutter or shift their business operations, say Georgian journalists and press freedom advocates. Georgia’s populist ruling Georgian Dream party has pushed through its new Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—called an “exact copy” of the U.S. Foreign…

New York, May 28, 2025—After 19 months of war and Israel’s 11-week total blockade on food, water, fuel, cooking gas, medical supplies, and emergency aid into Gaza, hunger and famine threaten not just lives, but the media’s very ability to bear witness, six journalists told CPJ this month.  Starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness all…

New York, May 15, 2025—When Gazan journalist Tawfiq Abu Jarad received a phone call from a Hamas security agent warning him not to cover a protest, he readily complied, having been assaulted by Hamas-affiliated forces once before.     The April 27 women’s anti-war demonstration in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia was small but significant — one of…

Documentary filmmaker Maryia Bulavinskaya’s love of history led her to buy a traditional wood home in the Belarusian village of Rogi-Iletsky in 2019. Her plans to renovate and eventually live in the house were put on hold in 2020 when she fled the country out of fear of being detained for her coverage of anti-government…

When Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power last December, Syrian journalist Tal al-Mallohi was among the thousands who poured out of the country’s jails. Mallohi was 18 when security police detained her in 2009 after posting on the then-popular Blogger platform poems and articles about Palestinian rights and other political issues. She spent 15…

On February 9, reporter Tolga Güney welcomed a CPJ representative into the apartment he shares with several colleagues in central Izmir, Turkey. It was his 362nd day under house arrest while awaiting trial on terrorism charges. “I believe I’m in this situation for doing my job,” he said over a glass of tea. Güney is…

Cuban journalist José Luis Tan Estrada boarded a plane in Havana last December because he thought exile was the only way to continue his career and protect his family. It was his first time on an airplane. Tan Estrada, 28, had faced escalating repression by Cuban authorities for months. After he was fired from teaching…

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its media has experienced an unprecedented crackdown. Hundreds of journalists have been forced into exile, where they continue to face transnational legal persecution, and their families have been harassed back home. Meanwhile, reporting from inside Russia has become increasingly difficult, with journalists and media outlets often silenced…