Alberto Ibargüen, chairman of CPJ: “There is a new war on journalists”

Founded in 1981 by a group of U.S. correspondents, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) aims to safeguard the journalists and reporters from all over the world who work in dangerous environments through many advocacy initiatives. Among the latter, it has recently launched a campaign against the impunity of those who committed crimes against journalists, and it grants the International Press Freedom Awards to people who risk their lives for reporting the truth.

But it seems that in the current situation more tools and initiatives are needed. During the Awards ceremony dinner, which took place in New York on 25th of November, chairman Alberto Ibargüen said in fact that “there is a new war on journalists”. Years 2012 and 2013 amounted to the worst two-year period on record for the CPJ (144 journalists killed and more than 200 imprisoned) and, maybe even more important, terrorism found a new way of persecuting journalists: as a result of a fundamental tactical shift, “today’s terrorists will kill a journalist not to stop a story but to create one”.

Therefore, CPJ’s new initiatives will try to improve current safeguard measures and to create other ones. The association will focus more on reporters without international support, such as freelancers and local journalists, who are probably becoming the main target of nowadays reprisals. Also, data and reports will be improved in order to have better analysis and digital strategies for protection, and, perhaps most important, stronger and broader alliances have to be built in order to create a solid network supporting freedom of expression.
 
Source: https://www.cpj.org/