September Update

Our Fall Safety Series Is Here!

The Journalism Protection Initiative will be exploring emerging threats to media safety and press freedom in the U.S. in a series of October events, building on issues identified through our Press Freedom Briefings, including the rights of immigrant journalists and the safety environment for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming journalists navigating a hostile climate.

The series kicks off on October 6, with a discussion of the First Amendment rights of immigrant journalists and a panel featuring Mazin Sidahmed, the executive director and co-founder of Documented, the nonprofit newsroom covering New York’s immigrant community; Esha Bhandari, the Deputy Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, which represents Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish graduate student detained over an op-ed, and Mario Guevara, an immigrant journalist arrested in Georgia; Alfredo Corchado, executive editor and correspondent of Puente News Collaborative in El Paso, Texas, who has reported on immigration along the border for decades; and Dana Green, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at The New York Times, who has expertise in a variety of legal issues impacting immigrant reporters, including visas and border crossings. The panel will be moderated by Yemile Bucay, author of the JPI briefing on immigration enforcement and journalist safety.

On October 14, we’ll shift gears to tackle a different but equally urgent question: whether or not the U.S. remains a safe haven for journalists under threat around the world. That discussion will feature Gustavo Gorriti, an investigative journalist from Peru and the director of IDL-Reporteros, known for exposing government corruption; Yasmine El Rashidi, an Egyptian journalist and writer, who will be joining us from Cairo; and Baktygul Chynybaeva, a journalist from Kyrgyzstan, specializing in human rights, and former correspondent with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I’ll serve as moderator.

The series will conclude on October 23 with a roundtable discussion on safety for trans journalists featuring my Newmark School colleagues Gina Chua and M. Gessen along with editors, experts and safety advocates.

You can find more information about all three events on the Newmark J-School web page. The panels on October 6 and 14 are open to all, so please sign up if you’d like to attend. The October 23 session on safety for trans journalists will be run as a roundtable, so space is highly limited. Please email me directly if you’d like to participate.

International Law and Gaza

Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists ever documented. Israel has blocked international journalists from entering the territory except in highly limited circumstances while accompanying Israeli military forces. This means that Palestinian journalists have played a critical role informing the world about the devastation and human suffering inflicted on the civilian population. Israel has acknowledged deliberately targeting a number of journalists it alleges are affiliated with Hamas, including Anas al-Sharif, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, who was killed in a drone strike along with his colleagues on August 10.

In my latest column for CJR, I examine the protections afforded to journalists working in conflict zones under International Humanitarian Law and, based on interviews with legal experts, evaluate the possible path to justice. You can read it here.