ABOUT CPJ
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981. We promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. Below are answers to some frequently asked questions about CPJ.
How did CPJ get started?
How did CPJ get started?
A group of U.S. foreign correspondents created CPJ in response to the often brutal treatment of their foreign colleagues by authoritarian governments and other enemies of independent journalism.
Who runs CPJ?
CPJ has a full-time staff of 23 at its New York headquarters, including area specialists for each major world region. CPJ has a Washington, D.C., representative, and consultants stationed around the world. A 35-member board of prominent journalists directs CPJ's activities.
How is CPJ funded?
CPJ is funded solely by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations. CPJ does not accept government funding.
Why is press freedom important?
Without a free press, few other human rights are attainable. A strong press freedom environment encourages the growth of a robust civil society, which leads to stable, sustainable democracies and healthy social, political, and economic development. CPJ works in more than 120 countries, many of which suffer under repressive regimes, debilitating civil war, or other problems that harm press freedom and democracy.
How does CPJ protect journalists?
By publicly revealing abuses against the press and by acting on behalf of imprisoned and threatened journalists, CPJ effectively warns journalists and news organizations where attacks on press freedom are occurring. CPJ organizes vigorous public protests and works through diplomatic channels to effect change. CPJ publishes articles and news releases; special reports; a biannual magazine, Dangerous Assignments; and Attacks on the Press, the most comprehensive annual survey of press freedom around the world.
Where does CPJ get its information?
CPJ has full-time program coordinators monitoring the press in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. They track developments through their own independent research, fact-finding missions, and firsthand contacts in the field, including reports from other journalists. CPJ shares information on breaking cases with other press freedom organizations worldwide through the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global e-mail network.
When would a journalist call upon CPJ?
In an emergency. Using local and foreign contacts, CPJ can intervene whenever local and foreign correspondents are in trouble. CPJ is prepared to notify news organizations, government officials, and human rights organizations immediately of press freedom violations. When traveling on assignment. CPJ can advise journalists covering dangerous assignments. When covering the news. Attacks against the press are news, and they often serve as the first signal of a crackdown on all freedoms. CPJ is uniquely situated to provide journalists with information and insight into press conditions around the world.
STAFF
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Ann Cooper
Ann Cooper worked as a reporter in the former Soviet Union, Africa, and Washington, D.C., before joining CPJ in July 1998. Her voice is well known to radio listeners in the United States from her nine years as a correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). She has also reported for The Louisville Courier-Journal, Capitol Hill News Service, Congressional Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun, and National Journal magazine. Appointed as NPR's first Moscow bureau chief in 1987, Cooper spent five years covering the tumultuous events of the times, including the failed coup attempt in Moscow. She co-edited a book of first-person accounts of that siege, Russia at the Barricades. NPR also sent her to Beijing to cover the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 1992 to 1995, Cooper's coverage there won NPR a prestigious Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award in broadcast journalism. She traveled throughout Africa, writing features and analysis on a range of subjects, including the famine and international intervention in Somalia, the 1994 Rwandan refugee crisis, and the cholera epidemic in Zaire. Returning to the United States in 1995, she studied refugee policy issues as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City and also traveled in Kenya, Rwanda, Zaire, Bosnia, and Haiti to produce a series on refugee policy for NPR. She has taught radio and international reporting at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is herself a journalism graduate of Iowa State University.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Joel Simon
Before joining CPJ as Americas program coordinator in May 1997, Joel Simon worked as the Mexico City–based free-lance correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge, published by Sierra Club Books. His work on Latin America has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Simon was promoted to deputy director in April 1999. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Stanford University.
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Bill Sweeney
Bill Sweeney joined CPJ in June 2004 after working as New York news editor for The Associated Press. From 2000 to 2004, Sweeney directed AP's coverage of New York City and the metropolitan area, including the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, the embassy bombing and millennium terror trials, the anthrax threat of 2001, and the financial crime trials of Martha Stewart and others. He came to the AP from The Hartford Courant, where he oversaw coverage of mental health and juvenile justice issues. At The Courant, he edited the series, "Deadly Restraint," which described the abusive treatment of psychiatric patients nationwide and prompted federal reforms. Sweeney is a graduate of the University of Connecticut.
SENIOR EDITOR
Robert Mahoney
Mahoney has been an editor, bureau chief, and reporter for Reuters in Jerusalem, Abidjan, Delhi, Jakarta, Singapore, and Paris. His most recent posting for Reuters was in London, where he was news editor in charge of politics and general news for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Mahoney has served as an editorial trainer for the Reuters Foundation, teaching reporting and writing to journalists in the Middle East. He has also worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, producing that organization's recent report on human rights violations in Ivory Coast.
WASHINGTON, D.C. REPRESENTATIVE
Frank Smyth
Frank Smyth began his career reporting from El Salvador in the mid-1980s. He has covered Guatemala, Rwanda, Colombia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. In 1991, Iraqi authorities captured and imprisoned him while he was reporting on the Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq. His articles and opinion pieces have appeared in The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He also contributed to Crimes of War, a collection of essays on human rights and armed conflicts edited by Roy Gutman and David Rieff. Smyth has also served as an investigative consultant for the Human Rights Watch Arms Division and Amnesty International USA. He has collaborated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He is a graduate of Boston College and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. WEBMASTER AND
SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
Mick Stern
Mick Stern has been a free-lance editor, technical writer, graphic designer, and teacher at several universities, including Syracuse University, Rutgers (New Brunswick), and New York University, where he is currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Undergraduate Film and Television. Since 1990, he has been associated with the Barcelona-based Toni Ricart Multimedia Studio, which specializes in Web and CD-ROM design. He holds a PhD in English Renaissance literature from New York University.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND OUTREACH
John Weis
John Weis joined CPJ in April 2004. He directs all fund-raising activities of the organization, both annual support and campaign contributions. He has a long and successful record as a fund-raiser, having most recently served as the deputy director of development at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). Weis has held fund-raising positions at WNYC Radio, the New York Public Library, and the University of Pennsylvania. He has a B.S. in Commerce from Rider University.
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
Elena Snyder
Elena Snyder graduated from Colgate University in 1999 with a B.A. in English literature. In July 1998, she spent six weeks teaching grant writing to the Burmese Refugee Women’s Group at the Mae Sot Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand. She has worked for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival. Prior to joining CPJ in January 2003, she was a student in graphic design at California College of the Arts, focusing on art direction for magazine production and Web site design.
JOURNALIST ASSISTANCE COORDINATOR
Elisabeth Witchel
Before joining CPJ in July 2001, Elisabeth Witchel worked in product marketing at Grassroots Enterprise, a San Francisco–based advocacy communications firm. Previously, she spent several years in Seoul, Korea, as a free-lance journalist. In addition to holding a B.A. in history from Stanford University, she has an M.A. in international studies and diplomacy from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. Witchel has written for US News and World Report, The Korea Times, Travel Holiday, The Industry Standard, and Kirkus Reviews.
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Lade Kadejo
Lade Kadejo holds a B.S. in accounting from Brooklyn College, where she also studied public and private finance at the graduate level. She has been in the accounting field for more than 18 years. Prior to joining CPJ in June 1999, she served as tax consultant and preparer for H&R Block and as finance officer for Aerotours International, an Australian travel wholesaler.
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT AND BOARD LIAISON
Maya Taal
Maya Taal graduated from the University of Connecticut honors program in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in international political culture. She spent the fall 2002 semester conducting a grant-funded independent study in the Caribbean island of Martinique. Prior to joining CPJ, she worked in communications at Human Rights Watch in New York, Amnesty International in Peru, and MUDHA (The Haitian-Dominican Women's Movement) in the Dominican Republic. She also wrote for The Stamford Times in Connecticut. She speaks Dutch, French, and Spanish.
RECEPTIONIST AND OFFICE MANAGER
Janet Mason
Prior to joining CPJ, Janet Mason worked as an executive secretary, an administrative assistant, a scheduling coordinator, and a radio producer for various companies, including CBS, NBC, WYNY, and Deloitte & Touche. She holds a bachelor's in communications/journalism from the City College of New York.
REGIONAL PROGRAMSAFRICA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Julia Crawford
Julia came to CPJ from the UN's humanitarian news agency IRIN in Nairobi, Kenya, where she spent 18 months as radio news editor. At IRIN, she was instrumental in the launch of radio programs for Burundi and Somalia, training and working with local journalists. Before that, she spent three years as project director and editor for the Hirondelle Foundation at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. This also involved recruiting, training, and working with local journalists to cover ICTR proceedings and Burundi peace talks for local and international media. Julia previously spent seven years with the English-language service of Radio France International in Paris, where she specialized in African affairs and conducted several reporting and training missions to Africa, including reporting from Rwanda in French and English on the immediate aftermath of the 1994 genocide. Training missions included two courses for journalists from community radio stations in South Africa.
AFRICA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Alexis Arieff
Alexis Arieff joined CPJ in June 2003 as in intern in the Asia program. Since joining CPJ full-time in July, she has worked as a researcher in the Africa program and as an executive assistant. Alexis is a recent graduate of Brown University, with a degree in linguistic anthropology. She has lived and worked in France, as well as South Africa, where she studied the political organization of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, and Delhi, where she researched the role of language ideologies in contemporary Indian politics. She speaks French, Hindi, and Urdu.
AMERICAS PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Carlos Lauria
Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lauria began his journalistic career as a contributor to regional newspaper Diario La Unión, where he was promoted to managing editor. In 1991, he began working at Playboy Magazine Argentina and later became managing editor. In 1994, Lauria settled in New York City as U.S. bureau chief correspondent for the largest magazine publisher in Argentina, Editorial Perfil. In this position, he wrote and edited hundreds of stories that were published in the various magazines owned by the company, particularly Noticias, the world's largest Spanish-language newsmagazine. He has been invited to speak about the current crisis in Argentina by the American Jewish Committee (June 2002) and to discuss developments in the murder of photographer José Luis Cabezas, who worked for Noticias, by the Freedom Forum (April 1997). He is a journalism graduate of Universidad Católica Argentina.
ASIA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Abi Wright
Abi Wright graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Russian studies. Most of her professional experience has been as a television news producer. She worked for two years as field producer in the NBC News Moscow bureau, spent several weeks in Iran putting together an ABC News documentary, traveled throughout the former Soviet republic of Georgia as an Internews consultant, and spent several months working with Memorial, one of the earliest and most important civic organizations in Russia, which has led the way in digging out information on Stalin's crimes against humanity. In addition, Wright has worked on numerous other documentaries and news programming for PBS, ABC, NBC, the Discovery Channel, and the Oprah Winfrey Show. She speaks Russian and French.
ASIA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Kristin Jones
Kristin Jones spent three years in Beijing, where she helped launch and edit an English-language monthly called That's Beijing and wrote for the South China Morning Post. Jones speaks Mandarin and Spanish and is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She has also written for The Nation magazine.
ASIA PROGRAM CONSULTANT
Shawn W. Crispin
Shawn W. Crispin was bureau chief for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review in Bangkok from 1999 to 2004, where he wrote on a wide range of political, business, and social issues. From 2001, Shawn also served as bureau chief for the Review's sister publication, The Asian Wall Street Journal. His coverage of Asia's AIDS epidemic was part of a package recognized in 2004 for the "Excellence in Magazines" award of the Society of Publishers in Asia. In 2005, Shawn served as an investigative consultant with Human Rights Watch (Asia), where he researched and wrote a full-length report on press freedom issues in Thailand. His journalism has also appeared in the International Herald Tribune and Institutional Investor magazine. Shawn received a master's degree in Southeast Asian Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC in 1999. He speaks fluent Thai.
EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA SENIOR PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Alexander Lupis
After graduating from college, Alex Lupis spent 18 months in Washington, D.C., coordinating a medical evacuation program for war victims from the former Yugoslavia for the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. He worked with refugees in the former Yugoslavia and then with the Open Society Institute in New York City, where he administered an exchange program for students and professors from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He later worked as a human rights monitor in Bosnia for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and as a consultant for Human Rights Watch. He returned to New York City to work with the Open Society Institute for two years, initially managing a Legal Policy Task Force for the former Yugoslavia and later acting as the special assistant for Southeastern Europe. Alex is fluent in Russian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.
EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Nina Ognianova
Before joining CPJ in 2003, Nina Ognianova worked as a staff writer for the International Journalists' Network, the media-assistance Web site of the nonprofit International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C. She covered the countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. In September 2003, Ognianova coordinated an ICFJ conference, which was held in her native Bulgaria, for Balkan investigative journalists about covering the problems of human trafficking. Ognianova earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications from the American University in Bulgaria and a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism--Columbia. While in Missouri, Ognianova was on the editorial staff of the magazine of the International Press Institute (IPI), IPI Global Journalist, where she also published articles. Ognianova is a native Bulgarian speaker, fluent in Russian, and proficient in Macedonian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, and Italian.
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA SENIOR PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Joel Campagna
Campagna was a consultant to Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 1996 and traveled to Egypt and Lebanon as part of fact-finding missions in 1994, 1995, and 1996. Campagna has lived and studied in Egypt and has also worked as a researcher for the Cairo-based Center for Human Rights Legal Aid. He has a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs with a specialization in Middle East studies. Campagna earned a B.A. at Fordham University, where he majored in political science.
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Ivan Karakashian
Ivan Karakashian graduated from the University of Nottingham School of Law in 2001. In June 2001, he joined MIFTAH (The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy) as Webmaster responsible for the organization's Web site content. He later became a senior analyst for the organization. Prior to joining CPJ in September 2005, he studied at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he concentrated in magazine writing. He speaks fluent Arabic.
