As More Governments Seek To Control Information, The Lives of Journalists Are Increasingly At Risk

Journalists are being imprisoned and killed in record numbers. In 2014, 42 have been killed—not just covering conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine, but covering politics, corruption, and human rights around the world. Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, discusses threats by authoritarian governments, militants, criminals, and terrorists, who all seek to use technology, political pressure, and violence. In The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom, Simon warns that these threats are leading to a shortage of the news reports we need to make sense of our globalized world and to fight against human rights abuses, manage conflict, and promote accountability.