Threats against press in Columbia, Iraq, Russia

In the latest edition of Dangerous Assignments, Chip Mitchell reports on the state of journalism in Columbia. Mitchell writes:

Interviews with three dozen news professionals show that media outlets and journalists across the country routinely censor themselves in fear of physical retaliation from all sides in the nation’s conflict.

At least 30 Colombian journalists have been murdered over the past decade for their work. “We love our profession, but we’re human,” says Carmen Rosa Pabón, news director of Voz de Cinaruco, the Caracol Radio affiliate in the northeastern city of Arauca. “Threats and killings make us afraid. To survive, we have to limit ourselves.”

On some occasions, verified news is suppressed shortly before broadcast or publication. In other cases, probing journalists are killed, detained, or forced to flee. More often, investigations never even get started. The issues shortchanged are human rights abuses, armed conflict, political corruption, drug trafficking, and links from officials to illegal armed groups. Journalists end up focusing instead on “pleasant topics like fauna and flora,” says Angel María León, news chief of Arauca’s RCN Radio affiliate.

Elsewhere in Dangerous Assignments (a publication of the Committee to Protect Journalists), CPJ executive director Ann Cooper protests the U.S. military's imprisonment of local, frontline journalists in Iraq. Another report, by Nina Ognianova, examines a dozen contract-style murders of journalists in Russia.

Click here to download the PDF version of Dangerous Assignments.