Committee to Protect Journalists
American nonprofit organization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in New York City, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists. The American Journalism Review has called the organization "Journalism's Red Cross."[6] Since the late 1980s, CPJ has published an annual census of journalists killed or imprisoned in relation to their work.[7]
| |
| Abbreviation | CPJ |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1981 |
| Type | 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization[1] |
| 13-3081500 | |
| Purpose | Press freedom, journalist human rights and safety of journalists |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York |
| Location |
|
| Coordinates | 40.74769°N 73.99327°W |
Region served | International |
President | Jodie Ginsberg (2022–present)[2] Joel Simon (2006-2021)[3] Ann Cooper (1998-2006)[4][5] |
| Affiliations | International Freedom of Expression Exchange |
| Website | cpj |
History and programs
The Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981 in response to the harassment of Paraguayan journalist Alcibiades González Delvalle.[8] Its founding honorary chairman was Walter Cronkite.[8] Since 1991, it has held the annual CPJ International Press Freedom Awards Dinner,[8] during which awards are given to journalists and press freedom advocates who have received beatings, threats, intimidation, and prison for reporting the news.
Since 1992, the organization has compiled an annual list of all journalists killed in the line of duty around the world.[9] For 2017, it reported that 46 journalists had been killed in connection with their work, as compared to 48 in 2016, and 72 in 2015, and that of those journalists killed, 18 had been murdered.[9] In 2024, CPJ reported that 124 journalists were killed, surpassing the previous high of 113 in 2007. Of those 124, 103 were in the line of duty, and 85 of them were by Israel, all but three of whom were Palestinian journalists.[10][11]
CPJ has also compiled a database that tracks journalists who have been killed, imprisoned or are missing from 1992 to the present. In 2024 they reported that China and Israel had the most journalists in jail, 50 and 43 respectively.[12]
In 2008, the organization launched an annual "Impunity Index" of countries in which journalists are murdered and the killers are not prosecuted.[13]
The organization is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of more than seventy non-governmental organizations that monitors free-expression violations around the world and defends journalists, writers, and others persecuted for exercising their freedom of expression. In May 2016, A United Nations committee voted to deny consultative status to CPJ, primarily led by countries with poor press freedom like China, Sudan and Russia.[14] The ban was overturned and CPJ was granted consultative status in July 2016.[15]
In October 2016, the committee broke with its tradition of staying out of politics and warned about the danger it perceived Donald Trump posed to press freedom in the United States and around the world.[16]
In June 2017, U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte was convicted of criminal assault in state court stemming from his assault of The Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs the previous month.[17][18][19] As a stipulation of his settlement with Jacobs, Gianforte donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said it would use the funds to support the new U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.[20][21]
In July 2025, the committee urged international action to protect Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif and other journalists in Gaza, highlighting the deliberate risk faced by local reporters as the "last eyes and ears of the outside world" in Gaza.[22][23]
In September 2025, the CPJ along with IFEX and other press freedom organizations called on EU member states for a partial or full suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in order to protect journalists in Gaza.[24]
Global Impunity Index
In 2008, the CPJ launched an annual Global Impunity Index of countries in which journalists are murdered and the killers are not prosecuted. The index is a ranking of the rate of the failure of countries to prosecute killers of journalists.[13][25]
The index has become associated with CPJ’s reporting banner Getting Away with Murder, and has been used by news organizations, press-freedom groups, and international organisations as a reference point in debates about accountability for violence against journalists.[26][27][28]
Early editions used a multi-year lookback and applied an inclusion threshold (countries generally had to reach a minimum number of unsolved cases to appear), which meant the index was not a complete list of every country with an unsolved journalist murder. Later on, the CPJ presented the index as a Global Impunity Index and published it as part of annual reporting packages on unresolved journalist killings. Publication was also timed to broader international advocacy moments, including the UN’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.[29][30]
In October 2025, the CPJ stated that it would pause publication of its Global Impunity Index while it reviews the tool and reorients its work on impunity toward other mechanisms such as developing targeted sanctions against perpetrators of crimes against journalists.[31] Critics have accused the CPJ of caving into political pressure and scrapping the index because Israel was going to top the rankings.[32] the CPJ denied that pressure from donors and board members played a role in the decision.[33]
| Year | Top 3 countries |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Paused.[31] |
| 2024 | Haiti, Israel, Somalia[34][35][36] |
| 2023 | Syria, Somalia, Haiti[37][38][39] |
| 2022 | Somalia , Syria , South Sudan[40][41] |
| 2021 | Somalia , Syria, Iraq [42][43] |
| 2020 | Somalia , Syria, Iraq |
| 2019 | Somalia , Syria, Iraq[44][45][46] |
| 2018 | Somalia, Syria, Iraq[47][48] |
| 2017 | Somalia, Syria, Iraq [49][50] |
| 2016 | Somalia, Iraq, Syria[51][52] |
| 2015 | Somalia, Iraq, Syria[53][54] |
| 2014 | Iraq, Somalia, Philippines[55][56] |
| 2013 | Iraq, Somalia, Philippines[57][58] |
| 2012 | Iraq, Somalia, Philippines[59][60][61] |
| 2011 | Iraq, Somalia, Philippines[62][63] |
| 2010 | Iraq, Somalia, Philippines[64][65] |
| 2009 | Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia [66] |
| 2008 | Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia[67] |
