{"id":17949,"date":"2012-11-27T01:45:32","date_gmt":"2012-11-27T05:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=17949"},"modified":"2012-11-27T12:38:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T16:38:26","slug":"im-thankful-for-the-committee-to-protect-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/im-thankful-for-the-committee-to-protect-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Thankful for the Committee to Protect Journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is always about the annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner<\/a>, hosted by the Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a>. The black-tie dinner, held at the Waldorf-Astoria, honors journalists from around the world who risk their lives to report from war zones and in defiance of brutal regimes. It also raises money for CPJ\u2019s activities: denouncing anti-press violations, providing assistance to targeted journalists, and advocating for press freedom worldwide.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO READ MY PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT CPJ.<\/a><\/p>\n

Some journalists don’t just risk their lives — they lose their lives on the job: 57 have been killed in 2012.\u00a0 Other journalists are living in exile or imprisoned. An increasing number are bloggers and other people who are working independently from large news organizations. One of this year’s award winners — who wasn’t there to accept his award in person — was a self-taught documentary filmmaker, Dhondup Wangchen<\/a> of Tibet. CPJ’s website says Wangchen’s “account <\/a>of Tibetan views of the 2008 Olympics in China begins, ‘I am not an educated man. … However, I would like to say a few things.'”<\/p>\n

He interviewed “ordinary Tibetans about their grievances with Chinese rule … The film was smuggled out of Tibet, and Wangchen soon disappeared into the Chinese detention system. Today he is serving a six-year sentence for ‘inciting separatism.'”<\/p>\n