{"id":23302,"date":"2013-11-28T21:45:43","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T02:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=23302"},"modified":"2017-11-16T19:13:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T00:13:20","slug":"thankful-for-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/thankful-for-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankful for Press Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Committee to Protect Journalism has posted the biographical videos (produced by Univision) and acceptance speeches for three of <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/what-we-wore-cpj-international-press-freedom-awards\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tuesday&#8217;s International Press Freedom Awards honorees<\/a>. Here are the links for television reporter <a href=\"http:\/\/cpj.org\/awards\/2013\/janet-hinostroza-ecuador.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Janet Hinostroza<\/a> of Ecuador; humorist <a href=\"http:\/\/cpj.org\/awards\/2013\/bassem-youssef-egypt.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bassem Youssef<\/a> of Egypt; and newspaper reporter <a href=\"http:\/\/cpj.org\/awards\/2013\/nedim-sener-turkey.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nedim \u015eener<\/a> of Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned yesterday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpj.org\/awards\/2013\/nguyen-van-hai-vietnam.php\">Nguyen Van Hai<\/a>, the Vietnamese blogger known as Dieu Cay, wasn&#8217;t there to give an acceptance speech, because he&#8217;s serving a long jail sentence for daring to criticize Vietnam&#8217;s government. His son was interviewed via Skype for this video, and I urge you to watch it now. (Warning: Everyone around me was crying after this one aired at CPJ&#8217;s dinner.)<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/80481177\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>You can sign CPJ&#8217;s petition to free Dieu Cay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causes.com\/freedieucay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I previously posted my iPhone recording of MrB&#8217;s acceptance speech for his lifetime achievement award, but if you prefer to read the text, it&#8217;s now available both on <a href=\"http:\/\/cpj.org\/awards\/Paul%20Steiger%20-%20Speech.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CPJ&#8217;s site<\/a> and ProPublica&#8217;s site. If you want to laugh your tits off, read some of the comments on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/why-reporters-in-the-us-now-need-protection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ProPublica<\/a>. I generally avoid reading <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AvoidComments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news-site comments<\/a> because they make me despair for humanity, but you gotta love the logic of a certain Shannon Oberlien, who starts out by saying, &#8220;If outfits like ProPublica weren\u2019t so obviously in the pockets of the current administration &#8230;&#8221; in response to a speech by ProPublica&#8217;s founding editor that&#8217;s <em>criticizing<\/em> the current administration for an unprecedented level of secrecy and surveillance. Shannon goes on to claim that a &#8220;partisan press corps chills a free press far more effectively than does&#8221; a secretive government. Maybe Shannon will view the awardees&#8217; videos &#8212; especially Dieu Cay&#8217;s &#8212; and see how very effective governments are.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re more interested in sexiness than comedy, skip the comments and watch <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/reporting-from-cloud-nine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">my beloved Sam Waterston<\/a>&#8216;s appeal for donations to ProPublica, which is a nonprofit, <em>non-partisan<\/em> investigative journalism organization.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/07uuG3Ys1I8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>You have to have a heart of stone to resist those <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/a-devastating-day-for-eyebrow-lovers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eloquent eyebrows<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATED TO ADD: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-11-27\/scene-jon-stewart-s-egyptian-twin-buzzfeed-in-black-tie.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amanda Gordon covered the CPJ dinner for Bloomberg<\/a>, and her story included a photo of me and my friend Steve Newhouse &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><div id=\"attachment_23310\" style=\"width: 343px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23310\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23310\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/stevenewhouse.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Amanda Gordon.\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/stevenewhouse.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/stevenewhouse-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-23310\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Amanda Gordon.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&#8230; and one of MrB with our friend Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel.<\/p>\n<p><center><div id=\"attachment_23311\" style=\"width: 522px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23311\" class=\" wp-image-23311\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/bblee.jpg\" alt=\"bblee\" width=\"512\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/bblee.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/bblee-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-23311\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Amanda Gordon.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Also, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cjr.org\/behind_the_news\/cpj_honors_international_journ.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Christie Chisholm wrote about the awards for the Columbia Journalism Review<\/a>, and I wound up in her story because I helped her button her dress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Committee to Protect Journalism has posted the biographical videos (produced by Univision) and acceptance speeches for three of Tuesday&#8217;s International Press Freedom Awards honorees. Here are the links for television reporter Janet Hinostroza of Ecuador; humorist Bassem Youssef of Egypt; and newspaper reporter Nedim \u015eener of Turkey. As I mentioned yesterday, Nguyen Van Hai,&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/thankful-for-press-freedom\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[582,89,80,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-committee-to-protect-journalists-2","8":"category-good-causes","9":"category-obsessions","10":"category-press","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23302"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38013,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23302\/revisions\/38013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}