Media Freedom: CPJ Partners With ‘Forbidden Stories’ Organization To Strengthen Journalist Safety

By Committee To Protect Journalists

Photos: YouTube Screenshots

New York, February 8, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists and Forbidden Stories announced on Thursday a new partnership to strengthen their ability to assist journalists worldwide.

The partnership will see the two nonprofits share journalists’ requests for financial and non-financial support, including security assistance, with each other, as well as information about journalists who have been killed, jailed, or threatened.

CPJ provides comprehensive, life-saving support to journalists and media workers around the world, including safety consultations, up-to-date security information, and rapid response assistance to those who are injured, forced to flee, or imprisoned for their work.

Forbidden Stories’ “SafeBox Network” allows journalists at risk to share documents and information via a secure platform and it works with media partners to publish the investigations of reporters who have been threatened, jailed, or killed to ensure that their stories do not disappear with them.

“Forbidden Stories has shown that killing a journalist won’t kill their story,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “This partnership will magnify both our organizations’ efforts to protect journalists and their work, secure justice for murdered journalists or those unjustly jailed, and ensure the corrupt and the criminal are held to account.”

As part of the new initiative, CPJ will provide safety consultations to journalists working with Forbidden Stories, while journalists seeking CPJ’s assistance will be able to use Forbidden Stories’ “SafeBox Network.”

“In 2024, journalists continue to be targeted and murdered for their work. With this partnership, we are joining forces to keep stories alive and to send a strong message to the enemies of the press: there is no point in killing a journalist,” said Forbidden Stories’ Founder and Executive Director Laurent Richard.

Both organizations have made commitments to step up collaborations with like-minded partners to reverse the global decline in media freedom and address rising attacks on journalists worldwide.

You can read more about CPJ’s strategy, including its increased direct assistance to journalists at risk, here.

About the Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.