Foreign Policy Blogs

Annual Press Freedom Index Release

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will release their annual Press Freedom Index tomorrow. The report ranks 174 different countries by their committment to press freedom. The Annual World Press Freedom Index for 2009 will include details on progress made by the U.S., alongside a number of high-profile journalist kidnappings.

RSF will hold a press conference at the Overseas Press Club to go over details of the report and what it calls “the precarious situation for journalists covering sensitive and often censored issues by governments.”

During the press conference, RSF will also look at how journalists maintain their safety while detained, some circumstances surrounding arrests, the role of the journalist as “neutral” observer, ethical dilemmas in getting the underreported story and the changing landscape of media in the new online social media age.

Clothilde Le Coz, Reporters Without Borders’ Washington Director,
will present the main findings from the 2009 INDEX

John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, Moderator

Guest speakers will include:
A video of Euna Lee
Producer for Current TV and held in North Korea in 2009
Angela Korchega
Reporter at the US-Mexico border
Ali Alnaemi
Former newsroom manager for the New York Times bureau in Baghdad
John Solomon
Executive editor of The Washington Times

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Press Freedom Worldwide

Launch of the

Reporters Without Borders’
ANNUAL WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2009

Time: 11am – 1 pm
Location: Overseas Press Club
40 West 45 Street – New York, NY 10036

 

Author

Genevieve Belmaker

Genevieve Belmaker is a freelance journalist and contributing editor with The Epoch Times (www.theepochtimes.com). She also contributes to Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists and Poynter.org. Her blog on journalism is http://artofreportage.com.

Genevieve has traveled throughout the U.S., Asia, Central America, Israel and the West Bank for reporting assignments, including major investigative reports on the recovery of New Orleans, the encroaching presence of China in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the dangerous import of melamine-contaminated milk into the U.S. and settlement outposts in the West Bank. She regularly reports on issues related to journalism, and the work of journalists.

She holds a BA from the University of Southern California in International Relations, and has been a member of several prominent national and international professional media organizations, including the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the International Women’s Media Foundation, the New York Press Club, and the Newswomen’s Club of New York. She lives in Jerusalem, Israel with her husband and son.

Areas of Focus:
New Media; Journalism; Culture and Society