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In 1961, the year CJR was founded, John F. Kennedy delivered a speech called “The President and the Press.” In it, he said, “The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.” But as CJR’s 60th Anniversary Issue shows, defending journalists’ freedoms, in the US and elsewhere, is a long fight—one we have not yet won. In this compliation of pieces from our history, you’ll find dispatches from Argentina’s Dirty War, Richard Nixon’s White House, Palestine’s First Intifada, the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, the Vietnam War, and Pakistan under the Taliban.
For many of those years, journalists enjoyed a monopoly on information. “Journalists talked to everyone, and it was their utility—not international humanitarian law or the norms of the profession—that kept them safe,” Joel Simon writes for the magazine, but “press attention can no longer be counted upon to dissuade the world’s tyrants.” The news this week tells of another journalist killed in Mexico, information warfare in Ukraine, and the arrests of reporters in Myanmar. Still, “even if the power of the media is reduced, it remains considerable,” Simon reminds us. “When their colleagues are under threat around the world, journalists cannot be objective; they must stand together to defend their rights.” ––Savannah Jacobson, story editor
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