Joel
Simon
Director, Journalism Protection Initiative
Journalism Protection Initiative
Ben Fractenberg
The Journalism Protection Initiative produces research and briefings on emerging threats to journalism, builds tools that help make reporting safer, and administers the Knight Press Freedom Fellowship for journalists facing risk. Our work is grounded in research but built for newsroom reality.
Based at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, JPI is led by Joel Simon, former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, where he spent 15 years working with journalists under threat worldwide.
In addition to our external work, JPI plays an internal role at the Newmark School, working with faculty and administrators to support students. This includes helping ensure that future journalists have the context, resources, and practical skills needed to operate safely and effectively in an increasingly adversarial environment.
Press Freedom Briefings
We regularly commission Press Freedom Briefings from leading experts, responding to the questions newsrooms are asking right now. What we hear shapes what we produce. What would help your newsroom?
How do you support journalists forced to flee their countries?
Record Numbers of Journalists are Fleeing into Exile: How Should US Fellowship Programs Respond?
Robert Mahoney • March 2026
Thousands of journalists worldwide have been driven into exile by authoritarianism, war, and government crackdowns on independent media. Most receive only a few months of emergency support before they’re on their own, and many end up leaving the profession entirely. This briefing examines what fellowship programs and the broader journalism support sector can do to bridge the gap between crisis response and long-term career sustainability, drawing on more than 40 interviews with exiled journalists and support organizations.
How do you prepare for an all-out legal assault?
The Threat of a Broad Legal Assault by Government Against a News Organization
Mike Christie • January 2026
Press freedom in the United States is under increasing strain across legal, regulatory, and political fronts. Newsrooms should assume sustained, multi-pronged pressure is possible and plan in advance. Preparation, not reaction, determines whether an organization can withstand a prolonged challenge.
Developed with media executives, newsroom lawyers, safety experts, and funders, this briefing outlines how such campaigns unfold and what defenses need to be in place beforehand. It covers legal preparedness, crisis communications, physical and digital security, leadership capacity, newsroom resilience, and the role of industry solidarity.
What risks do trans journalists face, and what should newsrooms do?
Safety and Security for Trans, Nonbinary, & Gender-Expansive Journalists
Trans Journalists Association • July 2025
Newsrooms should proactively develop clearly written, accessible, and pre-emptive workplace policies regarding potential areas of conflict. Trans journalists face heightened legal risks in any situation involving ID documents, detention, or facility access. These risks also extend to families that include trans people, whether the trans person is newsroom staff or a child or partner of journalists. This briefing covers current restrictions and what policies should address.
How do you protect your newsroom and your staff from ICE?
Immigration Enforcement and Journalist Safety
Yemile Bucay • July 2025
All U.S. employers are required by law to verify work authorization, not immigration status. You are not required to provide information about employees without a valid judicial warrant. You can ask agents to identify themselves, decline voluntary interviews, and consult legal counsel before responding. This briefing helps newsroom leaders prepare before enforcement actions happen, with guidance on assessing staff risk, cross-border travel, and a cost appendix for immigration legal defense.
What should your board know before a crisis hits?
Board Engagement for Nonprofit Media
Carroll Bogert, former president of The Marshall Project • April 2025
Discussing potential threats in advance will make your board better able to deal with any crisis, should it come. They bear fiduciary responsibility and legal obligations that come into play in a lawsuit or investigation. One critical rule: no individual board member should act on their own. This guide walks through how to brief them, what insurance policies actually cover, and how to prepare for resignations under pressure.
How do you build safety practices without a security team?
Protecting the Truth: A Practical Safety Guide for Small Newsrooms
The Haitian Times • June 2025
No newsroom is too small to be targeted. The key is preparation, not panic. A proactive safety strategy doesn’t require a massive budget, but it does require intention, partnerships, and prioritization. This guide, developed after a swatting attack endangered a Haitian Times editor, walks through eight steps to building safety infrastructure with limited resources.
Safety Tools
How do you prepare for the threats facing journalists today?
Safety Planning Toolkit
Kate Parkinson • March 2026
Press freedom in the United States is under sustained pressure. From lawsuits and coordinated online abuse to physical attacks on journalists and mounting regulatory and political pressure on newsrooms.
The Safety Planning Toolkit maps the current landscape and provides a clear process to identify and classify threats, develop mitigations, access the right resources, and build a safety plan you can use in practice.
What if you don’t have in-house security support?
JESS (Journalist Expert Safety Support)
Not every newsroom has a security team to consult before a difficult assignment. JESS is an AI-powered safety assistant that provides on-demand, expert-vetted guidance, whether you’re preparing to cover a protest, planning international travel, or assessing risk before a sensitive story.
Developed by JPI and the ACOS Alliance, with support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.
Safety Convenings
JPI brings together journalists, editors, legal advocates, safety specialists, and funders to share knowledge and solve problems together.
Throughout the year we host an annual summit with newsroom leaders, public talks on pressing threats, and hands-on training for students and professionals. We’re always looking for new ways to bring people together.
Interested in attending or hosting a session with us?
Knight Press Freedom Fellowship
For journalists who cannot safely continue working in their home countries, the Knight Press Freedom Fellowship provides a path to stay in the profession. Each fellowship is tailored to the journalist’s circumstances and lasts up to one year.
Launched in 2023 and directed by Joel Simon.
Partners: Knight-Wallace Fellowships (Michigan), John S. Knight Fellowships (Stanford), Missouri School of Journalism.
Some of the fellows cannot be named for their safety.
MOHAMMED R. MHAWISH • 2026
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism
Mohammed Mhawish is a Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza. His reporting and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation, and on This American Life. Originally trained in literature and drama, his work stands out for its narrative clarity and careful sourcing under impossible conditions. He won the 2025 Neal Conan Prize for Excellence in Journalism.
GUSTAVO GORRITI • 2025
Missouri School of Journalism
Gustavo Gorriti has spent decades exposing corruption at the highest levels of Latin American government. He led the groundbreaking Lava Jato investigation and founded Peru’s IDL-Reporteros. His earlier work documented the rise of the Shining Path and exposed drug ties within government intelligence services. A Nieman Fellow, he has received both the Maria Moors Cabot Prize and the International Press Freedom Award.
MIKHAIL RUBIN • 2025
Stanford University
Mikhail Rubin is a Russian investigative journalist in exile and deputy editor-in-chief of Proekt, where he has led major investigations into Vladimir Putin and corruption in Russian authorities. His work has earned six Redkollegiya awards, and he was shortlisted for the 2020 European Press Prize for reporting on Yevgeny Prigozhin. He left Russia in 2021 after Proekt was declared “undesirable” and he was labelled a foreign agent. In 2025, he co-authored The Tsar Himself.
BAKTYGUL CHYNYBAEVA • 2024
Knight-Wallace Fellowships, University of Michigan
Baktygul Chynybaeva has covered healthcare, environmental, and human rights issues across Central Asia for more than 20 years. Based in Prague, she reports for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Central Newsroom. Her investigation into the dire state of children’s cancer care in Kyrgyzstan led to significant policy reforms.
MIKHAIL ZYGAR • 2023
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (Inaugural Fellow)
Mikhail Zygar founded TV Rain (Dozhd), Russia’s only independent television news channel, and served as its editor-in-chief. The channel rose to prominence covering the 2011 mass protests against Vladimir Putin. Zygar began his career as a war correspondent for Kommersant, reporting from Iraq, Lebanon, and Darfur. He is the author of “All the Kremlin’s Men” and “War and Punishment,” and won the 2014 CPJ International Press Freedom Award. He fled Russia after authoring a petition against the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Leadership
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