Today’s guest is Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She is a journalist and press freedom advocate, and at CPJ, she has conducted several missions to Europe and Central Asia, and advocated for greater press freedom and the release of jailed journalists. In this episode, we discuss the state of press freedom across the world in 2023, what work CPJ does to protect journalists and advocate for press freedom, and the impact that global conflicts such as in Ukraine and Gaza have had on journalists operating on the ground.

Full bioGulnoza Said, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, is a journalist and press freedom advocate with over 20 years of experience in New York, Prague, Bratislava, and Tashkent. At CPJ, she has conducted several missions to countries in Europe and Central Asia, and advocated for greater press freedom and the release of jailed journalists at forums including the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the OSCE. Before joining CPJ in 2016, she was a journalist and covered issues including elections, politics, media, religion, and human rights with a focus on Central Asia, Russia, and Turkey. She also worked in communications for the United Nations Secretariat and the UNDP. Her op-eds, reports, and comments have appeared in CNN, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, PBS, NBC, Voice of America, RFE/RL, Fergana, Eurasianet, and other outlets, and she authored the Uzbekistan chapter in a book on the study of social entrepreneurship.