Joel Simon is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists and has written widely on media issues. He is a regular contributor to Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review, and his articles and commentary have appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, World Policy Journal, and other publications. He is also the author of Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge (1997) and We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom (2019).