Josh’s Acceptance Speech at SPJ Dinner

Good evening. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it tonight to accept this award. But I just couldn’t leave my live-work loft. I’m sure the food there tonight will blow the roof of whatever I will be eating here. I’d like to thank the Society of Professional Journalists for supporting my struggle. SPJ came out on my behalf very early on. They have helped immeasurably – both in terms of getting the word out and also through providing generous aid in my defense. Now tonight I am being honored alongside Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams as Journalists of the Year through our determination to uphold the ethics of the profession against prosecution and persecution. Thank you.I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me including my legal team, Siegel & Yee, First Amendment Project and Martin Garbus. Finding myself in prison has cemented my realization that the US government is engaged in not one, not two, not three, but five simultaneous wars. There are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the so-called wars on terror and drugs, and a covert, undeclared war that thrusts everyone in this room between the cross-hairs – the war on journalism. According to Bill Moyers, as quoted in *Static *by Amy and David Goodman: “There is a desire to silence any dissent in this country by the [Bush] administration. They practice extraordinary media manipulation . . . and this whole attack on me is indicative of how when anyone rises up to speak an alternative truth, an alternative vision of reality, they try to discredit them.” There is a war on journalism and I am a POW. I am not the first. And I will probably not be the last. But I’d like to thank the Northern California chapter of SPJ for recognizing how crucial this matter is and for honoring the resistance of Mark, Lance and myself by naming us Journalists of the Year. Josh Wolf’s acceptance speech at Northern California Society for Professional Journalists dinner on November 9, 2006 SPJ blog post with a picture at: prenpressclub.org