Josh Wolf's Acceptance Speech for SPJ's Journalist of the Year

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, November 9, 2006