Committee to Protect Journalists flooded with donations after Meryl Streep name-drop

When Meryl Streep speaks, people listen — as made evident by the hundreds of donations that came in Sunday night and Monday morning to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

During the Golden Globes, Streep, while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement, said the press is vilified in the U.S., and urged the Hollywood community to support the Committee to Protect Journalists. The New York-based nonprofit's head, Joel Simon, told The Hollywood Reporter that since Streep made her speech, hundreds of "average people" have donated to the group. "I think what keeps the press safe, what allows it to challenge powerful forces, is its utility," he said. "The press serves a vital role in terms of its ability to reach a mass audience with information that these powerful forces want to disseminate."

The organization primarily defends reporters working in war zones and repressive countries, but has recently raised concerns about freedom of the press in the U.S. Simon said when the media criticizes Donald Trump when he's president, he'll be "angry, no question," but it remains to be seen if it will result in "angry rants and tweets" or be "translated into policies that are detrimental to how the media functions."

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