https://cpj.org/special-reports/2024-is-deadliest-year-for-journalists-i...
The number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal, or military in nature – has doubled in the past five years, and this is reflected in the high number of deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, and Myanmar. But the toll of conflict on the press is most glaring in the unprecedented number of journalists and media workers killed in the Israel-Gaza war, 85 in 2024, and 78 in 2023.
All of the 2024 killings point to the increased dangers facing reporters and media workers – and the threat that poses to the flow of information worldwide.
The global total of 124 deaths exceeds the record high of 113 killed in 2007, when the Iraq war accounted for almost half of journalist casualties. Outside of Gaza (82) and Lebanon (3), CPJ documented the killing of 39 other journalists and media workers in 16 nations, with the deadliest being Sudan (6), Pakistan (6), Mexico (5), Syria (4), Myanmar (3), Iraq (3), and Haiti (2) during 2024.
Conditions can grow more lethal for the press when those who kill journalists are not held to account. And fewer journalists means less information for citizens seeking the truth.
CPJ records a journalist’s killing in its database if it has reasonable grounds to believe they may have been killed in relation to their work: either killed accidentally in a conflict zone or on a dangerous assignment, or killed deliberately because of their journalism. See our methodology here.
Voices silenced in 2024
Hamza Al Dahdouh
Murdered in Gaza
A 27-year-old camera operator for Al Jazeera, Al Dahdouh was targeted in an Israeli drone strike on January 7, along with freelance video journalist Mustafa Thuraya, as they were returning from reporting on refugees displaced by Israeli bombings in southern Gaza.
Al Dahdouh’s father, Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al Dahdouh, had lost four other family members in Israeli attacks before the murder of his son.
Israel made unsubstantiated claims that Al Dahdouh was a terrorist, accusations his outlet and family vehemently denied. “He, like so many journalists before him, was killed simply for doing his job and for shining a light on events that the Israeli army would rather stay in the dark and hidden from scrutiny,” Al Jazeera told Middle East Eye. (Screenshot: Channel 4 News/YouTube)
CPJ research found that at least 24 journalists worldwide were deliberately killed because of their work in 2024. In Gaza and Lebanon, CPJ documented 10 cases where journalists were deliberately targeted. (These cases are defined as “murder” in CPJ’s long-standing classification system. This classification should not be taken to suggest that any of the other killings in our database are considered lawful, but rather that CPJ has not been able to determine whether that individual was singled out specifically in relation to their work.)
The murder cases include Ismail Al Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist working for the Al Jazeera Arabic TV channel, who was killed in July with his colleague Rami Al Refee, by an Israeli drone strike on their car. Al Ghoul and Al Refee were leaving a refugee camp near Gaza City where they had been reporting.
In a July 31 statement, Al Jazeera described the murders as “part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families.” Israel confirmed the killing, alleging that Al Ghoul was a Hamas operative, and producing dubious evidence suggesting Al Ghoul received a military ranking when was 10 years old, which was questioned by experts and rejected by Al Jazeera. The tactic of smearing journalists as terrorists without providing evidence is one increasingly adopted by both authoritarian regimes and supposedly democratic countries alike, and is an issue that CPJ has called repeatedly on the international community to address.
CPJ considers journalists to have been murdered if there is credible evidence that they were targeted, either in a premeditated or spontaneous way, in connection with their work.
CPJ is investigating 20 further killings in which it believes Israel may have specifically targeted journalists. Journalists are considered civilians in international humanitarian law and targeting them in a conflict is a war crime.
Journalists not in CPJ’s database
CPJ does not include journalists if there is evidence that they were inciting violence with imminent effect or directly participating as combatants in armed conflict at the time of their deaths. Under international humanitarian law, journalists affiliated with an armed non-state actor – even one classified as a terrorist group by some countries – are considered civilians, not combatants, unless they are directly participating in the hostilities.
The other 14 journalists whose deaths CPJ was able to categorize definitively as murders in 2024 lived in Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan, Myanmar, Mozambique, India, Iraq, and Sudan. In addition to those murdered, CPJ documented numerous work-related killings of journalists caught in combat or crossfire, or while they were on dangerous assignments.
Among the 85 journalists killed by Israel last year were Ahmed Abu Skheil and his sister, Zahraa Abu Skheil, who both died in a school bombing in November, and whose three journalist cousins were also killed in March. In Lebanon, Wissam Kassem, Ghassan Najjar, and media worker Mohammed Reda were murdered in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon; and 18-year-old AlHassan Hamad, a freelance photographer killed in a drone strike on October 6, the youngest journalist whose death CPJ documented in 2024.
In Sudan, where almost two years of devastating civil war have left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced, CPJ found that three journalists were killed in connection with their work and is investigating the motive for the killing of a fourth; two media workers also were killed. Pakistan, which had not had a journalist killed since 2021, also reached six deaths as political unrest and media censorship surged. These nations had the second-highest number of journalists killed globally in 2024, after Israel.
More than one-third – 43 – of all journalists and media workers killed were freelancers – another grim new record for self-employed members of the press who often face the most danger because they have the fewest resources. Thirty-one of those freelancers were killed in Gaza, rising from 14 in 2023. Many Gaza journalists became freelancers after their outlets were destroyed, their coverage proving crucial for global media outlets because Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering the Strip except on tightly controlled visits led by the military.
Persistent impunity
The death tolls in Mexico, Pakistan, India, and Iraq reinforced the extreme dangers journalists face in these nations, which have experienced repeated killings over multiple decades despite numerous efforts in some of these countries, including at the national level, to address this.
In Mexico, consistently classified as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, the number killed rose from two in 2023 to five in 2024 after a period of relative calm between gangs and political groups ahead of the June 2024 election. Those killed include Mauricio Cruz Solís, shot by unidentified assailants in Uruapan, a city in the southwestern state of Michoacán, moments after he interviewed Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo about a recent local market fire. The motives for four killings remain unconfirmed, including that of Patricia Ramírez González, also known as Paty Bunbury, who was shot to death less than 24 hours after Solís while working on her side job at an eatery. In one case, veteran journalist Alejandro Martínez Noguez was shot in August while under police protection, illustrating persistent flaws in Mexico’s mechanisms that are supposed to protect journalists.
Voices silenced in 2024
Patricia Ramírez González
Killed in Mexico – motive unconfirmed
Also known as Paty Bunbury, Ramírez González was shot and killed in a restaurant she ran to supplement her career as an entertainment journalist for Hechos newspaper. She was the second Mexican journalist killed in less than 24 hours following the October 29, 2024, shooting of Mauricio Cruz Solís.
Ramírez González became the 89th journalist in Mexico since 1992 whose killing is still under investigation – classified by CPJ as motive unconfirmed – for whether it was journalism-related.
Mexico’s journalist killings, unlike those in many other countries, are more often unconfirmed than confirmed (65 in 32 years), which exemplifies the difficulty of investigating and prosecuting crimes in nations plagued by corruption and crime. (Photo: Courtesy of Mario Alberto Gaitán)
Mexico’s justice system also falls short; in many cases, authorities fail to investigate motives, suspects, and details of journalist deaths, so killers remain free, unidentified, and unaccountable. Mexico consistently ranks among the top 10 countries globally with the worst records of impunity in journalists’ murders. In a 2024 report, CPJ and Amnesty International called on Mexico to strengthen its federal protections of journalists, which it said were “deeply flawed” and often “deny, weaken or withdraw journalists’ protective measures, despite the clear and present dangers journalists continue to face.”
In Myanmar, rebel forces’ intensifying resistance to the military regime resulted in the murders of three journalists, including childhood friends Htet Myat Thu and Win Htut Oo, shot and killed by security forces during a raid on Hytet Myat Thu’s home. As the junta loses ground to the rebel forces, it is doubling down on ferreting out and targeting underground reporters, who are increasingly treated as enemy combatants.
Voices silenced in 2024
Jimmy Jean
Murdered in Haiti
A 44-year-old father of six, reporter Jimmy Jean was covering a media event on December 24 at the General Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince when suspected gang members opened fire as journalists gathered at the hospital gates.
Jean, a reporter and host for online outlet Moun Afe Bon, and freelance journalist Marckendy Natoux were killed and seven others injured at the event to mark the reopening of a hospital wing closed after a gang attack earlier in the year. A local gang leader claimed responsibility for the attack shortly afterward, saying a gang coalition had not authorized the hospital reopening.
Jean’s unattended body lay in the street for more than two hours before an ambulance was able to take him to a morgue. (Photo credit: Screengrab Beleza Haiti News/YouTube)
Haiti’s four-year string of journalist killings continued with two murders in 2024, as gang violence remained rampant. The fatal Christmas Eve shootings of reporters Jimmy Jean and Markendy Natoux at a press conference to re-open a hospital wing also injured seven other journalists. Eleven journalists have been killed – eight of them murdered – since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse plunged the country into chaos.
While gang killings are common in Mexico and Haiti, Haiti’s lawlessness sets it apart as gangs now openly claim responsibility for journalist killings. In Mexico, culprits can remain in the shadows for years.
CPJ research has found that countries that try to bury evidence of killings, shift blame, and avoid accountability not only extinguish the possibility of justice, they make conditions potentially more lethal for journalists. Here’s how CPJ recommends this deadly cycle be stopped.
The Philippines marked its first year in two decades without a journalist killing, which analysts said could indicate that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has taken a comparatively milder tone toward the press than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who frequently threatened the media.
The reverse has happened in Iraq, which saw a wave of journalist killings from 2003 to 2020 and then no deaths until 2024, when Iraq and Turkey agreed to cooperate in operations against Kurdish militants. This resulted in escalating violence that killed three journalists, two of whom, Gulistan Tara and Hero Bahadin, were killed in a drone strike.
Killings are not the only indicators of a dangerous media landscape. No journalists were killed in Somalia, Cameroon, or Afghanistan in 2024, but reporters still faced other forms of pressure. In Somalia, they were arrested and assaulted for covering subjects like the country’s security services. In Cameroon, where two journalists were murdered in 2023, journalists were assaulted, detained, and censored in 2024. In Afghanistan, the Taliban continued to intimidate, censor, and arrest journalists.
Voices silenced in 2024
Viktoria Roshchina
Killed in Russia – dangerous assignment
27-year-old Ukrainian freelance journalist Viktoria Roshchina died on September 19, while being transferred in Russia for a prisoner exchange.
Roshchina, who covered the war in Ukraine for several Ukrainian media outlets, went missing on August 3, 2023, while reporting on eastern Ukraine. Her detention was confirmed by Russia in April 2024. Russian forces had previously detained her for 10 days in 2022.
Ukraine is investigating her death under the Ukrainian criminal code, which pertains to the “violation of the laws and customs of war combined with intentional murder.” A statement signed by 270 media representatives said that Roshchina had been healthy before her imprisonment and that there was “every reason” to believe her death was either intentional murder or the result of her treatment in Russian captivity. (Photo: Courtesy of Hromadske)
The number of journalists and media workers killed in Ukraine dropped in 2024, possibly due to continued improvements in training and safety awareness, stricter accreditation rules for frontline work, and ongoing stabilization of combat zones. Fifteen were killed in Ukraine in the first few months following Russia’s full- scale invasion in 2022 and two were killed in 2023. In 2024, Reuters security adviser Ryan Evans was killed in a Russian missile strike in eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina, detained in August 2023 while reporting on the war, died in Russian custody. The year 2024 also saw possible targeted attacks that left several journalists injured.
More on journalist killings
Key takeaways
Unprecedented killings of freelancers
Freelance journalists, often the first or only media present in the most dangerous conflict zones, were killed at an unprecedented rate in 2024. Forty-three died in 2024; 31 of those were Palestinians in Gaza, where freelancers stepped in to fill the information void after many news outlets ceased to operate.
CPJ’s data shows that freelancer killings rose steadily from 2020 before spiking upwards in 2024, indicating an ever-riskier global environment for these journalists, many of whom report from conflict zones and contribute to major media outlets. Some outlets have taken measures to protect freelancers, but the typical freelancer frequently works alone, without staffers’ access to protective equipment, security guards, insurance for medical treatment, or benefits that would help surviving family members.
Beyond conflict zones, freelance journalists often face heightened vulnerabilities and uncertainty due to their independent status, and may lack institutional support or legal protections, which can affect their safety. They are particularly exposed to harassment, threats of violence, and legal actions.
In 2024, CPJ provided financial assistance to 114 freelance journalists in the form of emergency grants, 31 more than in 2023. Freelance journalists used the grants to cover the cost of therapy, medical and legal fees, or relocation for their safety. CPJ also collaborates with its partners in the Journalists in Distress Network to refer the family members of freelance journalists to relevant sources of support when needed, and provides safety guidance for freelancers working in conflict zones.
Murders: Disturbing upticks, and drones
Establishing whether a journalist has been killed deliberately for their work (as opposed to being caught in crossfire because they were working in a conflict zone) is extremely challenging and made harder because few journalist killings are ever properly investigated or those responsible held accountable.
CPJ only designates a killing as murder when its research indicates that there is clear evidence to suggest that the journalist was killed because of their work. Last year is therefore a year of particular concern because it saw an alarming rise in the number of targeted killings, including 10 by Israel. In 2023, CPJ classified one killing, that of Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah, as murder. Israel’s 2024 murders included the December 26 killings of four journalists and a media worker whose van marked “Press” was targeted by an Israeli strike: Fadi Hassouna, Mohammed Al-Ladaa, Faisal Abu Al Qumsan, Ayman Al Gedi, and Ibrahim Sheikh Ali.
There were also upticks in Pakistan, Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico, and Iraq murders, none of which had any documented in 2023.
In Pakistan, three of the six journalists killed last year were murdered; one, Nasrullah Gadani, following his reporting on a parliamentarian; two others, Kamran Dawar and Khalil Jibran, after they reported on militant activity.
Voices silenced in 2024
Albino Sibia (Mano Shottas)
Murdered in Mozambique
A police officer in the Mozambican border town of Ressano Garcia shot blogger Albino Sibia twice in the back on December 12 while he was broadcasting live on his Facebook page.
Sibia, 30, who went by the nickname Mano Shottas, was filming police tear-gassing homes to break up a protest over potential water contamination, while commenting, “There are children in that house.” In the live broadcast, which has been shared widely online, gunshots are heard and then Sibia films himself lying on the ground saying, “They’ve shot me… I’m dying.”
Sibia, who was also a musician, ran two Facebook pages where he reported on local problems like crime and poor infrastructure, according to CPJ’s review. During his December 14 funeral, police opened fire on the service, killing two people, according to media reports. (Screenshot: Sibia’s last broadcast, via José Pimentel Teixeira/ YouTube)
In Sudan, the six press killings included the murder of investigative journalist Muawiya Abdel Razek, who had been accused in 2023 by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of working with Sudan’s military intelligence.
Drones also have been increasingly used in targeted murders. Four of the 10 journalists murdered in Gaza in 2024 were killed by drone strikes, and CPJ recorded several others who were or may have been targeted by Turkish drones in Iraq and Syria. These incidents appear to have increased in number and severity since 2023, when CPJ documented one suspected drone killing in Gaza, and three drone attack injuries in Gaza, Russia, and Ukraine.
Even in nations where journalists have been murdered with guns, such as Pakistan, Sudan, and Mexico, armed drones are being increasingly used in military or criminal operations, posing a risk to journalists and other civilians.
Voices silenced in 2024
Win Htut Oo
Murdered in Myanmar
Win Htut Oo, 28, a journalist with the exile-run Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), was shot and killed on August 20 along with a childhood friend, reporter Htet Myat Thu, during a raid at the latter’s house in southern Myanmar. Two members of the Kyaikhto Revolution Force armed group, one of several resisting the military junta since it took power in a 2021 coup, also were killed in the attack.
Win Htut Oo began working as a citizen journalist for DVB in 2022 and had been a staff reporter covering news in Mon State for over a year at the time of his death, editor Aye Chan Naing told CPJ.
Both reporters’ bodies were reported to have been cremated without being returned to their families. (Photo: Courtesy of DVB)
Stifle, blame, and ignore
The deadliest nations for journalists share a common playbook to help them dodge responsibility and deny justice for killed journalists. Some stifle investigations of incidents, shift blame to the journalist victims themselves, and most simply ignore their duty to hold killers to account.
Israel has used all of these tactics, even before the latest war began after Hamas’ deadly October 7, 2023, raid on Israel. In CPJ’s May 2023 report “Deadly Pattern,” CPJ noted that Israel’s inquiries into its soldiers’ killings of journalists were “slow and not transparent,” that it often accused journalists of being terrorists without credible evidence, and that after 22 years, none of the killers of the 20 journalists who died by Israeli fire has ever been held to account.
Other nations have deployed similar actions:
- Pakistan has a long history of failing to investigate journalist killings and holding no one to account.
- Sudan’s paramilitary forces and Myanmar’s military forces are targeting journalists as enemies, instead of treating them as civilians.
- Mexican authorities have both stifled investigations into killings and failed to adequately protect journalists from lethal threats.
- In Syria, journalists were targeted and killed by President Bashar Al Assad’s regime with no accountability for years, making it a nation with one of the worst records of letting journalists’ killers go free. It remains unclear whether the new Syrian government will heed calls to pursue accountability in the wake of Assad’s fall.
CPJ research has found that countries that try to bury evidence of killings, shift blame, and avoid accountability not only extinguish the possibility of justice, they make conditions potentially more lethal for journalists. Persistent impunity emboldens those who seek to target the press, resulting in more journalist victims and less information for citizens seeking the truth.
The record toll of 2024 is a grim indicator of that deadly downward spiral.
Recommendations to deliver accountability and end impunity
The Committee to Protect Journalists makes the following recommendations to prevent the killing of journalists and stop the entrenched impunity plaguing media killings. These recommendations are anchored in CPJ’s more than 40 years of experience with partner organizations and journalists around the world. They also deepen and advance the recommendations made by previous U.N. Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in 2012 and 2019, as well as the U.N. Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.
Recommendations
- Governments
- Governments are chiefly responsible for ensuring the safety of journalists and for investigating all attacks, in particular killings, taking place in or under their jurisdiction. As such, they must:
– Publicly acknowledge and condemn journalist killings, and refrain from political rhetoric that vilifies journalists for their work and contributes to an environment that compromises their safety and diminishes the political will to protect them and deliver justice.
– Embed media freedom and accountability for crimes against journalists into diplomatic efforts, including the use of targeted sanctions against perpetrators of such crimes, including but not limited to killings.
– Promptly and exhaustively investigate all cases of journalists killed in relation to their work, following international investigation standards, such as those set forth in the Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary, and Summary Executions known as the Minnesota Protocol, which calls for prompt, effective, independent, impartial, and transparent investigations.
– Governments, in particular members of the Media Freedom Coalition, should urgently support the establishment of an independent international investigative task force focused on crimes against journalists. A blueprint for a body, initially proposed in 2020 by a panel of legal experts, could deploy resources or advise in situations where local law enforcement may be lacking either capacity or political will to investigate crimes against journalists.
– In cases where the killing of a journalist likely amounts to an international crime, states should consider invoking universal jurisdiction to ensure accountability, irrespective of the nationality of the journalist or alleged perpetrator, or where the crime was committed.
– Where applicable, governments should also hold accountable companies for the use of their technology in cases where journalists were targeted or harmed, and take steps to mitigate the procurement, export, or use of spyware and other surveillance technologies that could be used to harm journalists.
– Ensure that there is effective access to remedy for impacted journalists and/or their families.
- Governments must adopt and implement effective protection mechanisms and preventive measures to protect the lives of journalists. This includes:
– Establishing or where existent, strengthening, protection mechanisms – such as processes for assigning bodyguards or police patrols, offering protective custody and witness protection programs, and installing panic buttons – in consultation with journalists, civil society, legal experts, and other stakeholders. Governments providing such mechanisms must guarantee their adequate funding, staffing, and well-trained personnel while ensuring they operate in a transparent and inclusive manner.
– Ensuring security agencies and other government authorities have effective procedures for transnational cooperation and intelligence-sharing in respect of threats to journalists. This includes establishing effective processes to warn journalists – regardless of their nationality or location – if a government agency becomes aware of a credible and imminent domestic or transnational threat to a journalist’s life.
– Reviewing and reforming rules of engagement to prevent the targeting of journalists working in conflict zones, in line with the U.N.’s recommendation to stop the unwarranted use of lethal force. These directives should convey to all security forces, publicly and privately, that the use of lethal force against journalists – who are civilians performing their jobs – is prohibited, and make clear that forces must refrain from opening fire on individuals with press insignia.
- Finance and facilitate the work of civil society and nonprofit media organizations, particularly for programs to end impunity in journalist killings and for journalistic investigations that can unearth evidence and contribute to justice.
- Meaningfully engage with multilateral efforts to address journalist safety, including:
– Implementation of the U.N .Plan of Action steered by UNESCO, and the recommendations contained in its biennial reports on the safety of journalists and danger of impunity.
– Engaging with and implementing the recommendations on the safety of journalists made under the universal periodic review mechanism by human rights treaty bodies, U.N. special procedures, and regional human rights mechanisms.
In countries experiencing armed conflict, parties to the conflict, peacemakers, and the wider international community should:
- Cooperate with the International Court of Justice and any International Criminal Court investigations and warrants resulting from legal submissions alleging war crimes against journalists.
- Ensure journalists are recognized as civilians who must be protected under international humanitarian law, even when conducting dangerous assignments in conflict zones. Armed forces should receive training on the legitimacy of the presence of journalists during non-armed and armed conflict and the necessity of legal protection for their safety, and respect the inclusion of media offices on civilian no-strike lists.
- Incorporate media freedom and journalist safety provisions into ceasefire and peace agreements. Media and communications provisions are routinely part of ceasefire and peace agreements, with over 487 of these from 1990 to 2020 including media, most extensively in the Colombian peace process.
- Include journalists in the design of transitional justice efforts, ensuring that independent investigations are conducted where journalists were subject to targeted abuse, killing, or detention.
- Multilateral institutions and regional human rights bodies
- Existing instruments for the protection of journalists – who provide lifesaving information, factual and independent reporting that informs our understanding of root causes of conflict, of the needs of vulnerable populations, and document potential war crimes – must be fully implemented. The U.N. Security Council must urgently implement Resolution 2222 (2015) and Human Rights Council Resolution 33/2 (2016), which mandates member states to prevent, protect and prosecute in order to end impunity in the killing of journalists.
- Regional human rights bodies and relevant United Nations bodies and agencies, such as the Human Rights Council, special procedures and the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with rapporteurs mandated by regional bodies, should prioritize highlighting the rights of journalists and a free press as a fundamental pillar and enabler of other rights, even in oppressive environments.
- Members of the Media Freedom Coalition, a group of more than 50 governments that seek to promote and protect a free press, have a special responsibility to prioritize journalist protection by engaging in robust and sustained diplomatic efforts and public pressure, particularly in life-threatening cases, as well as by taking steps to ensure that all members implement the recommendations listed above.
- The European External Action Service and European Union member states should strengthen the tools of the European Union to challenge impunity, including improving the effectiveness of human rights dialogues; calling for sanctions against perpetrators where applicable; building in robust clauses on tackling the causes of impunity into international agreements and ensuring their effective assessment; and continuing to support EEAS staff, including at EU delegation level, to develop or support preventative protection measures for journalists as well as early warning mechanisms to identify and mitigate threats of violence.
- The Council of Europe should urge and strengthen support to all 46 member states to prioritize steps to tackle impunity, including by reforming and strengthening judicial and law enforcement, in line with Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors.
- Media organizations & technology companies
News organizations, whether public or privately held, have a responsibility to support journalists and media workers who face security threats, violence, or other retaliation as a result of their work. They must:
- Alert and/or cooperate with local authorities conducting investigations of killed journalists or in the implementation of protective measures in a swift manner that contributes to accountability or ensures the journalist’s safety.
- Conduct risk assessments – of both digital and physical threats – for all journalists, media workers, and freelancers and provide digital and physical security training for all journalists and media workers, regardless of their employment status. Training for journalists and media workers in high-risk situations should be tailored to include, where relevant, a focus on the complexities of reporting in armed conflicts or weak governance zones
- Provide protective gear, first aid, and security equipment for all staff or freelance employees who face risk of violence due to the nature or location of their work.
- Establish mechanisms that facilitate and encourage journalists, media workers and/or their families to report threats or risks to their safety, and that have effective internal processes for responding and reducing the risk of such threats.
- Treat freelancers and staff equally in regards to safety and support, including ensuring freelancers receive the same level of holistic safety and first aid training and relevant safety equipment. This includes taking the same responsibility for a freelancer’s wellbeing in the event of injury or kidnap as for staff journalists and media workers.
- Cooperate and coordinate with other media and news organizations to share information regarding credible threats and safety risks. For example, by joining or adhering to the principles established by the A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance, the global coalition of over 150 news organizations, journalist associations, and press freedom NGOs working together to champion safe and responsible journalism practices.
Technology companies should comply with their responsibility to respect human rights. This includes, at a minimum: implementing the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and refraining from exporting armed drones, surveillance or other technology, or sharing private data with governments or third-parties, when there is significant risk that the technology or information will be used to target or harm journalists or otherwise violate international human rights law.
How CPJ documents killings of journalists and media workers
CPJ researchers take extensive steps to confirm information from a minimum of two sources about every casualty listed in our database. The first step is to examine each case to determine whether the victim met our definition of a journalist – someone who covered news or commented on public affairs through any medium – by reviewing examples of their previous work.
Our next step is to investigate whether the journalist’s death was work-related (classified as confirmed), by speaking to as many colleagues, family members, supervisors, and friends as possible to verify the backgrounds and affiliations of those killed and the likely motives for their killings.
Determining these circumstances can sometimes take months or years – especially in war zones – and we routinely update our database when we obtain new information. We have both removed and added journalists to our database in this and prior years when new data has shown those changes were necessary.
See more about our methodology for documenting journalist deaths below and here.
