For the second year in a row, the Israel-Hamas war accounted for the majority of journalist deaths, according to data released Wednesday.
Around the world, 124 journalists were killed in 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ. It marks the deadliest year on record for media workers since the press freedom group started keeping track in 1992.
After the 82 journalists killed in Gaza, the countries with the highest deaths are Sudan and Pakistan with six cases each, and Mexico with five.
“It’s indicative of an increased vulnerability for journalists globally,” CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg told VOA about the record-high death toll.
The 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. The group’s researchers have additional cases where they are working to independently verify if journalism was a factor in the death.
People should care about journalist killings, Ginsberg said, because “killing a journalist is the most extreme form of censorship
“It’s journalists who are providing the information and seeking out the information that other people wish to conceal from us,” she said, like government corruption and wrongdoing.
Media safety
The CPJ’s research found Israel accountable for 85 of the cases last year, including 82 in Gaza and three in Lebanon.
The Israel-Hamas war has been the deadliest conflict on record for journalists, according to the CPJ. As of Tuesday, at least 169 media workers have been killed since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel and the Israeli counteroffensive. Nearly all the journalists were Palestinian.
The journalist killings come amid a wider death toll. Israel’s counteroffensive has killed more than 47,500 people and injured more than 100,000 others in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel’s military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants.
A fragile ceasefire agreement has been in place in Gaza since Jan. 19 to allow for exchanges of hostages and prisoners.
Watchdogs say Israel has deliberately targeted journalists in some cases, and the United Nations has flagged a restrictive and unsafe working environment for media, saying that journalists and press freedom need to be “safeguarded.”
Israel’s foreign ministry and military did not reply to VOA emails requesting comment, but Israel has previously denied killing journalists.
A spokesperson in December dismissed data by watchdogs on media killings.
“We don’t accept these figures. We don’t believe they are correct,” spokesperson David Mercer said at a news briefing. He added, without evidence, that Israel believes “most journalists inside Gaza are operating under the auspices of Hamas.”
Behind the high journalist death toll in Gaza are questions about how those in power will be held accountable as the enclave looks to begin rebuilding.
“The attacks on journalists in any country can have long-term repercussions, and certainly the decimation of the Gaza press corps will mean that we have far fewer journalists to hold those in power to account,” Ginsberg said.
Global trends
Outside the Israel-Hamas war, the CPJ documented the killings of 39 other journalists in 16 countries. In countries where watchdogs have long documented violence against the media, journalist killings can have a chilling effect.
In Mexico and Pakistan, reporters have long described how they’ve grown wary of covering sensitive issues like organized crime after their colleagues have been killed.
“Pakistan is really like a minefield,” Pakistani journalist Munizae Jahangir told VOA last year. “You do not know what the no-go areas are. You do not know once you put your foot somewhere what’s going to explode, what’s going to happen to you next. You just have to figure it out.”
The CPJ documented six media killings in Pakistan. Local media groups, which use different criteria, put the figure at around a dozen.
Security issues are a common factor that link countries where journalists are killed, including in Sudan, Pakistan, Haiti and Mexico.
Watch related report by Jessica Jerreat:
One of the two journalists killed in Haiti — Marckendy Natoux — did marketing work for VOA’s Creole Service.
An additional trend in the 2024 data is the vulnerability of freelance journalists who often lack the same resources and safety support that staff reporters receive, according to the CPJ.
At least 43, or more than one-third of the global death toll, are freelancers. Again, most of them — 31 journalists — worked in Gaza.
“It’s critical that those freelancers are provided with the same levels of training and security support as would be given to any member of staff,” Ginsberg said.
The CPJ, for its part, works to help freelance journalists globally through emergency financial grants, which are used for therapy, medical and legal fees or relocation for safety reasons. Other groups, like the Rory Peck Trust, offer safety training for freelance journalists.
Contexts vary by country, but Ginsberg says entrenched impunity, or lack of justice, is another throughline that explains why certain countries are more dangerous.
Haiti, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Mexico, Myanmar and Pakistan also rank among the worst countries in the world in terms of impunity in journalist killings, according to the CPJ.
