By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Last year was the deadliest year for journalists on record, with the Gaza Strip being the deadliest location, according to multiple reports.

Totals vary depending on organization reports that don’t evaluate the same countries. However, the conclusions are the same: 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists based on data they have collected over the years.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 124 journalists and those working in the media field were killed last year. That’s the most killed since the CPJ began collecting data 30 years ago, it says. Deaths are categorized as confirmed murders, crossfire/combat and dangerous assignment in its latest report.

The overwhelming majority, 70%, were killed covering the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to the data. Last year, 82 reporters were killed in Gaza; 78 were killed in 2023 as a result of the conflict, CPJ states. Some have raised concerns about how many reporters in Gaza were connected to Hamas and who actually killed them.

CPJ notes that as global conflicts doubled over the last five years, more journalists covering them were killed. Excluding the Israel-Palestinian conflict, CPJ documented 39 confirmed deaths of journalists and media workers in 16 countries last year. The most confirmed deaths were reported in Sudan and Pakistan, with six each; five in Mexico; four in Syria; three each in Lebanon, Myanmar and Iraq, and two in Haiti.

Journalists’ deaths last year exceeded a record high of 113 who were killed in 2007 – roughly half of them died covering the Iraq war, the CPJ says.

According to a French-based group, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) (Reporters Without Borders), in 2023 and 2024, more than 145 journalists were killed in countries it tracked.

Fifty-four were killed in 17 countries, with 30% in the Gaza Strip, it said in a recent report. It also argues, “Gaza became the most dangerous region in the world for journalists” last year. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, as of last month, at least 252 reporters were killed in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israel.

“Dying is not an acceptable risk of journalism,” RSF states. It also clarifies, “Journalists do not die, they are killed; they are not in prison, regimes lock them up; they do not disappear, they are kidnapped. These crimes violate international law and too often go unpunished. Journalists are no longer collateral victims but targets, inconvenient witnesses, and even bargaining chips, pawns in a political game.”

At least 550 journalists were detained worldwide in countries RSF analyzed last year. The most were imprisoned in China, Myanmar, Israel, Belarus, Russia, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, it found. This included 298 provisional detentions, 244 imprisonments and eight house arrests, it says.

An additional 55 journalists were held hostage and 95 remain missing, RSF says. Among the missing were 43 “enforced disappearances,” it says.

Top hostage takers were ISIS and Islamic rebel groups in Syria, the RSF analysis found.

In Mexico, five journalists were assassinated in a country where they are “relentlessly persecuted by gangs and armed factions,” RSF said.

According to the independent non-partisan organization, ARTICLE 19, 174 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2000, when the group began reporting murder data. The majority were killed during the Felipe Calderón (48), Andrés Manuel López Obrador (47) and Enrique Peña Nieto (48) administrations, it says.

So far, five journalists have been murdered under the current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, it states. It lists confirmed deaths by name, date, location and provides other information, including details on assassinations.

Article 19 advocates for freedom of the press and free expression worldwide. Citing its namesake, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The reports exclude North America, where Canadian journalists are increasingly being arrested and forcibly detained, and where American journalists are being assaulted and arrested, The Center Square reported.

Last year, the Canadian Association of Journalists demanded that all national, provincial and regional law enforcement agencies “swiftly implement enforceable policies that will prevent journalists from being improperly arrested or detained.” It cites multiple Canadian journalists who were arrested or forcibly detained while reporting in the field.

The Canada Press Freedom Project is also documenting and tracking journalists who are denied access to report on events, arrested and criminally charged, physically attacked, had their equipment destroyed, or were targeted by “chilling statements.”