A record 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024, the most in any year since the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) began keeping records in 1992.
The Israeli military accounted for 85 of the deaths compared with 78 killings in 2023. The CPJ believes that in ten cases there is evidence journalists were deliberately targeted by Israeli fighters.
The previous deadliest year for journalists was 2007, when 113 deaths were recorded by the CPJ. The CPJ’s database lists 102 journalists and media workers killed in 2023.
Journalists are included in the database if the CPJ “has reasonable grounds to believe they may have been killed in relation to their work”, either through deployment somewhere dangerous or because they were actively targeted for their journalism.
Killings are not counted by the CPJ 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”.
Freelances accounted for 43 of the 2024 deaths (35%) with 31 of them Palestinians reporting from inside Gaza. This is also a record: in the previous worst year for freelance deaths, 2013, 24 were killed. The number of freelances killed has increased each year since 2021, when the figure stood at five.
Palestinian freelances have been the primary source of on-the-ground coverage in Gaza since the current Hamas-Israel war began in October 2023 because Israel does not allow journalists into the strip without a military escort. Overseas news organisations and journalists have repeatedly called for their entry to be permitted, with 55 correspondents signing an open letter on the matter last year.
The CPJ said it provided emergency grants to 114 freelances in 2024, up 31 from 2023. These grants were used “to cover the cost of therapy, medical and legal fees, or relocation for their safety”.
The second-deadliest countries for journalists were Sudan and Pakistan, in each of which six journalists or media workers were killed.
The number of journalists killed in Mexico rose from two in 2023 to five in 2024. Two journalists were killed on Christmas Eve in Haiti as a result of a shooting at a press conference which also injured seven more journalists.
Two journalists were killed in Ukraine in 2024, representing a steep decline from the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of the country. The CPJ said this may have been “due to continued improvements in training and safety awareness, stricter accreditation rules for frontline work and ongoing stabilisation of combat zones”.
Having seen no journalist deaths in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Iraq recorded three journalist deaths last year, which the CPJ connected to joint Iraqi-Turkish military action against Kurdish militants.
The Philippines “marked its first year in two decades without a journalist killing”. No journalists were killed in Somalia, Cameroon or Afghanistan in 2024, although the CPJ cautioned that assaults, intimidation and censorship of media workers remain commonplace in all three countries.
CPJ says 24 journalists murdered in 2024, including ten by Israel
Two dozen journalists were deliberately killed last year, CPJ said, of whom ten were killed by the Israeli military in Gaza or Lebanon “in defiance of international laws that define journalists as civilians during conflict”. The organisation said it is investigating 20 further deaths in which the Israeli military “may have specifically targeted journalists”.
The CPJ said that Israel’s investigations into the killings of journalists had been “slow and not transparent” and that it “often accused journalists of being terrorists without credible evidence”.
In 2023 the CPJ classed ten journalist deaths as deliberate killings. The CPJ says it 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”.
There were also journalist murders in Pakistan (three), Myanmar (three), Haiti (two), Iraq (two), Mexico (one), Mozambique (one), India (one), and Sudan (one), the organisation said.
CPJ chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said: “Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history.
“The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger. Our figures show journalists under attack worldwide.
“The rise in journalist killings is part of a broader trend of muzzling the media globally. This is an issue that should worry us all — because censorship prevents us from addressing corruption and criminality, and from holding the powerful to account.”
The CPJ urged governments to properly acknowledge, condemn and investigate all journalist killings taking place in their jurisdiction, asking for improved protection mechanisms for media including where necessary bodyguards, police patrons, protective custody or installing panic buttons.
The organisation’s many other recommendations included implementation of existing UN Security Council resolutions on the killing of journalists and greater provision of safety and support to freelances by their partner newsrooms.
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