The deaths of four journalists in the US yesterday drove the total number of journalists and media workers killed so far this year to 51.

The death toll is normally released at the end of the year, but press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, RSF) said the six-month figure is so “alarming” they have released it early – and that was before the fatal shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland, in which a sales assistant for the newspaper was also killed.

Forty journalists, nine citizen journalists and two media assistants have been killed globally in 2018 so far.