2024 deadliest year for journalists; almost 70% killed by Israel

Journalists and other mourners gather around the bodies of four Palestinian journalists and a media worker killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp on December 26, 2024. (Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The free flow of information was dealt a record-setting blow in 2024 as more journalists were killed than in any other year since CPJ began collecting data in 1992. The brutal Israel-Gaza war, along with conflict and political unrest in several other nations, brought the total number of journalists and media workers killed to 124, two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israel.

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 journalist deaths worldwide. 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.

“Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “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.”

CPJ’s annual report on journalists killed also shows an unprecedented number of freelancer deaths – 43 – in 2024.

More in the report

CPJ denounces Trump administration’s retaliation against media

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a White House press briefing in Washington, D.C. on February 12, 2025.(Reuters/Nathan Howard)

CPJ condemns the White House decision to block The Associated Press (AP) from covering official events, calling the action the latest in an alarming pattern of retaliation against a free press in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s administration.

“Retaliating against AP – one of the world’s leading providers of fact-based news – for its content undermines the U.S. president’s stated commitment to free speech and prevents its audience in the U.S. and abroad from getting the news,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “These actions follow a pattern of smearing and penalizing the press from the current administration and are unacceptable.”

Other areas of CPJ concern include retaliatory lawsuits, punitive FCC action, freezing USAID funding, and targeted attacks against journalists and news organizations.

Read More

More From CPJ

Israel-Gaza war

Census: jailed journalists

SPYWARE

Ukraine

Press freedom in the EU

Safety Guides – Easy-to-follow, practical guides for physical, digital, and psychological safety

U.S. Journalist Safety Kit

Emergency Support – CPJ provides emergency support to journalists in distress around the globe

Safety Videos – Practical guidance to journalists covering unrest worldwide

The Committee to Protect Journalists promotes press freedom worldwide.

We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan