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

Read More



Russia ramps up pressure on ‘foreign agent’ journalists

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with journalist Pavel Zarubin after his annual televised year-end press conference and phone-in held in Moscow, Russia, December 19, 2024.
Russian President Vladimir Putin after his annual televised year-end press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo:Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool via Reuters)

Russia is seeking to tighten the squeeze on independent voices from March 1 by blocking those designated as “foreign agents” from access to their earnings.

So-called foreign agents will not be allowed to withdraw their earnings unless they are removed from the register. However, the government can withdraw money from agents’ accounts to pay fines imposed for failing to apply that label to their published material or to report on their activities and expenses to the government — a legal requirement since 2020.

While the new law’s full impact remains to be seen, it looms as yet another threat for exiled media outlets already rattled by the prospect of losing funding after U.S. President Donald Trump’s freezing of foreign aid.

-Explore Russia’s repression record

Read more

Safety Resources

Need assistance? Contact us.

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.

In at least 8 out of 10 cases, the murderers of journalists go free. CPJ is waging a global campaign against impunity.

journalists killed in 2025 (motive confirmed)
imprisoned in 2023
missing globally