Executive Director, IPI
The International Press Institute (IPI) says the year 2022, witnessed a devastating decline in journalists’ safety with 66 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in connection with their profession, marking a steep increase from the 45 journalists who were killed in 2021.
The leading factors behind the rise in journalist killings, according to IPI data, were the Spiraling attacks against journalists in Mexico as well as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Fourteen journalists were killed in Mexico in 2022, the deadliest year for the country’s media since 2017. Eight journalists covering Russia’s war in Ukraine, including both Ukrainian and foreign reporters were killed.
The year 2022 also saw other shocking attacks on journalists, such as the fatal shooting of Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, by Israeli forces while reporting on an Israeli raid in the West Bank in May.
IPI has therefore called on authorities around the world to end impunity for these crimes and to ensure the protection of journalists.
Saying that the States’ failure to ensure justice for attacks on journalists continues to provide fertile ground for violence against the press, in 2022, the IPI Database of Killed Journalists documented a total of 66 journalists who were killed in connection with their work or lost their lives on assignment. Eight of them were female and 58 were male.
Its database categorized journalist killings into five, showing that there were 39 targeted killings in 2022, meaning that journalists were murdered due to their work. Seven journalists were killed while covering armed conflict, compared to three cases in this category in 2021. Two were killed while covering civil unrest, and two lost their lives while on assignment. In the remaining 16 cases, the circumstances and motive behind the journalist’s killing remain unconfirmed, but a work-related killing cannot be ruled out.
To read the full report, please visit Journalists Killed in 2022.
