Research

Journalists operate at the frontlines of information, often under threat. International law offers them multiple layers of protection, yet enforcement remains inconsistent, and gaps persist. At the foundation lies international human rights law, most notably Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines freedom of opinion and expression as fundamental. This tenet has been reinforced by numerous regional instruments and UN resolutions, underscoring the indispensable role of journalists in democratic societies. In situations of armed conflict, international humanitarian law (IHL) provides explicit safeguards. Journalists are considered civilians and must not be directly targeted...

March 27, 2025 - Source: Forbidden Stories -  On October 9, 2024, Fadi Al-Wahidi was reporting alongside a crew of journalists from Al Jazeera, Al Araby TV, and others, in the Al Saftawi area near Jabalia, when what they claim was an “Israeli quadcopter” initiated a chase that ended with Al-Wahidi being shot in the neck. Forbidden Stories and its partners reconstructed the event that has paralyzed both of his legs. On January 2, 2025, Fadi Al-Wahidi would have celebrated his 25th birthday in the Gaza Strip, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues like Anas...

March 25, 2025 - Source: Havana Times -  The regime has closed or confiscated 61 Nicaraguan media outlets, has 4 reporters in jail, and has forced more than 283 journalists into exile   By Confidencial HAVANA TIMES – When raids, forced closures, media confiscations, and arrests of Nicaraguan journalists seemed like they couldn’t get any worse, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo took it a step further with a bogus court ruling, delivering yet another blow to the national press. Stripping journalists and media directors of their citizenship has been one of the...

March 19, 2025 - Source: Pappas Post -  In May 1948, the body of CBS correspondent George Polk was found floating in Salonika Bay, Greece. His hands and feet were bound and he had been shot in the back of the head. It is widely accepted that he was assassinated, but the mystery of who did it remains unsolved. Polk, 34 years old, was a rising star at the network and was preparing to return to the United States to take up a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Seven months before his death he had...

The Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that journalistic organizations were protected from libel or defamation lawsuits brought by a public figure unless that plaintiff could prove the journalists had acted intentionally. The book, “Murder the Truth," documents a well-funded effort to undo that longstanding protection. William Brangham spoke with author David Enrich for our series, On Democracy.   Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: While the Trump administration eliminates Voice of America, a new book examines another longer-term attack...

March 17, 2025 - Source: Balkan Insight -  BIRN investigations have uncovered how journalists conducting public-interest investigations in Romania were put under surveillance by their targets with the help of law enforcement. “Do you see that guy taking pictures of us?” “Yes.” “Don’t stare. He’s following us.” We were in Bucharest’s Old Town in the spring of 2023, returning from a meeting with a source for a story about the Tate brothers and their alleged connections to Romanian organized crime. Luiza, my partner in life and journalism, stopped to grab some fries from a takeaway shop,...

World Press Freedom Day 2025: Promoting Freedom of Expression Observed annually on May 3, World Press Freedom Day highlights the vital role of journalism in protecting democratic values and fostering informed societies. Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, the day marks the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a milestone in defending press freedom. Origins and Purpose Since its inception, World Press Freedom Day has served as a platform to: Celebrate the principles of press freedom. Reflect on the challenges faced by journalists worldwide. Advocate for the independence and safety of media...

March 16, 2025 - Source: World Economics -  Freedom of the press is the right to circulate opinions in print and other media without censorship by the government. The data below is a relative index on a scale of 0-100 comparing each countries freedom to all others in the database. 0 = Least freedom, 100 Most freedom. Base data source: RSF Reporters Without Borders, Paris Data indexed by: World Economics, London   Read more: https://www.worldeconomics.com/Indicator-Data/ESG/Governance/Press-Freedom/

March 16, 2025 – Source: The Tribune –  ‘I Am on the Hit List’ by Rollo Romig is a detailed investigative analysis of the mystery surrounding the brutal assassination of journalist Gauri Lankesh Here is a book which is bound to touch the reader because of its powerful narrative style. It is a detailed investigative analysis of the mystery surrounding the brutal assassination of journalist Gauri Lankesh. Moreover, it is also a gripping commentary on the fragility of Indian democracy in the light of growing extremism and political disenchantment. What I really appreciate is the...

March 11, 2025 - Source: Net Mission -  Human rights online encompasses digital freedom that protects individuals’ privacy, expression, and access to information in a connected world. These rights are crucial for ensuring democratic participation and safeguarding personal dignity while exercising fundamental rights. Recently, numerous human rights violations have emerged, from unauthorized data scraping by AI companies to systematic harassment of journalists, threatening both privacy and press freedom. To this effect, in this case study, we will be highlighting the rising concerns of surveillance capitalism and authoritarianism worldwide to reveal the urgent need for comprehensive digital rights...

March 08, 2025 - Source: Truth Out -  his January, a Turkish court sentenced Sofya Alağaş, a Kurdish journalist and elected co-mayor of Siirt municipality, to six years and three months in prison on charges of membership in a terror organization. “I honestly don’t know how it will end,” Alağaş told Truthout. “The sentence was not a legal decision but a political one. If the Turkish state takes some steps towards democratization, the case will end with an acquittal. If it doesn’t, it will be approved and I’ll be arrested.” The sentence was the culmination of an...

March 07, 2025 - Source: Monitor - General   Escalating conflict in eastern DRC Civic space is under severe threat in eastern DRC as the armed group M23 has intensified its military offensive. In late January 2025, M23 entered and captured Goma, the capital city of North Kivu province, and later, on 15th February 2025, the city of Bukavu, South Kivu, now effectively occupying Lake Kivu region, while continuing their attacks. The military offensive and fighting between the Armed Forces of DRC (FARD), supported by pro-government armed militia alliance Wazalendo (patriots in Kiswahili), and M23 has cost the lives of at least...

March 03, 2025 - Source: IFJ -  The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has published its 34th annual report on journalists and media staff killed, covering the year 2024. The report documents the deaths of 122 media professionals across the world, including 14 women journalists. The Federation calls for the Member States of the United Nations to urgently adopt the IFJ-led International Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists, in order to end impunity for the killings of journalists worldwide. “This year marks one of the deadliest for journalists, with Palestine being by far...

"Journalism in Times of War" is a comprehensive exploration of the challenges, ethics, and evolving landscape of war reporting, particularly within the Arab world. Edited by Awad Joumaa and Khaled Ramadan, and published by the Al Jazeera Media Institute, the book provides first-hand accounts from journalists who have covered conflicts in Yemen, Palestine, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. It highlights the immense dangers faced by journalists, including censorship, threats, imprisonment, and targeted killings, emphasizing the importance of press freedom and the need for protection mechanisms. The book is divided into three key sections. The first part...

January 09, 2025 - Source: Reuters - Executive summary News organizations are braced for multiple challenges in 2025 that will likely include further attacks from hostile politicians, continued economic headwinds, and battles to protect intellectual property in the face of rapacious AI-driven platforms. Changes to search, in particular, will become a major grievance for a news industry that has already lost social traffic and fears a further decline in visibility as AI interfaces start to generate ‘story like’ answers to news queries. The US election also highlighted the growing power of an alternative news ecosystem...

February 12, 2025 - CPJ Introduction More journalists were killed in 2024 than in any other year since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data more than three decades ago. At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed last year, nearly 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 deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, and Myanmar. But the toll of conflict on...

The media and journalism community acknowledges the profound impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society and is committed to ensuring its responsible integration into journalism. AI presents both opportunities and risks, transforming how news is gathered, analyzed, and disseminated. While AI has the potential to enhance journalism, it must be developed and applied in ways that respect human rights, democracy, and press freedom. Journalists play a crucial role in safeguarding the right to information, and AI should support, rather than undermine, this responsibility. To maintain journalistic integrity, AI systems must adhere to core ethical principles...

January 31, 2025 - Source: JSTOR -  The George Polk Awards are given annually to honor special achievements in journalism. They’re named after a CBS reporter who was murdered while covering the Greek Civil War in May 1948. Polk’s body was found floating in Salonica Bay; he had been tied up and shot in the back of the head. In the violent ambiguity of a civil war between leftists and rightists supported by the Soviets and the United States, respectively, Polk became what investigative journalist I. F. Stone called “the first casualty of the Cold War”—a casualty...

January 31, 2025 – Source: Himal Mag – The delays, denials and obfuscations in the investigation into the Sri Lankan editor’s murder reveals continued impunity around the killing of journalists in Sri Lanka ON THE MORNING of 8 January 2009, Lasantha Wickrematunge, my uncle and the editor of the Sunday Leader, was on his way to work when he noticed black-clad men on motorcycles following him. He had cause to be alarmed, having received death threats – including one just weeks before, scrawled in red ink, which warned, “If you write, you will be killed.” Wickrematunge made...

January 28, 2025 - Source: Lat AM Journalism Review -  The first month of the year has not yet ended, and Latin America has already recorded at least four murders of journalists: two in Mexico, one in Peru and another in Colombia. The figure raises alarm bells for press advocates who see in these numbers evidence of how lethal violence continues to be used to censor the press. “Although the contexts and circumstances are diverse, these crimes are a heartbreaking reminder that Latin America continues to be one of the most dangerous regions in the...

UNESCO reports a 38 percent increase in journalist deaths and urges governments to stop impunity. The killing of journalists worldwide surged in 2022-23 compared with the previous two years, with a majority of cases unsolved, the United Nations has said. On average, one journalist was killed every four days, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in a report released on Saturday. At 162 deaths, the number of journalists killed while working leaped 38 percent, the report found, calling the increase “alarming”. “In 2022 and 2023, a journalist was killed every four days...

January 27, 2025 – Source: Revealing Reality –  Designing a research project to better understand the nature of abuse, threats and harm to journalists in the UK required careful thought – and was just the kind of research design challenge we relish. Commissioned by the DCMS, we needed to measure the prevalence of threats, abuse and violence, examine journalists’ perceptions of safety, explore how these affected their professional and personal lives, and investigate what support they had, what they used, and what they wanted. We took a mixed-methods approach, with the eventual findings drawn from...

January 27, 2025 – Source: The Chronicle –  Prominent political journalists convened Saturday in Penn Pavilion to discuss the implications of a second Trump administration and changing political and media landscapes at the 2025 Zeidman Colloquium on Politics and the Press. Hosted by the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, the colloquium is held biennially in the aftermath of major U.S. elections. This year’s panel — titled “Trump takes charge (again): What his second presidency and a Republican majority mean for America” —  featured insights from Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for The New York Times,...

January 07, 2025 - Source: Outlook -  A record number of journalists were killed in conflict zones in 2024. According to International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), 122 journalists were killed globally, with three verified cases in India. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also reported that nearly 30 per cent of these deaths occurred in the Gaza Strip, making Palestine as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. According to the 2024 World Press Freedom Index published by RSF, journalism is under “significant political pressure worldwide”. The Index, which evaluates the level of press freedom...

In December 2024, IPI’s Africa monitoring program recorded at least 10 incidents of threats to press freedom in nine countries across sub-Saharan Africa. These included six incidents of physical, verbal, or online attacks, including the killing of one journalist, in Sudan. Once again, state actors remained the main perpetrators, responsible for nearly all of the incidents recorded. See the factsheet below or download it here: https://ipi.media/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/africa-factsheet-dec24.pdf In Sudan: on December 8, elements of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed journalist Hanan Adam in the village of Wad Al-Asha in Gezira State. She died following an attack on her...