'Target killing' of journos on the rise
CPJ says 34 of the 53 killed this year singled out for murder
Journalists faced growing dangers of being targeted for killing for their work in 2018 even as the risks from war and conflict declined, a media watchdog said yesterday.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said 34 of the 53 journalists killed on duty this year around the world were "singled out for murder."
"The number of journalists targeted for murder in reprisal for their reporting nearly doubled in 2018 from a year earlier, driving up the overall count of journalists killed on the job," the New York-based watchdog group said in a report.
The reported echoed concerns in a similar report this week from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which found the death toll at 80, using a different methodology that includes bloggers, citizen journalists and media workers.
Both reports cited an alarming increase in reprisals against reporters, highlighted by what CPJ called the "brazen murder" of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
The CPJ report said that while the total number of journalists killed on duty hit its highest level in three years, the number killed in conflict fell to its lowest since 2011.
The press rights group lamented "a lack of international leadership on journalists' rights and safety" that may be increasing the dangers for the news media.