Approximately 115 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 with confirmed motives.
Most deaths likely occurred during the Gaza conflict that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s response.
The data for this insight comes from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
The platform tracks and publishes information on killed, missing, and imprisoned journalists.
TL;DR
- The number of journalist deaths with motive reported on CPJ’s database has grown from 38 in 2001 to 93 in 2025.
- Major wars produce peak journalist casualties during sustained civil conflicts, like in 2007’s Iraq violence, 2023’s Israel-Hamas war, and 2024’s Russia-Ukraine war.
CONTEXT MATTERS HERE:
CPJ is specifically focused on documenting journalists killed in relation to their work. This data, therefore, does not include journalists or media workers who have died due to illness, disease, personal accidents, or other non-work-related causes.
The platform categorizes killings as “Confirmed” when there is credible, verifiable evidence that the death was related to the individual’s work as a journalist.
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Year | Journalist Killed | Media Workers Killed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2001 | 38 | 0 |
| 2 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2002 | 21 | 0 |
| 3 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2003 | 42 | 7 |
| 4 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2004 | 61 | 12 |
| 5 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2005 | 51 | 3 |
| 6 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2006 | 57 | 16 |
| 7 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2007 | 70 | 20 |
| 8 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2008 | 42 | 3 |
| 9 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2009 | 76 | 3 |
| 10 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 09/03/2026 12:56 PM | 2010 | 44 | 4 |
The 2024 Catastrophe
In 2024, around 105 journalists were confirmed killed, making it one of the deadliest years in the 25-year history of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
This closely matches the peak year of 2007 during the Iraq War, when 90 journalists and media workers lost their lives according to the dataset.
Most of the 2024 deaths stemmed from conflicts in Gaza, where nearly two-thirds of the victims were Palestinian journalists targeted during the Israel-Gaza war. CPJ data show that ongoing hostilities have increased the dangers for journalists, surpassing previous records.
CPJ investigations confirm these deaths were related to journalists’ work, emphasizing the need for stronger international protections.
The Gaza War Connection
According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism, approximately 72 journalists were killed in the Israel-Gaza war that began on October 7, 2023.
Most of the victims were Palestinians in Gaza. This represented a significant increase in threats against the press during the conflict.
In 2024, about 85 journalists died, including 82 in Gaza and 3 in Lebanon, mainly due to Israeli military actions. The data underscores the dangerous environment for media workers in the region.
From 2023 to 2025, roughly 279 journalists were reported killed.
This exceeds the toll in other global conflict zones, making it the deadliest recent conflict for journalists, surpassing even the peaks of the Iraq War, according to CPJ data.
The Lost Progress (2016-2021)
From 2016 to 2021, the number of journalist deaths declined, reaching its lowest levels between 2018 and 2021, with approximately 30 confirmed deaths annually.
Statista data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the number of journalist deaths was at its lowest, averaging about 30 per year—28 in 2019, 32 in 2020, and 29 in 2021.
This suggests that journalism became somewhat safer globally during this period.
Part of the decline was linked to the defeat of ISIS and the stalemate in Syria, which gave hope that journalism was becoming safer worldwide.
However, this downward trend reversed in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. That year, 42 journalists were reported to have been killed, which followed 81 deaths in the next year.
2026 Outlook
As of March 1, 2026, only two months of data are available, and the chart shows just four confirmed journalist deaths.
The question remains: Is this the new normal?
With wars in the Middle East unresolved and obstacles to journalist safety, the trend seems likely to persist unless the international community intervenes to address the threats.
ELI5
CPJ’s database tracks and publishes information on killed, missing, and imprisoned journalists. Based on that information, we saw that 105 journalists were killed with motive in 2024. It’s the highest number since tracking began in 2001.
The trend had a brief relief between 2016 and 2021, when the number of deaths dropped to 30. But it started increasing again after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
This could mean there’s a “new normal,” where being a journalist in war zones is very risky if conflicts keep going into 2026.
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