Every four days, journalists are killed for seeking the truth – and 85% of the unpunished globally.
That grim finding comes from a new UNESCO report on Saturday to mark a United Nations-recognized day calling attention to the prevalence of unpunished crimes against news reporters.
The day will be globally commemorated at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, later next week.
UNESCO verified 162 killings in 2022 and 2023, representing one journalist killed every four days. That's a 38% increase from the 117 killings in the earlier two-year period.
The highest numbers in 2022 and 2023 were in Latin America and the Caribbean (61), followed by the Middle East (35), Asia-Pacific (31), Central and Eastern Europe (15), Africa (14), and Western Europe and North America (6).
UNESCO recorded 72 of those killings, or 44%, in countries that had armed conflict.
"In 2022 and 2023, a journalist was killed every four days simply for doing their vital job to pursue truth," says UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.
"For the vast majority of these cases, no-one will ever be held to account," she says, calling on UNESCO member nations to ensure these crimes never go unpunished. "Prosecuting and convicting the perpetrators is a major lever to prevent future attacks on journalists."
'Justice delayed is justice denied'
There have been at least 1,721 journalists killed for doing their jobs since 1993, when UNESCO began systematic monitoring, and only 210 cases are considered resolved.
The median time it took to resolve those cases was four years. Between 2006 and 2024, around 85% of 1,429 cases did not make it to court, UNESCO reported.
That's a 1% decrease in the impunity rate from 2022 and a 10% decrease from 2012. Nonetheless, the almost nine-in-10 impunity rate remains high, and UNESCO says only 58 of the 78 nations it asked for information about journalist killings either responded or acknowledged the request.
"While the large majority of cases of killed journalists remain unresolved, the cases of journalist killings which are being resolved are taking too long to get there – justice delayed is justice denied," the report says.
"The increase in killings in countries experiencing conflict is concerning, with the potential for these threats directed at journalists to turn conflict areas into "zones of silence," creating information vacuums for the local population and the globe."
