CPJ: 'Attacks on journalists almost always precede attacks on other rights to broader population'

Joining me now from New York is Jodie Ginsberg, the Chief Executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Jodie, thanks again for joining us. Those UN figures make for very grim reading. 189 journalists killed between 2024 and 2025, a 20% increase on the previous period. What explains this particularly sharp rise? Well, of course, what explains this particularly sharp rise is the high level, unprecedented level of killings we've seen of Palestinian journalists in particular, of journalists killed and targeted by Israel. And unfortunately, that follows a pattern that the Committee to Protect Journalists had documented prior to October 7th, 2023 and the current war. which is Palestinian journalists killed by the Israeli army and no one being held accountable in any of those cases. And as UNESCO has reported, one of the great challenges around impunity is if killers of journalists are allowed to literally get away with murder, that creates the conditions in which we see more and more of those attacks. What does it tell us also about the safety of journalism and journalists today. Well, unfortunately, one of the trends that we've been seeing globally is not just this rise in the killings of journalists, but attacks more generally on journalists, an environment in which journalists are increasingly unsafe, journalists being vilified and smeared, harassed online, including by those in positions of power. Almost record numbers of journalists for the last three years in prison and jail, targeted for their work, accused of crimes such as breaches of national security, all as an attempt to control the narrative largely by those in power. And it is a precursor, something that we see in advance of threats to other rights. Attacks on journalists almost always precede attacks on other rights to the broader population. We're also seeing a particularly disturbing toll on female journalists, with 14 killed over the last two years, almost all in conflict zones. Are women journalists facing specific or additional threats? Absolutely. Much of the research shows that female journalists and those from marginalised communities ...are disproportionately expected to be attacked online, for example, they get death threats, they get threats to their families, and unfortunately that can also lead to physical attacks in the real world. If you think about the example in the European Union, in Malta of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist who was killed in 2017, she was subject to countless legal threats And unfortunately, was then killed in a car bomb just outside her home. And that is another example of impunity. We've yet to see justice in that case, despite mountains of evidence against those responsible. And that makes every single journalist in Malta, in the European Union and globally extraordinarily vulnerable. Now, as you mentioned earlier, one persistent example of impunity is the overwhelming scale of mostly Palestinian journalists in Gaza, with nobody being held accountable. So does the international community have the tools, and more importantly, the political will to hold governments, military forces and other armed actors accountable when journalists are killed? Look, this is one of the major problems we have with impunity is often we're expecting the people responsible for the crimes to also mark their own homework to carry out these investigations. And that's why we see impunity persist often for decades, because the governments and those responsible do not want to investigate and hold those responsible to provide justice. What we need, we believe, at CPJ is an international investigative task force that can really look at these cases, establish who are the perpetrators, and then use a variety of international mechanisms, including international courts, to hold those responsible accountable. And we need to see more of a political will to do it. And finally, Jodie, I mean, it's not just drones being used, say, in war zones to harm journalists, but... Across the world, regardless, surveillance technology, spyware, artificial intelligence and the use of digital tools are being used to identify, intimidate or track reporters. So coming back to what you were just talking about, what concrete action can governments and international institutions take to reverse this trend? Well, one of the things that we've been calling for, for example, is sanctions against companies that engage in such spyware technologies. That was something that the United States was taking a lead role in, unfortunately, has rolled back. But also, it's really important that we also know our rights. One of the things that we encourage all journalists to do, and in fact, all citizens to do, is think very, very carefully about their own digital health, their own digital security, You said that they can take as many steps as possible to. To protect themselves, because it is by no means the case, and I want to stress this, that journalists are at risk in war zones or autocracies. Increasingly, journalists are being targeted in democracies, including here in the United States and, of course, in France. And so it's something that we need to take as journalists much more personal responsibility about tackling, as well as continuing to urge government to do more to protect journalists. Jodie Ginsberg, it's been a pleasure speaking to you again. Thank you so much. Thank you.