A fatal job. How many journalists have to die?

If you tell people that journalists are being murdered daily, they usually think of war correspondents working in conflict areas.

But you are not talking about war correspondents, though regrettably they too at times are killed. You are talking about media people who are being deliberately murdered. These journalists die because they are doing their job: their reports and comments have angered a government, the military, or some other local power which demands a stop to the flow of critical reporting. An order is given for the journalist to be eliminated. Increasingly, such executions are carried out in a street, in broad daylight, much in the public eye. This in itself is a message to other media people: Toe the line or else.

The lethal message is frequently delivered at the hand of gunmen on motorcycles, usually when a journalist is on the way to and from home. Other methods include organising a group of thugs to corner and beat up media people, break or seize their equipment, ram their cars, or await the victim on home ground. In some cases, the family home is invaded during the dark hours of the night.

Records of such deaths are faithfully kept by several international media organisations, together with Amnesty International. They strive to focus the attention of the world - and world leaders - on the blatant murders and attacks to get something done about them. Since January 1 this year up to the day of writing, April 29, the number of journalists killed totalled 23.

Figures published by the International Press Institute’s Death Watch show them as: Kenya 1, Madagascar 1, Somalia 2, Afghanistan 2. India, 1, Nepal 1, Pakistan 5, Sri Lanka 2, Russia 2, Iraq 2, Palestinian Territories 1, Guatemala 1, Honduras 1, and Venevuela, 1.

Other media organisations involved in keeping watch include the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters San Frontières/RSF) and the South East Asian Press Alliance. They also track imprisonments, detentions, non-lethal bashings, death threats, abductions, disappearances and the use of defamation writs to bully. A visit to their websites makes sober reading. Numbers and details provided by the different organisations occasionally differ somewhat, possibly because of varying criteria, but the message they collectively give is horrifying.

The International Press Institute Death Watch website publishes an annual list of those killed. The details are:

The IPI Death Watch includes journalists deliberately targeted because of their profession - either because of their investigative reporting or simply because they were journalists - but also includes journalists who were caught in crossfire while covering dangerous assignments.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that in March 2009 at least 125 journalists were behind bars around the world, and at least 30 had “disappeared”.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recorded that in 2008, in addition to journalists killed, 929 media people were physically attacked or threatened; 673 journalists were arrested; 353 media outlets were censored; and 29 journalists were kidnapped.