The number of journalists killed over their reporting worldwide has risen to 67 between 1 December 2024 and 1 December 2025 (66 journalists were killed in the same period in 2023 – 2024). Of these, at least 53 were victims of war or organised crime.
The data was released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on 9 December.
Nearly half (43%) of the journalists slain in the past 12 months were killed in Gaza by Israeli armed forces. In Ukraine, the Russian army continues to target foreign and Ukrainian reporters. Sudan has also emerged as an exceptionally deadly war zone for news professionals.
In Mexico, organised crime groups are responsible for the alarming spike in journalist murders seen in 2025. This year has been the deadliest of the past three years — at least — and Mexico is the second most dangerous country in the world for journalists, with nine killed. The trend has spread as Latin America has become more “Mexicanised,” accounting for 24% of the world’s murdered journalists.
According to RSF, only two foreign journalists were killed this year:
- French photojournalist Antoni Lallican, killed by a Russian drone strike in Ukraine;
- Salvadorian journalist Javier Hércules, killed in Honduras, where he had lived for over a decade.
503 journalists are currently detained around the world. The world’s largest prison for journalists is still China (121), with Russia (48) now in second place, imprisoning more foreign journalists than any other state: 26 Ukrainians.
135 journalists are missing in 37 countries. Some have been missing for more than 30 years. Although news professionals go missing all over the globe, the trend spikes sharply in Mexico (28) and Syria (37).
RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin said that, impunity for murdering journalists leads to international organisations’ incapability of ensuring journalists’ right to protection.
“This is where the hatred of journalists leads! It led to the death of 67 journalists this year – not by accident, and they weren’t collateral victims. They were killed, targeted for their work. It is perfectly legitimate to criticise the media — criticism should serve as a catalyst for change that ensures the survival of the free press, a public good. But it must never descend into hatred of journalists, which is largely born out of — or deliberately stoked by — the tactics of armed forces and criminal organisations. This is where impunity for these crimes leads us: the failure of international organisations that are no longer able to ensure journalists’ right to protection in armed conflicts is the consequence of a global decline in the courage of governments, which should be implementing protective public policies,” he said.
He added that journalists, key witnesses to history, have gradually become “collateral victims, inconvenient eyewitnesses, bargaining chips, pawns in diplomatic games, men and women to be ‘eliminated.'”
“We must be wary of false notions about reporters: no one gives their lives for journalism — it is taken from them; journalists do not just die — they are killed,” Thibaut Bruttin said.
As reported by IMI, as of 9 December 2025, Russia has killed 120 media workers in Ukraine in the course of its full-scale invasion, with 15 dying while reporting.
