We may complain – with absolute legitimacy – about Japan’s kisha-club system and how the strength of the yen is crippling us when the paycheck arrives in dollars or pounds, but look on the bright side: at least we’re not getting killed in pursuit of our profession. Unfortunately, for our colleagues in other parts of the world, staying alive is becoming an increasingly urgent preoccupation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual report on fatalities in the profession, released in mid-December, lists a record high of 68 journalists killed in 2009. That figure surpassed the previous record of 67 fatalities in 2007, when violence in Iraq was at its peak. And the toll for 2009 may increase further, the New York-based organization admits, as it is still looking into the work-related deaths of another 20 journalists during the year.

The figures were clearly skewed by the killing of 31 media workers as they reported on elections in the Philippine province of Maguindanao in November, but the statistics are the worst since the CPJ started keeping track of fatal attacks on journalists in 1992. They make sobering reading.

“This has been a year of unprecedented devastation for the world’s media, but the violence also confirms long-term trends,” Joel Simon, executive director of the organization, said in a statement. “Most of the victims were local reporters covering news in their own communities,” Simon said. “The perpetrators assumed, based on precedent, that they would never be punished.”

The CPJ has described the killings in the Philippines as a “massacre” that is “unparalleled.” Twenty-nine journalists and two support workers were among 57 people killed in an ambush motivated by rivalry between two political clans in the province.

On Dec. 18, Filipino journalists protested outside the Department of Justice in Manila as Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect behind the killings, arrived in a bulletproof vehicle for a preliminary hearing in the case. Members of the National Press Club held pictures of some of their slain colleagues and vented their anger against Amputan and his legal team. The politician was injured after being hit on the head by a camera wielded by a photojournalist as he was transferred in handcuffs into the building, while Marlon Purificacion, a reporter with the People’s Journal, threw pictures of the dead into Amputan’s face.

The CPJ said the Maguindanao killings “reflect the deep-seated climate of impunity in the Philippines, where long-term law enforcement and political failures have led to high numbers of journalist murders and low rates of conviction over two decades.”

Due to the Maguindanao incident, the Philippines topped the list of the most dangerous places for journalists to work in 2009 by a wide margin, with Somalia in second place with nine killings, Iraq and Pakistan tied in third place with four murders each, followed by Russia with three, Sri Lanka and Mexico with two each and the remainder – Venezuela, Nepal, Kenya, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, El Salvador, Colombia, Iran, Afghanistan, Madagascar and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory – each reporting one death.

While there was a significant downward trend in deaths among reporters in Iraq – which reported the lowest annual tally since the current conflict began in 2003 – that figure was more than offset by the rise in violence in Somalia.

Throughout the year, the CPA points out, the militants of Islamist insurgency group Al-Shabaab waged a terror campaign against members of the Somali press, murdering reporters and seizing news outlets at gunpoint. Among the dead was Said Tahlil Ahmed, director of the independent broadcaster HornAfrik, who was shot dead as he and other journalists were walking to a press conference in Mogadishu.

“The nine deaths in Somalia are a tremendous loss for the tiny band of journalists who risk their lives every day just by stepping out into the street,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney, who is involved in CPJ advocacy efforts in the region. “Their courageous reporting exposes them not just to crossfire and random violence, but to targeted killing by Islamists who want to control the message.”

As in recent years, most work-related deaths among journalists were outright murders, with at least 50 reporters – 74 percent of the total – targeted and killed as a direct result of their work. A further 16 percent died in crossfire or on combat assignments, and the remaining 10 percent died on dangerous reporting jobs, such as street protests or police raids.

The majority of victims were print reporters, accounting for 40 percent of the total, followed by broadcast reporters at 26 percent. Nearly 70 percent of those killed were covering politics, well above the 25 percent who were reporting on wars and the 10 percent who were looking into human-rights issues, while it is deeply worrying to discover that fully 72 percent of the murders were linked to government officials.

Equally alarming is the fact that 96 percent of the people who committed these acts have so far got away with their crimes with complete impunity, according to the CPJ.

In Mexico’s Durango state, for example, crime reporter Eliseo Barron Hernandez was abducted by armed assailants from his home, in front of his wife and two young daughters. His body was found the next day in an irrigation ditch with a gunshot wound to his head. Barron had just broken a story about police corruption.

Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of The Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan newspaper that has been critical of the government, was also apparently the victim of a revenge attack. Eight men on motorbikes stopped Wickramatunga’s car on a busy street outside Colombo and beat him to death with iron bars and wooden staves. No one has been apprehended in connection with the killing.

Media fatalities are cause for concern in Russia as well, the CPJ said, with the victims in 2009 including Abdulmalik Akhmedilov, a Dagestani editor who was fiercely critical of government officials for suppressing religious and political dissent. Akhmedilov was found shot dead in his car.

According to the organization, 795 journalists have been killed since 1992, while at least 136 media workers are currently in prison, a 9 percent increase on the 2008 figure.

The CPJ has a full list of the victims, including brief biographies of all of those killed while working and a statistical analysis, at www.cpj.org. A final list of the journalists killed in 2009 will be released in January. ❶