Carolina Morais Araujo | July 15, 2015
The increasing violence against journalists around the world is worrisome. So far 33 journalists have been killed this year, for reasons directly connected to their job, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports.
Impunity has been the rule after most of these murders: CPJ says that 90 percent of the 370 killings of journalists in the past ten years did not result in a conviction. While international and non-governmental organizations consider new approaches to combat this problem, the role of the media in this process is rarely discussed.
It may be, though, that journalists have a role to play in protecting their own. By covering violations of press freedom and cases of violence against journalists, the media can raise awareness and perhaps make conditions safer by pressuring governments to act.
As part of its advocacy work on press freedom and safety, the Open Society Foundation’s Program on Independent Journalism commissioned research by a group of four students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) to analyze press coverage of journalists safety in five different regions.
