by Tenzin Kunsang


Did you know that about 10 in every 60 on site investigative reporters are killed just caught in the crossfire? In reality, there were 306 journalists that died just trying to do their job that we know of.
There is no real reason why journalists and reporters are getting targeted, but there are some very key factors. One of them mainly being that radical governments and terrorist networks do not want the stuff they are doing to get out and they don’t want the rest of the world to know. On the other hand, terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS are shamelessly getting their messages out online rather than using reporters. Such terrorist groups are getting more sophisticated and now with a few clicks they can post an execution video to YouTube and everyone can see it. The victims are not important in their eyes as deliverers of news, but as sacrificial victims in a very pointed message.
There are many places where journalists are not welcomed. This is because some places don’t actually want reporters to tell the world what they are doing. For example, some of the most censored places in the world include North Korea at number one; then, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia following right behind. North Korea has always been known to censor their people. This is so the people can’t revolt against the dictatorship and overthrow the government. Also with reporters and journalists, they have the power to tell the entire world about the truth so it is not shocking to see why countries like that would dislike them. Also, Turkmenistan keeps out of the news as much as possible. The only thing they are allowed to use news for is to promote the government and spread propaganda. Only about 21% of the country has access to the internet and they won’t even look at the things we can.

To tie it all together, some of the countries that have the most number of journalists killed are Iraq, Syria, and Mexico. Iraq and Syria are war-torn and there are a lot of inner government conflicts in both of them. Then also in Mexico, because of the high numbers of drug cartels, they don’t want the press around to show the world the truth. Being a news reporter covering such volatile areas has resulted in numerous deaths over the years, and a good number of them were not accidental.