In the minds of many people, the killing of journalists happens out there: in conflict zones or out in wild, uncharted territory. And then gunmen walk into the office of a magazine in Paris and start shooting. As of now, very little is certain about what has happened at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a controversial satirical French weekly, except that 11 people have been killed by gunmen and five others have been seriously hurt.

We don’t know for sure that those who were killed were journalists or that the attackers were motivated by the biting humour that Charlie Hebdo produces. The newspaper is no stranger to controversy, and because of the furore that any mention of Islamic prophet Muhammad tends to generate, most news coverage is likely to immediately connect the issue to Charlie Hebdo’s decision to poke fun at Islam a few years ago. But the paper has also had numerous other controversies as a result of its willingness to take on holy cows. Early reports from the Paris police and videos of the show the gunmen yelling Allahu Akbar, suggesting the attack is connected to the magazine's Islamic satire.

Whatever the motivation for the killings, though, one thing is depressingly evident: journalists aren’t safe anywhere. The Committee to Protect Journalists, an organisation that advocates press freedom and records details about journalism under threat, shows that, over the course of 2014 journalists were killed in almost every continent. ;


Syria, as one might expect, takes the top position with the most number of journalists killed, but the Middle East is by no means the only place that is dangerous for members of the press. Others were killed in Europe, North America, South America, Africa and in the Far East. Only Australia (and Antarctica) were safe zones in 2014.

2015’s list will now also include Western Europe, with France.

This list only covers journalists where CPJ is certain that the motive was the work they did. The actual numbers include many more killed press-persons, but in those cases, CPJ hasn’t always been able to pin down whether their deaths were because of their journalism.

The organisation also tracks the deaths of journalists over time, and one thing becomes clear from these numbers: the world isn’t becoming any safer for those who decide to dedicate their lives to this profession.