With 129 killings, 2025 was the deadliest year for journalists since 1992, when the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting the data, the global media watchdog said in its annual report on Wednesday.

Israel was responsible for two-thirds, or 89, of all killings of journalists, the organisation stated. It added that this was the second consecutive year of record press fatalities due to Israel’s continued targeting of journalists.

Journalists were also killed in countries not at war, including India, because of the “continued failure of government leaders to protect the press”, the organisation said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists pointed to the murder of journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, who ran the YouTube channel Bastar Junction, on January 1, 2025.

Chandrakar was murdered allegedly for reporting on alleged irregularities in a road construction project in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. His body was found in a septic tank on the property of the road contractor.

“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” said Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

She added: “Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators. We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”

In the report, the organisation noted that the number of conflicts worldwide is at the highest level since World War 2. This has also increased the risks for journalists, “both because of the dangers inherent in conflict reporting – and because, increasingly, journalists are deliberately targeted”, it said.

The report pointed out that in Sudan, nine journalists and media workers were killed in 2025, an increase from six in 2024 and one in 2023 as the civil war in the country entered its third year.

In Ukraine, four journalists were killed by Russian military drones, the highest annual number of press fatalities in the war since 2022, it added.

“Within the context of rising conflict worldwide, Israel’s disregard for the lives of journalists – and the international laws intended to protect them – is, however, unparalleled,” the report stated.

It added: “With much contemporaneous evidence now destroyed, the true number of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who were deliberately targeted by Israel may never be known.”

The report came almost two months after the International Federation of Journalists said that 533 journalists had been imprisoned for their work during 2025.

In a report on December 31, the federation said that the Asia-Pacific region had the largest share of journalists who had been jailed. Of the 277 journalists jailed in the region, 143 were in China and 49 in Myanmar.

In 2024, the federation had documented 122 deaths of journalists and 516 having been imprisoned.

Also read: A murderous milestone for journalism in year of media expansion but much less freedom