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AG Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, warned on Tuesday that “when the free press erodes, democratic erosion almost always follows.”
He spoke at a United Nations event honoring the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, when fatal attacks on journalists have increased – especially in the war in Ukraine and in Latin America – and record numbers have been imprisoned, according to a watchdog group.
The day’s program, in the United Nations General Assembly Hall, is also scheduled to include an address by Almar Latour, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. World Press Freedom Day was officially celebrated on Wednesday.
The Times, The Journal and other news organizations have protested Russia’s arrest of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, 31. Before working at The Times, Mr. Gershkovich was The Journal’s Moscow correspondent in 2022.
He was arrested in late March while reporting to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, quickly returned to the Russian capital and charged with espionage, a charge the United States considers false. Full-page ads in the Journal, The Times and The Washington Post last week described Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest as “the latest in a troubling trend in which journalists are harassed, arrested or worse for reporting the news.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a watchdog group, reported that at least 67 journalists and media workers were killed in 2022. This was the highest number since 2018 and an increase of almost 50 percent from 2021, it said.
The committee noted the number of journalists killed while covering the war in Ukraine and the “sharp increase” in murders in Latin America, where, according to the president of the committee, Jodie Ginsberg, “Covering politics, crime, and corruption can be as or more deadly than covering large-scale wars complete.”
Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the killings of 14 journalists and media workers have been confirmed there, the committee said. The latest is Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Bitik, who was shot and killed on Wednesday while working for the Italian daily La Repubblica alongside his Italian correspondent, Corrado Zunino, who was wounded.
The committee is investigating the circumstances of two other journalists who died in Ukraine to determine whether they were work-related.
So far in 2023, nine journalists and media workers have died worldwide, including six confirmed deaths directly related to the work of journalists. Journalists or media workers are killed, killed in shootings or in combat, or during dangerous tasks, the committee said.
Detaining journalists is even more common. As of December 1, 2022, the committee found that 363 journalists were detained – a new global high that exceeded last year’s record by 20 percent.
The committee described the figures as “another milestone in the deteriorating media landscape.”
Robert Mahoney, the group’s director of special projects, on Monday noted that independent journalism has flourished around the world as the internet undermined state control of information and the press and introduced freedom of publishing.
That then moved as governments acquired new technologies to use as censorship and surveillance tools, he wrote, adding: “Journalism needs democracy and the rule of law to thrive. Now it’s losing both.”
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