Pakistan was named the deadliest country for journalists for the second year in a row in the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) annual survey.
The
report provides a sobering perspective on the Arab Spring, documenting the extreme toll the region's political upheaval took on the lives of journalists. Sixteen journalists died while reporting on these events this year, bringing deaths on "dangerous assignments" to their highest level since CPJ first conducted the survey in 1992.
Photojournalists, many of whom were documenting the unrest, experienced the greatest losses, about 40 percent of the death toll and twice the historical average. Free-lancers, who are increasingly on the front-lines, accounted for one-third of the fatalities, a proportion that is nearly double that previously recorded.
The report found that since 2008, the number of on-line journalists who have been killed on the job has increased steadily.
Nineteen journalists were murdered this year, including in
Pakistan, the Philippines and
Russia. The figure, shocking as it is, represents a decline in targeted killings over previous years.