Getting Away with Murder

In a provocative essay in the November 14 edition of Harvard International Review, 1999 Ochberg Fellow Frank Smyth explores the rise of terror tactics against journalists and the failure of legal systems in many parts of the world to bring their killers to justice.

"Nearly three out of four journalists killed around the world did not step on a landmine, or get shot in crossfire, or even die in a suicide bombing attack. Instead, no less than 72 percent of all 831 journalists killed on the job since 1992, according to data compiled with other figures cited ... by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), were murdered outright, such as killed by a gunman escaping on the back of a motorcycle, shot or stabbed to death near their home or office, or found dead after having been abducted and tortured," Smyth writes, in "Murdering With Impunity: The Rise in Terror Tactics Against News Reporters." 

In 2009, he writes, the number of journalists killed was the highest ever, with at least one journalist killed every eleven days somewhere around the world. 

Smyth is the Washington representative and journalist security coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, which presents its annual International Press Freedom Awards in New York Nov. 23. He serves as board member of the International News Safety Institute and was a former investigator for Human Rights Watch.

"When it comes to journalists, the killers get away with the murders in nearly nine out of ten cases. In no less than 89 percent of journalist murders worldwide, there has been little or no prosecution whatsoever," Smyth writes. "Moreover, only in four percent of journalist murder cases has full prosecution occurred, which in most cases means that both the assassins and the masterminds who ordered or hired them, have been brought to justice."

While the risks to visiting journalists in conflict zones have risen dramatically, the greatest risk is to local journalists reporting within the borders of their own nations, according to Smyth’s article.  Nearly nine out of ten journalists killed on the job were murdered in their own countries; more than nine out of ten were local newsmen and women.

With the rise of digital media, online journalists are the latest to be targeted and imprisoned. Freelance journalists, whose number has nearly doubled from the previous three years, also are at increased risk.