Attacks on the Press Map 2023

More journalists have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war zone in the last three months than have ever been killed in a single country over the course of an entire year. In fact according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual report, Attacks on the Press, nearly 75% of journalists killed around the world in 2023 died in Israel’s war on Gaza.

You can explore the results of the CPJ's report for yourself on the Attacks on the Press 2023 interactive map. This story map takes you on a guided tour of the report's findings into the continuing attacks on the liberties and lives of journalists around the world last year.  

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory saw by far the largest number of journalist killings last year. Of the 99 journalists killed around the world last year, 72 were Palestinians. China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, and Vietnam were responsible for jailing the most journalists, many of them without trial.

As you scroll through the CPJ report the map zooms into a number of individual countries to highlight some of the global regions with the worst records of imprisoning or killing journalists. You can also select to explore the map for yourself. 

A choropleth layer on the map shows the number of journalists in state custody in each country and scaled circular markers show the number of journalists killed in each country. You can hover over the choropleth layers or scaled markers to reveal the number of journalists imprisoned or killed in a country and you can click on the choropleth layer or circular markers to reveal the names of the journalists imprisoned or killed in each country.

Mapping Media Freedom is another organization which is dedicated to tracking attacks on the free press. Mapping Media Freedom maps threats to the media throughout the European Union and neighboring countries. It is a joint initiative from the Index on Censorship, the European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. The map uses clustered markers to show the locations of crowdsourced reports of threats, violations or limitations faced by journalists, newspapers or other media.

You can filter the reports shown on the map by location, date range or category. The categories include different types of censorship and limits to press freedom. They also include the option to filter by gender, type of journalist and the source of the threat to media freedom.  Israel's attacks on Palestinian journalists appears to fall outside the scope of Mapping Media Freedom's European focus