The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) has released its annual report World Press Freedom Review in which it describes 2006 as “the most savage and brutal year in the modern history of the media.” IPI has listed a casualty count of 100 journalists killed. Nearly half the death toll, 46 journalists, were killed in Iraq alone. The other countries considered deadly for journalists are Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Mexico, and Sri Lanka.
It is tragic that in Iraq and elsewhere, while journalists are covering the war on terrorism, they themselves are combatants in a war to protect press freedom, which is coming under attack in various parts of the world.
American investigative reporter David Kaplan writes about this in his Bad Guys Blog. Kaplan is the chief investigative correspondent of US News and World Reports.
