NEW YORK — By nearly any measure, 2025 has been a rough year for anyone concerned about freedom of the press.
It’s likely to be the deadliest year on record for journalists and media workers. The number of assaults on reporters in the U.S. nearly equals the last three years combined. The president of the United States berates many who ask him questions, calling one woman “piggy.” And the ranks of those doing the job continues to thin.
It’s hard to think of a darker time for journalists. So say many, including Tim Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter and now program director for journalism and disinformation at PEN America. “It’s safe to say this assault on the press over the past year has probably been the most aggressive that we’ve seen in modern times.”
Tracking killings and assaults against journalists
Worldwide, the 126 media industry people killed in 2025 by early December matched the number of deaths in all of 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and last year was a record-setter. Israel’s bombing of Gaza accounted for 85 of those deaths, 82 of them Palestinians.
“It’s extremely concerning,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Unfortunately, it’s not just, of course, about the sheer numbers of journalists and media workers killed, it’s also about the failure to obtain justice or get accountability for those killings.
“What we know from decades of doing this work is that impunity breeds impunity,” she said. “So a failure to tackle journalists’ killings creates an environment where those killings continue.”
