Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, has been jailed in Russia for more than a month on espionage charges that the US denies
The United Nations will mark the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday, at a time when deadly attacks on journalists have increased – particularly in the war in Ukraine and Latin America – and a record number of people have been arrested, according to a watchdog group .
Events at the United Nations to celebrate the day include a program in the General Assembly Hall that includes speeches by AG Sulzberger, editor of the New York Times, and Almar Latour, editor of the Wall Street Journal. World Freedom Day is officially celebrated on Wednesday.
Both newspapers have spoken out against Russia’s detention of American reporter Evan Gershkovich, 31. Mr. Gershkovich was previously employed by The Times and became The Journal’s Moscow correspondent in 2022.
He was arrested in late March during a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, quickly returned to the Russian capital and charged with espionage, charges the United States believes false. A full-page advertisement in The Journal, The Times and The Washington Post last week said Mr Gershkovich’s arrest was “the latest in a disturbing trend of journalists being harassed, arrested or worse for covering the news.”
At the World Press Freedom events at the United Nations, panel discussions will focus on threats to journalists, journalism in support of human rights and the future of the media.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a monitoring group, reported that at least 67 journalists and media workers were killed in 2022. That is the highest number since 2018 and an increase of almost 50 percent compared to 2021, it said.
The committee attributed the spike to the high number of journalists killed while covering the war in Ukraine and a “sharp spike” in killings in Latin America, where, according to committee chair Jodie Ginsberg, “politics , crime and corruption can be as deadly or deadlier than reporting an all-out war.”
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the killing of 14 journalists and media workers there has been confirmed, the committee said. The youngest was Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Bitik, who was shot dead on Wednesday while working for the Italian daily La Repubblica along with an injured Italian correspondent, Corrado Zunino.
The committee is investigating the circumstances of the deaths of two other journalists in Ukraine to determine whether they were work-related.
So far in 2023, nine journalists and media workers have been killed worldwide, including six confirmed deaths directly linked to journalists’ work. The journalist or media worker was assassinated, killed in a crossfire or in combat, or while on dangerous assignment, the committee said.
Images of journalists killed at a vigil in Mexico City in August. Credit: Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press
It is even more common for journalists to be arrested. On December 1, 2022, the committee found that 363 reporters were behind bars — a new global high that surpassed the previous year’s record by 20 percent.
The committee described the number as “another grim milestone in a deteriorating media landscape.”
Robert Mahoney, the group’s director of special projects, noted Monday that independent journalism once flourished around the world when the Internet undermined government control over information and the press, and instituted freedoms of publication.
That later changed when governments gained new technologies to use as tools of censorship and surveillance, he wrote, adding: “Journalism needs democracy and the rule of law to thrive. It loses both now.”
A correction was made on
May 2, 2023
:
In an earlier version of this article, the first name of an Italian journalist was given incorrectly. He’s Corrado Zunino, not Corrada.
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