“We’re seeing record numbers of journalists killed, record numbers of journalists jailed, and, of course, an uptick generally in the kinds of harassment and intimidation that journalists experience.”
Jodie Ginsberg has the unenviable task of defending press freedom and the security of journalists not just in “traditional authoritarian regimes”, but now in democracies too.
“We have really stepped up our advocacy on behalf of journalists everywhere, including in the United States,” Ginsberg said. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is currently campaigning for Mario Guevara, who was deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador following his arrest for livestreaming a protest against it.
“We’ve doubled the amount of money we provide in financial assistance, but have also significantly increased the advisory and safety work that we do,” Ginsberg, a former Reuters Bureau Chief in London, explained.
In the digital age, censorship employs a range of techniques to suppress journalism and persecute journalists, she said. Regimes often deploy unrelated accusations and charges against journalists, such as money laundering (Guatemala), tax evasion (the Philippines) and posing a threat to national security (Hong Kong).
“It’s much more difficult to tackle [these accusations] head on, because it plays on the belief that there’s no smoke without fire,” Ginsberg said, adding that it is a deliberate strategy to undermine the credibility of those journalists. It then creates an environment where the only narrative that you can supposedly trust is the one being pushed by authorities. “That then does exactly what old school censorship does,” she said.
“Part of Israel’s narrative is that no journalist in Gaza is to be trusted,” she said. The CPJ has been pressing for access to the Gaza Strip for international journalists – something Israel has made impossible since October 2023. “Gazan journalists have been working relentlessly since the start of the war to document the genocide. International access is important because it helps to corroborate what they have been reporting.”
It’s not just press freedom that has been in decline in recent years, but various measures of democracy. Freedom House, a US organisation founded in 1941 to advocate for democracy, freedom and human rights, reported that global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024. According to Ginsberg, the sharp decline in press freedom is one of the factors behind this trend.
Previously, Ginsberg worked as a journalist for Thomson Reuters, then as a foreign correspondent in South Africa, chief correspondent in Dublin and bureau chief in the UK. After overseeing coverage of a general election and a royal wedding, she served as CEO of the UK-based Index on Censorship before joining the CPJ in 2022.
As part of its work, the CPJ documents the imprisonment, attacks and killings of journalists. Its website records 2,479 journalist deaths dating back to 1992, with the circumstances of each death detailed to enable Ginsberg and her colleagues to push for accountability – and, in some cases, convictions for those responsible. As part of its work, the CPJ documents imprisonment, attacks and killings of journalists.
The first name on the list is Tihomir Tunukovic, a freelance camera operator working for the BBC, who was killed in Bosnia, likely by Bosnian Serb forces. The last five names – Ahmed Abu Aziz, Hussam Al-Masri, Mohammed Salama, Mariam Abu Dagga and Moaz Abu Taha – were all killed on 25 August 2025 at a hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, when Israeli forces struck the building.
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been the focus of CPJ’s work since before the 7 October attacks by Hamas and the subsequent genocide in Gaza. “We produced, in May of 2023, a report called Deadly Pattern that identified systematic attacks by Israeli forces on journalists and complete impunity, no one ever being held accountable for the killings of journalists,” she said.
Since 2023, 237 journalists and media workers have been killed in the conflicts and genocide in the Middle East, almost all as a result of military action by Israeli armed forces. Journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, irrespective of who they work for. Deliberately targeting and killing them is a war crime. “In light of clear violations of international humanitarian law, we don’t believe that Israel is prepared to investigate those [killings of journalists] transparently and hold individuals accountable,” Ginsberg said.
The responsibility for holding Israel to account then falls to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which Ginsberg admits are “very slow”. She points, however, to the prosecution of Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines, who is now in ICC custody in The Hague, charged with crimes against humanity. “Many in the Philippines thought it would never happen,” she said. Ginsberg adds that recent moves by the international community to “consider actions rather than just condemnation” are welcome and show a shift in its willingness to compel Israel to meet its obligations under international law.
Ginsberg believes Britain could be a far bolder, leading voice and proponent of press freedom.
“The UK government made a very clear and bold commitment back in 2019 to support media freedom,” she explains. This was when the UK and Canadian governments jointly hosted the launch of the Global Pledge on Media Freedom, now signed by 51 states. “Unfortunately, in recent years, we haven’t seen the UK government take a clear leadership position on these issues.”
The UK has been weak, she says, when it comes to defending its own citizens, citing the examples of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British-Egyptian recently released after six years of imprisonment, and Jimmy Lai, a British national who has been in prison in Hong Kong since 2020. “He’s a British citizen, and the UK, though it has been very vocal in his defence, has done very little to tie its relationship with China to Jimmy’s case,” Ginsberg said. Domestically, she adds, there is work to do as well, particularly regarding the use of the UK to launch spurious litigation against journalists, examples of authorities curbing journalists’ ability to report, and the high-profile arrest of two journalists in Northern Ireland.
Ginsberg would like to see the UK become a “safe haven” for exiled journalists, enabling them to continue their work by establishing an emergency visa scheme for journalists at risk. “We are seeing more and more journalists being forced into exile because they face persecution from authorities,” Ginsberg explains. Each time a journalist is exiled and stops reporting, the regime responsible has effectively silenced them – a fact it can use as domestic propaganda. At an international level, the UK could support the establishment of a mechanism to investigate the killings of journalists. Many of these deaths are perpetrated directly or indirectly by the state, and investigations are often cursory.
There are, however, positive developments in press freedom. Ginsberg highlights the renewed focus on local journalism, particularly in the UK. “Those, I think, are really important in the practical defence of press freedom.”
“I think the failure of international governments and the international system to protect journalists in Gaza is likely to have repercussions for decades to come,” she reflects. This compounds the already detrimental impact on trust in Western media institutions, particularly in the Middle East.
“If Gazan journalists are not protected in Gaza and cannot be protected, why should any journalist operating anywhere else ever feel that they are safe again?”
[Further reading: Give Donald Trump the credit]
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