ALMOST 100 JOURNALISTS were killed during the course of their work last year.

The International News Safety Institute, a group dedicated to “the safety of news media staff working in dangerous environments”, released the figure today in their annual report. They recorded that 97 media workers had died in 30 countries – 85 of these deaths were classified as murders. The report says:

Most of the victims were not foreign correspondents assigned to war zones but reporters working in their own countries, seeking to expose criminality and corruption.

The figure – which equates to around two journalists dying a week – was down from the 2009 figure of 133 deaths. However, that statistic was particularly large because of one incident in the Philippines in which 32 news media staff were killed.

ISNI Director Rodney Pinder said:

While we welcome a fall in fatalities overall, the sustained underlying level of casualties remains unacceptably high. It is a terrible price to pay for our news.

The country in which most journalists died last year was Pakistan – 16 journalists were killed there last year. The INSI also notes that the first casualty of 2011 was a 22-year-old reporter called Ilyas Nazar whose body was found on January 5. He had been shot several times and his body left on a roadside in Pakistan.