It has never been so dangerous to be a journalist than now, and the threat keeps growing. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded 129 deaths of reporters and other media workers in 2025, the most it has ever recorded, and five more than the previous record, which was last year.
I have worked for the Guardian for more than three decades and covered some brutal wars, but journalists are now in the crosshairs, actively targeted, in a way I have never seen before.
The overwhelming majority of journalist deaths in 2025 happened in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. According to the CPJ, Israeli forces were responsible for two-thirds of all the journalist killings around the world last year.
The Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, Malak Tantesh, was evacuated at the beginning of October last year, along with her photojournalist sister, Enas, following 18 months of gruelling and dangerous work. Their evacuation almost never happened. The road out of Gaza was blocked with rubble and by the time it was cleared, a gunfight erupted around the evacuees’ bus, and the escorts from the International Committee of the Red Cross called off the mission. Thankfully, they reconsidered less than an hour later and the bus carrying Malak and Enas, together with young Palestinians awarded UK university scholarships, eventually reached safety. Their cousin Seham Tantesh has stepped into their shoes and has been reporting for the Guardian ever since.
Before heading out on any assignment, Seham says she checks her planned routes against the latest incident updates. She avoids travelling alone whenever possible and always makes sure a relative knows her movements.
The most dangerous areas in Gaza are near the “yellow line”, the demarcation between Israeli and Hamas-run areas established under a partially observed ceasefire last October. Israeli troops regularly open fire on anyone approaching the line, and it is often hard to know where the danger zone is. The yellow line is unmarked in places and has crept forward over time.
Seham says: “There is no truly safe place, and no time that can be considered less dangerous. Strikes can happen anywhere, at any moment.”
Nowhere is more dangerous for journalists than Gaza, but the West Bank is not risk-free. Settler violence is on the rise, often with the acquiescence of the security forces, who also have a record of opening fire on journalists. When the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison visits settlements or besieged Palestinian villages in the West Bank, she packs her body armour, helmet and medical kit, letting the international desk know where she is going and when she expects to be back.
Journalists have also been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon. The Guardian’s correspondent in Beirut, William Christou, has lost four professional peers over the past three years, and has been shot at twice. Whenever Will travels to southern Lebanon, the heart of Israel’s battle with the Hezbollah militia, he makes sure to inform the UN peacekeeping force, Unifil, of his exact routes and timings.
Will uses his US passport “as I feel the Israelis are less likely to strike an American citizen”. Unifil passes on the details to the Israeli forces in the area, making clear to journalists it is no guarantee against coming under fire. But at least there can be no excuses when journalists are targeted. Each time a Guardian correspondent goes anywhere involving danger, a risk assessment is carried out involving suggested ways of mitigating the risk and a decision on whether it is acceptable is made by a managing editor. Normally a chat group is set up so that the journalist and editors can stay in constant touch over the course of the assignment.
Efforts to mitigate the risks to journalists’ safety are an essential part of bringing you the facts. Travel and precautions are often costly. But to cease reporting wherever there is danger would betray the people under threat, whose stories would not otherwise be told, and let down our readers who want to see the world as it is, and make their own judgments. Facts can be expensive in a dangerous world.
To ensure our work can be seen by everyone, it is free to read, watch and listen to online. So we rely on contributions to continue to report in all corners of the world, and that includes covering events that some governments would prefer to conceal. States have vast resources at their disposal. Ours are paltry by comparison but we have our readers behind us.
As the Middle East ignites and explodes, the Ukraine war grinds on, four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The frontline only moves incrementally if at all, and the conflict makes the front page less often, but the Guardian’s coverage has not let up, in view of the human tragedy the war represents and its significance for European security.
Luke Harding, Shaun Walker, Peter Beaumont, Dan Sabbagh, Pjotr Sauer and Charlotte Higgins have all reported from Ukraine at a time when it is becoming more dangerous to cover.
Luke, Peter and Dan in particular have spent time on the 750-mile frontline, where drones are an increasing threat. In the east and south of the country, nets have been draped over the main roads to protect Ukrainian civilians and soldiers alike. Trips are carefully planned and the Guardian team has invested in a detector which warns of incoming drones. When the alarm goes off, there are just seconds to take cover.
It is expensive and while risks can be managed, they cannot be eliminated. But as Luke points out: “To get a true picture of the battlefield you have to go there.”
Journalists heading to the frontline expect to confront danger. Less so the Guardian reporters who went to cover Donald Trump’s appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner in April. When shots rang out, David Smith, Rachel Leingang, Jeremy Barr and Robert Tait took shelter under their table, along with the Washington press corps in their dinner jackets and dresses. “It was a scene from a dozen Hollywood movies,” David recalled, except this time it was jarringly real.
It was a shock but not a surprise, at a time when political violence is rampant, and the stakes will rise as congressional elections approach in November. The climate for journalism in the US has grown ever more hostile, with Trump and his top officials repeatedly singling out reporters whose work they do not like.
In times like these, democracy and free speech rely more than ever on good, independent journalism. It is the citizen’s sword and shield against authoritarianism. It does not come cheap but we hope you agree it is a worthwhile investment.
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