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press freedom
Israel Responsible for Two-Thirds of Journalist Deaths in 2025: Press Freedom Group
The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.
Feb 26, 2026
A new report from a major press freedom group has found that a record 129 journalists were killed in 2025, and that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the worldwide total.
The Tuesday report from the Committee to Protect Journalists says that the Israeli military has cumulatively killed more journalists than any other government since CPJ started tracking reporter deaths in 1992, with the vast majority being Palestinian media workers in Gaza.
The report also finds an increase in the use of drones to attack journalists, with Israel accounting for more than 70% of the 39 documented instances of reporters killed by drone strikes.
The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.
Only nine journalists were killed in Sudan, for example, while just four journalists were killed in Ukraine, despite both countries being in the midst of brutal conflicts that have collectively killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A report issued in December by Reporters Without Borders similarly found that Israel was responsible for the most journalists deaths in 2025, the third consecutive year that the country had held that distinction.
The CPJ report also points the finger at governments for not taking their responsibilities to protect journalists seriously.
"The rising number of journalist deaths globally is fueled by a persistent culture of impunity," the report states. "Very few transparent investigations have been conducted into the 47 cases of targeted killings (classified as 'murder' in CPJ’s longstanding methodology) documented by CPJ in 2025—the highest number of journalists deliberately killed for their work in the past decade—and no one has been held accountable in any of the cases."
CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said that attacks on the media are "a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators," adding that "we are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
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'Huge Win': Judge Bars Trump DOJ From Searching Devices of Washington Post Journalist
One press freedom group called the raid on Hannah Natanson's home last month a "warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide."
Feb 25, 2026
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the US Justice Department cannot search the devices it seized from Hannah Natanson, a Washington Post journalist whose home was raided by the FBI earlier this year as part of an investigation into a government contractor.
William Porter, magistrate judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia's Arlington Division, wrote in his 22-page decision that the Trump administration's "failure to identify and analyze" the Privacy Protection Act (PPA) in its application for a search warrant in the case "has seriously undermined the court’s confidence in the government’s disclosures in this proceeding."
The PPA shields journalists from being forced to turn over work materials to law enforcement. During the raid on Natanson's home, FBI agents reportedly seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, and other devices.
"Many government lawyers had multiple opportunities to identify the PPA as controlling authority and to include an analysis of it in the warrant application," Porter wrote. "None of them did."
Porter added that he hopes "this search was conducted—as the government contends—to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration."
Runa Sandvik, founder of a startup that works to protect journalists' digital security, called the ruling a "huge win for Hannah Natanson and the Washington Post."
The Post noted in its reporting on the decision that federal prosecutors "acknowledged that only a small portion of the information on the devices seized from Natanson would be relevant to the case against" Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who was indicted last month on charges of illegally obtaining and sharing classified materials.
Federal prosecutors "asked Porter to allow a government filter team to search through the devices for relevant information," and the team "would then hand over the responsive information to prosecutors," the Post reported.
Porter rejected that proposal in his ruling, citing "documented reporting on government leak investigations and the government’s well-chronicled efforts to stop them."
"Allowing the government’s filter team to search a reporter’s work product—most of which consists of unrelated information from confidential sources—is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” Porter wrote. “The concern that a filter team may err by neglect, by malice, or by honest difference of opinion is heightened where its institutional interests are so directly at odds with the press freedom values at stake.”
Press freedom organizations have condemned the Trump administration's raid on Natanson's home and seizure of her work devices as an alarming escalation in a broader assault on journalism.
Earlier this month, the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who signed the search warrant application targeting Natanson.
“Kromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF, said in a statement, referring to the Privacy Protection Act. "That choice now threatens to expose Natanson’s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide."
“Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else," Stern added. "When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”
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‘The First Amendment Applies at the Border,’ ACLU Says of Settlement for CBP Interrogating Journalists
“This settlement confirms what we already knew: What happened to us was wrong,” said an award-winning photographer detained at the US-Mexico border as part of a secret program to target journalists in 2019.
Feb 11, 2026
In what the ACLU called a "win for freedom of the press," a pair of federal immigration agencies announced on Wednesday that they settled a lawsuit with five photojournalists who claimed to have been unconstitutionally detained and questioned while reporting at the US-Mexico border.
The five journalists—Bing Guan, Go Nakamura, Mark Abramson, Kitra Cahana, and Ariana Drehsler—are all citizens of the United States who traveled to the border in 2018 and 2019 to report on the journeys of people traveling from Central America as part of migrant caravans.
The journalists said that after reporting on conditions at the border, they were detained by US border officers and questioned about their sources and observations while reporting, which they said was a violation of their First Amendment right in a lawsuit.
"It’s clear the government’s actions were meant to instill fear in journalists like me, to cow us into standing down from reporting what is happening on the ground," said Guan, a freelance photographer who has contributed to Reuters, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications.
Shortly after these five journalists were detained, NBC News reported that they were targeted as part of a broader operation by US Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) San Diego sector to detain and interrogate a list of dozens of journalists, lawyers, and activists labeled as "instigators."
Others on this list who were detained, including US citizens, reported being aggressively interrogated about their political views and opinions about the Trump administration.
Tactics have only grown more aggressive during President Donald Trump's second term: Federal immigration agents have hauled off journalists in unmarked vans for recording them, and the administration has repeatedly asserted, incorrectly, that it is illegal to film ICE agents on duty or reveal their identities.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has claimed that recording ICE agents in public constitutes “violence” or a “threat” to agents' safety, and a DHS bulletin issued last year has classified recording at protests as “unlawful civil unrest."
However, several federal courts have overwhelmingly held that the First Amendment protects the right to film law enforcement, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
Esha Bhandari, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology project, said the settlement, reached in January, affirms that "the First Amendment applies at the border to protect freedom of the press."
As part of the settlement, CBP will be required to issue guidance to certain border units on First Amendment and Privacy Act protections that apply when questioning journalists at the border.
While the scope of the settlement is limited and does little to protect journalists under threat nationwide, Kitra Cahana, an award-winning photographer and another plaintiff, said it still serves as an important affirmation of press freedom.
“This settlement confirms what we already knew: what happened to us was wrong,” Cahana said. “Government officials should never put journalists on secret lists, interfere with our ability to work and travel, or pressure us for information at border crossings."
"My biggest fear is that other journalists may have avoided important stories out of fear of being targeted themselves," she added. "Press freedom is not a partisan issue. Everyone should be alarmed when journalists are targeted.”
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