Journalists killed on the job reaches an alarming high in 2014

Journalism has grown into a deadly profession if the journalist is covering in the Middle East.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports international journalists were killed at high rate in 2014 and Syria was the world's deadliest country for journalists.

Syria gets the dreaded title for a third year in a row.

Fight against Christian genocide!

Putting their lives on the line to cross borders and cover conflict, war and dangerous situations in the Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Middle East, international journalists make up nearly one-quarter of total journalist killed this year. This is double the proportion CPJ has documented in recent years, according to a new CPJ report.

At least 60 journalists died globally in 2014 while on the job. Among the 60 is James Foley, a United States freelance journalist executed by ISIS in an online video in August 2014. Steven Sotloff, a U.S.-Israeli freelance journalist, showed up in another ISIS execution video two weeks after Foley.

However, CPJ reports the majority of job-related deaths among journalists in 2014 were not from Western international journalists. Approximately 20 journalists missing are from Syria and believed to be held by ISIS are estimated to be local to the region.

Whether on the front-lines of battle, caught in the middle of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or calling-out unruly officials, journalists in the Middle East face a danger quite different than that of a journalist in the United States.

According to CPJ, "almost half of the journalists killed in 2014 died in the Middle East. Around 38 percent of the total died in combat or crossfire."

More than 40 percent of journalists who died in 2014 were targeted for murder and about 31 percent of journalists murdered reported receiving threats beforehand.

"About 68 percent of the journalists killed in 2014 covered politics, with the next deadliest beat for reporters being war, at 60 percent, followed by human rights, at 55 percent," stated the CPJ report.

Reporting the truth is a dangerous job when people will do anything to prevent the truth from being heard.

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