Some good news – in a constrained sort of way. Some 65 working journalists were killed on duty this year, the lowest total for 14 years, Reporters Sans Frontières has said, with 326 journalists currently held in prison and 54 held hostage by non-state groups.
China is the biggest jailer of journalists (52) followed by Turkey with 43, according to RSF. Syria was the deadliest country for journalists in 2017 (with 12 killed), followed by Mexico (11), Afghanistan (9) and Iraq (8).
Ten of the 65 dead were female – including Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, Gauri Lankesh in India and Miroslava Breach Velducea in Mexico. Most of these victims were experienced investigative reporters. Despite threats, they continued to investigate and expose cases of corruption. RSF’s UK bureau director, Rebecca Vincent, says: “More journalists are being deliberately targeted for their work [60%] with the other 40% killed in the field doing their jobs. Journalists are targeted by those wishing to silence their reporting exposing political, economic or criminal interests – information that is in the public interest.”
And the fall in the number of killings? “Our data shows that journalists are fleeing the most dangerous places and foreign journalists are travelling less frequently to these places.
“At the same time, international attention to the issue of safety of journalists has increased, for example through a number of UN resolutions, and media outlets are taking greater care in providing training for correspondents travelling to high-risk areas.”
Things – in terms of murder and the pursuit of murders – are slowly getting better, as the stories from Yemen and Syria, and the rivers of blood, continue to flow.
It’s woman power behind US box office profit
Good news for women, too, and a sliver of consolation as the US movie box office slumps to $11.28bn – 2.5% down on 2017 and a three-year low. Look (with Forbes magazine) at the biggest earners: The Last Jedi ($396m before Christmas Day and still steaming); Wonder Woman ($413m); and Beauty and the Beast ($504m).
Where’s the touch of triumph in that? Because, as Forbes says, all three of the top-grossing movies in the US in 2017 were female-led/female-centric blockbuster offerings. A result that happily puts Harvey Weinstein to shame.
