The New York Times reports that at least 71 journalists were killed across the globe in 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced Tuesday, the largest annual toll in the 30 years the group has been keeping track.
Twenty-nine of those deaths came in a single, politically motivated massacre of reporters and others in the Philippines last November, the worst known episode for journalists, the committee said.
But there were other worrisome trends. The two nations with the highest number of journalists incarcerated — China had 24 journalists imprisoned at the end of 2009 and Iran had 23 — were particularly harsh in taking aim at bloggers and others using the Internet. The number jailed in Iran has since jumped to 47, the committee said.
“It is a pretty grim picture,” Robert Mahoney, the deputy director of the committee, told a news conference, saying that governments had 136 reporters in jail at the close of last year.
Governments around the globe also deployed the tools of the Internet against their critics, Mr. Mahoney noted, citing the Middle East as particularly problematic.