The cost of truth

Dear reader,

This Friday marks World Press Freedom Day.

Two years ago, regular Guardian contributor – and my friend – Dom Phillips was murdered in the Brazilian Amazon, with Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. Guardian reporters have previously been kidnapped in Iraq and Afghanistan, beaten in Pakistan, expelled from Russia, and arrested in Egypt, Zimbabwe. I myself was arrested in China on multiple occasions.

For our work to continue in such adverse circumstances, we need readers who recognise the value of a free media. It’s that support – from people like you – that gives us hope of a robust democracy and a healthy planet.

The Guardian is not restricted by the commercial interests of a powerful owner and, thanks to our readers, we are less dependent on advertising than many other media groups. If you could back our reporting today, we will be able to do more to tell stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told – and advocate for a free press around the world.

The search for the truth can come at a horrific cost. Last year saw 99 killings of reporters, up 44% on 2022 and the highest toll since 2015. That high toll was almost entirely due to Gaza, where a Guardian editorial noted, “no war has killed so many journalists so quickly.”

The vast majority are Palestinian reporters who, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, appear to have been targeted by Israeli forces.

Reporting on the war against nature may generate fewer headlines than Gaza or Ukraine, but it is also high-risk with little legal protection.

On the first anniversary of Dom and Bruno’s killings last year, the Guardian joined an international collaboration to amplify their work, while a group of Dom’s journalist friends, including myself, are also currently working on a crowd-funded project to finish the book that he was working on at the time of his death: How to Save the Amazon: Ask the People Who Know, which will be published next year.

The number of environmental journalists being attacked or killed is rising and it continues to be one of the most dangerous fields of journalism after war reporting. Though the trend is accelerating, prosecutions remain dismally low, with very few cases of murdered environmental reporters leading to convictions.

Instead, the law appears to be increasingly used against journalists. One of the most disturbing trends in recent years has been the arrests or police harassment of journalists covering environmental protests. This has stirred outrage in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Canada, Australia, Azerbaijan, the United States and China which is consistently the biggest jailer of reporters.

Thanks to readers who financially support our work, as well as our unique trust-owned model, the Guardian can take an independent line on these existential issues. If you could back our reporting today we will be able to do more to tell stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told – and to advocate for a free press around the world.

This week we will be marking Friday’s World Press Freedom Day with a series of reports and features about different threats posed to all types of reporters. Without the courage of correspondents to continue working in conflict areas, press organisations warn the world will start to see “zones of silence” where the risks are so great that important stories go unreported.

This is much more than a matter of principle; solidarity is a matter of survival.

The risks may be growing, and the space to operate may be increasingly constrained, but we are more determined than ever to tell the stories of our age so that you, the readers, have the information to act as voters, citizens, consumers and participants in the web of life on Earth.

Thank you for reading.

Jonathan Watts
Global environment writer, the Guardian