2014: New records set for targeting of journalists

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports that 118 journalists and other media workers have been the victims of targeted killings while another 17 were registered as "accidental death" among them, Serena Shim, who died in Turkey after she told colleagues that she had been threatened by Turkey's intelligence service.

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Reporter and mother of two Serena Shim was killed in Turkey, 'the largest prison for journalists'. She had expressed fears for her own safety

Leading in the tragic statistics about media workers who died after being targeted is Pakistan with fourteen targeted killings followed by Syria with twelve fatalities. The tragic records are followed by Afghanistan and Palestine with respectively nine each and Iraq with eight.

The IFJ's list of media workers who died in targeted murders shows an unmistakable trend.

That is, the majority of high-rates of targeted assassinations of media workers happened in countries where Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States and its allies have fostered and used radicalized Islamic militant groups or Nazi militants as respectively ally, or infiltrated, and in part controlled foe.

On par with Iraq, with eight targeted assassinations of media workers is Ukraine, where a predominantly US/UK sponsored coup d'état, in 2014, was micro-managed by the U.S. State Department and western/NATO intelligence services, using militant Nazi organizations with ties to NATO's "stay behind" network, a.k.a. Gladio as a fuse to ignite an armed coup d'état and a civil war in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Lughansk regions.

The rate of what the IFJ enumerated as seventeen "accidents, diseases and natural disaster - related deaths" is relatively evenly distributed.

There is one noteworthy exemption in these seventeen fatalities; That is, the death of PRESS TV journalist Serena Shim. Serena shim was delivering in situ reporting about the fighting between ISIS/ISIL brigades and Kurdish / Syrian resistance fighters in the Syrian city of Ain Al-Arab, a.k.a Kobani, near the Turkish border. Serena Shim also reported about the Turkish military's role in the battle.

One day before Serena Shim died in a fatal traffic accident, she informed her colleagues that Turkey's intelligence service MIT had accused her of espionage and had intimidated her.

Her colleagues would report that she was seriously concerned and that Serena Shim wasn't known for exaggerating or panicking. The exact circumstances of the death of Serena Shim remain uncertain or questionable.

Another noteworthy fact about the targeted killings of media workers is that Palestine stands out with nine fatalities.

The tragic near record cannot be considered as other than an artifact of the ongoing, illegal, Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the targeting of media workers by Israel. Another factor are the internal rivalries between Palestinian factions which Israeli intelligence services know to use to their "advantage".

The Palestinian media organization MADA reported in 2014 that over 80% of Palestinian journalists are self-censoring; That is another disturbing record for 2014.

Ironically, a country like the Russian Federation, that is often criticized for "censorship" and the targeting of journalists had only one targeted killing of a media worker in 2014, on par with the United States.

Finally, while there are no statistics available yet, the editors of independent media, worldwide, have noticed a marked increase in attempted and in part successful "initiatives" against them by corporations including Facebook, Google, advertising companies who are dependent on business with Google for their economic survival, and so forth.

The cooperation between major U.S. internet giants and the U.S.'s National Security Agency has been well-documented. While the number of media workers for the new, independent media who have been assassinated, subject to physical assaults, threats and intimidation has not been gathered in any statistics, nsnbc international is aware of several documented cases.