The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released its annual tally of the journalists killed around the world.
The total reached 43 this week. You can chart the individual deaths here on the CPJ's site.
Joel Simon, the CPJ's executive director, writes: "This is always a sombre occasion for us as we chronicle the grim toll, remember friends who have been lost, and recommit ourselves to justice."
He reiterates that the mission of the CPJ, a New York-based press freedom watchdog, is to "fight for the rights of all journalists to report the news freely, without fear of reprisal."
He continues: "Our list of journalists killed is a key advocacy tool in this struggle. We routinely use it to confront governments with their own record of indifference or ineptitude, as we've done recently in Pakistan, Mexico, and Russia."
To that end, the CPJ is "meticulous in making a determination that every journalist included on our list was killed because of his or her work."
Some other organisations merely record the deaths of media workers irrespective of whether they were provably work-related or not.
Simon admits that it does mean the CPJ making a judgment call on each occasion but he stresses that "it is a highly informed one, based on detailed investigations carried out by our staff in New York and our correspondents around the world."
He writes: "In the interest of transparency, we provide detailed case capsules on each journalist killed, describing the circumstances and ascribing the motive."
There is a second "unconfirmed" list, cases in which the CPJ is unable to determine the precise motive for the killing but cannot rule out that it is work-related.
"This year," writes Simon, "we have an unusually high number of unconfirmed cases, primarily because of the very murky situation in several Latin American countries, where the combination of crime, corruption, and utter lack of official investigation makes it extremely difficult to determine the motive."
Three other organisations maintain lists too - Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists and the International News Safety Institute.
Their lists also detail journalists who are killed in car or plane accidents or contract illnesses while on assignment.
Simon writes: "This is perfectly consistent with their mission, which is not only to advocate for justice but also to improve safety standards within the industry."
He accepts the validity of their exercises, adding that all agree on a shared goal: "to highlight the price that journalists pay to bring us the news and to advocate for justice when journalists are harmed because of their work."
Source: CPJ