In 2025, Mexico ranked third in the number of journalists killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which notes that the country’s government, like those of the Philippines and India, has consistently failed to deliver justice for crimes against journalists.
“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” said CPJ Executive Director Jodie Ginsberg.
She added, “Attacks on the media are a key indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish those responsible. We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting.”
It highlights that in Mexico, at least six journalists were murdered in 2025, compared to five in 2024 and two in 2023.
It notes that all six cases remain unsolved, continuing a long-standing pattern of journalist killers going undetected and unprosecuted due to powerful criminal influence over the police and political activity, and widespread corruption.
“A federal protection mechanism introduced to address the persistently high level of journalist killings has proven largely ineffective: despite being under federal protection since 2014 due to threats related to his journalism, Calletano de Jesús Guerrero, deputy editor of an online news outlet reporting on crime in the State of Mexico, was shot and killed in January 2025. His killers have not been identified,” it emphasizes.
It also indicates that the surge in journalist killings is symptomatic of a widespread deterioration in press freedom and the safety of journalists globally: a near-record number of journalists were imprisoned in 2025 amid smear campaigns and legal abuses aimed at criminalizing reporting.
“Online harassment and physical attacks against journalists continued to rise amid increasingly hostile rhetoric toward reporters and the media, even in supposedly democratic countries,” it says.
Source: eluniversal
