‘Committee to Protect Journalists’ redefines ‘journalist’ to exclude murdered Palestinians

The so-called ‘Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) has betrayed Palestinian journalists. The CPJ has re-defined its criteria for who is a journalist to exclude the hundreds of Palestinian journalists Israel has murdered – often along with their families. Israel has killed more reporters in Gaza than died in the First and Second World Wars and all the wars since then combined.

The CPJ had already scrapped its ‘Global Impunity Database’ when Israel was going to be announced as the biggest threat to the freedom of the press. It then announced a ‘review’ of its database of Palestinian media personnel murdered in Gaza. The group then downgraded the number it reports as murdered to 209, repeating Israel’s habitual unfounded propaganda claim that some had been “engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence.”

Committee to protect some journalists

CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg went further, accusing defenders of journalism of the “misrepresentation of combatants as journalists”. Disgusted Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd accused CPJ of a “racist scandal of massive proportions” to appease the Israel lobby. The CPJ has changed its definition to exclude the many Palestinian and Lebanese reporters who worked for government-funded media – their equivalents of the BBC:

NEW: The Board of Directors at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets. Israeli, American, and…

— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) June 28, 2026

The CPJ denied the allegation. However, it has unquestionably changed its criteria to reduce the number of murdered journalists it reports.

Featured image via the Canary