The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) announced on June 25 that it is conducting a full review of its database of journalists killed in Gaza after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published obituaries identifying as combatants individuals previously listed by CPJ as journalists.

As of June 25, the CPJ’s count of journalists and media workers killed by Israel in Gaza and in Israeli detention centres since October 7, 2023, stands at 209. The organisation said it has already removed 20 names from its database – eight because they were later established to have been Hamas or PIJ combatants, and a further 12 for “other reasons”. 

In all countries and conflicts, CPJ removes names from its database if subsequent evidence shows individuals were not journalists or media workers, were not active in those capacities at the time of their deaths, or were engaging in combat.

“CPJ has always been clear that we do not include anyone in our data sets if there is evidence that they were engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence,” CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said, according to their press release. “This is consistent with international humanitarian law, which considers journalists affiliated with non-state actors to be civilians, provided they do not directly participate in hostilities.”

The CPJ acknowledged that in-person verification in Gaza has not been possible since the start of the war. Israel has refused access to the territory, including to international correspondents. CPJ has advocated for Israel to lift its ban, including by supporting a case before the Israeli Supreme Court. The review is expected to be completed in July. 

A board member objects – and is removed

Within days of the announcement, an internal dispute became public. 

Nika Soon-Shiong, publisher of Drop Site News and a CPJ board member since 2021, circulated a letter to the board raising concerns about the scope and purpose of the review – and was subsequently removed.

In her letter, Soon-Shiong said the proposal to potentially exclude journalists who exhibit certain “behaviours and activities” or who work for “state-backed propaganda outlets, militant- and designated terror-affiliated organisations” had emerged from a Washington Free Beacon article by reporter Adam Kredo. The piece had placed her on its cover and accused her of terrorism by virtue of her role as publisher of what it described as an “extremist” outlet.

“Reopening the question of ‘who is a journalist’ carries profound implications for the individuals CPJ protects and for the organisations with which they are affiliated,” she wrote. “It’s a betrayal to our colleagues in Gaza who have faced the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded.”

Soon-Shiong said she had no objection to CPJ's existing practice of removing individuals confirmed as combatants. Her concern was with what she described as a separate “special task force” set up to redefine who qualifies for protection, and the risk that the exercise would apply different standards based on a journalist’s politics or employer.

She raised two specific lines of questioning. 

First, whether the proposal meant revisiting CPJ’s existing definition of a journalist as a civilian under international law so long as they don’t directly participate in combat, or introducing a new and undefined category of disqualifying “behaviours and activities”. 

Second, whether outlets would be excluded by institutional affiliation, asking why Hamas and PIJ were the only organisations named in the press release while outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, The Atlantic, the LA Times and the BBC – some of whose staff she alleges have served in or have family in the Israel Defense Forces – went unmentioned. 

Citing the absence of a clear objective, defined scope, or assessment of institutional risk, she asked the board to formally vote on whether to proceed before any further work was carried out.

After sharing the letter with the board, Soon-Shiong said on X that she had been informed she was no longer a board member. The CPJ has not publicly commented on her removal.

The wider debate

The review has drawn sharp responses from journalists and commentators covering the conflict.

Mohammed El-Kurd, Palestine correspondent for The Nation and editor-at-large for Mondoweiss, said the CPJ’s board would “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,” while Israeli, American, and Ukrainian journalists working for state-funded outlets or embedded with militaries would remain recognised. 

El-Kurd also said a “special task force” had been assembled to explore excluding journalists working for “state-backed propaganda outlets and terror-affiliated organisations”.

One user, who works for Databases for Palestine – an organisation that maintains a database of Palestinian journalists killed and cases of incitement – published a lengthy thread on X pointing to a series of Israeli journalists with alleged concurrent or recent military roles, questioning whether CPJ's proposed criteria would apply to them equally. The thread named several Israeli television and print journalists working for outlets including Channel 12, Channel 14 and Ynet, alongside claims about their military affiliations.

The stakes

The CPJ’s database carries significant institutional weight. It is cited by international media, United Nations bodies, and diplomatic actors as an authoritative record of journalist deaths in conflict zones. In 2025, Israel was responsible for over two-thirds of the 129 media fatalities documented worldwide, the highest figure since CPJ began collecting records.

Adam Johnson, author of How to Sell a Genocide, told Al Jazeera that Palestinian journalists were being "exterminated” in Gaza “to make sure that Palestinians themselves are not allowed to report on their own genocide”. He added that even when Palestinian journalists do get platforms at major American outlets, the work is transformed before publication: “The New York Times and others will use Palestinian journalists as stringers or translators, but they will rarely give them their byline, if ever, and they will heavily edit them back in New York and in Jerusalem to make sure that they have the right line.” 

By which he meant “the editorial line of The New York Times, rather than the actual line of reality”, one in which, he said, “Israeli denials are frontloaded, Israeli claims that the people who were killed were Hamas or whatever are frontloaded, the death count for Palestinians is given this ‘Hamas-run Health Ministry’ pejorative to effectively downplay the deaths.”

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