By all accounts, journalism is becoming one of the riskiest professions in the world. The latest evidence of this came yesterday from the Philippines when broadcaster Cline Cantoneros, gunned down Wednesday in the southern city of Dipolog, died of his wounds. Thirteen other journalists have been murdered in the country in the last 12 months.

Worldwide as many as 129 journalists were murdered last year, the majority of them as a direct result of their work, while some 900 were arrested by the authorities and more than 1,100 were physically attacked or threatened and intimidated. According to the respected Paris-based human rights group Reporters Without Frontiers, the five most dangerous countries at present are the Philippines, Iraq, Colombia, Bangladesh and Russia.

Some of these crimes will be rooted in political rivalries. A journalist who represents a competing political platform makes himself a high-profile target in societies where violence is still an inherent part of the political process. In Russia where the Putin administration seems intent on winding back the clock from democracy to control, journalists now attack the government at their peril. Even Krokodil, which once so lampooned the absurdities of the Soviet system, has reportedly been warned to tone down its mockery of the modern authorities. Russia’s method is duplicated in other black spots like Colombia and Zimbabwe. Writers and broadcasters who have the temerity to expose local corruption, business malpractice or the activities of drugs cartels find themselves targets of highly professional hit men. These days warnings are rare. A journalist who writes an uncomfortable truth is simply murdered. His or her death thus acts as warning enough to colleagues and journalists on other papers.

And then there are the war zones, where traditionally journalists have been exposed to the greatest risk. But even here a change has taken place. The main risk faced by reporters and cameramen is no longer being caught up in attacks or barrages. The antagonists are targeting the people whose job it is to cover the conflict. While Iraqi terrorists have seized and killed journalists, it should not be forgotten that US warplanes destroyed Al-Jazeera’s Baghdad office killing a cameraman and US tanks are still suspected of shelling the Palestine Hotel slaying two more journalists.

It is not difficult to see why it has become open season on reporters. Not only are there more of them than ever before, but the world also now expects to hear what has happened on the other side of the world, within minutes of it happening. Those with something to hide can best keep their terrible secrets by killing the messenger who might tell the world. We have become an information society and information is power. Controlling that information controls the power. While journalists, of themselves, should not be made a special case, the facts and honest opinions that it is their job to produce do deserve the highest protection. Evil men who slay reporters are trying to gouge out the world’s eyes and stop up its ears.