A Civilian Shield or a War Crime? The Fatal Collapse of Protection for Journalists.
Image Credit: The Climate Reality Project via Unsplash
Modern conflicts are increasingly fought through narrative control as much as military strategy. As states learn to use cameras like weapons, the protection of journalists erodes, and with it, the world’s capacity to witness war.
Journalists were once seen as civilians; their role was to document violence, rather than participate in it. Today, the person holding the camera is treated as a threat, and simply recording life under fire has become a strategic liability for governments and armed groups. Although the Geneva Convention promised shielding for reporters, this protection has been quietly dismantled by leaders who no longer fear international accountability. When documenting war becomes dangerous to political power, those who record it become targets.
This shift has been building for more than a decade: states now understand that footage of bombed neighbourhoods, injured civilians or mass graves can shape global opinion more powerfully than any military statement. In Syria, the Assad regime recognised this threat in Marie Colvin’s reporting from Homs. She was not carrying a weapon, yet her eyewitness accounts exposed indiscriminate shelling of civilians. A US court later concluded that the Syrian government deliberately targeted and killed her to silence her reporting. Her assignation revealed a grim truth; it is not the journalist’s weapon that is feared, but their testimony
Once information becomes a form of warfare, governments start to treat journalists not as civilians, but as enemy actors. This does not require changes to the law; only the language requires revision. By recasting reporters as spies, foreign agents or “terrorist sympathisers”, states create convenient excuses to justify killing, detaining or obstructing them. The law has not weakened; it is being bypassed, and this pattern is visible in the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank, who was wearing a clearly marked press vest and helmet when shot. Despite extensive investigations pointing to Israeli responsibility, political denial and competing narratives were enough to prevent accountability. If doubt can be manufactured, the law can be avoided.
This pattern has reached its most alarming proportions in Gaza, where journalists have been killed in unprecedented numbers. Major media organisations and press freedom groups have accused Israel of systematic targeting, claims that have been denied by the state itself. Regardless of one’s political position, the scale alone demands scrutiny. When media workers die at higher rates than soldiers, we are forced to consider whether silencing documentation has become a strategic objective of war. Even if not officially acknowledged, the consequences are identical: fewer witnesses, fewer records and fewer opportunities for justice. This danger also extends beyond active conflicts: the murder of Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate shows that states no longer need a battlefield to treat journalism as a threat. His killing demonstrates that the goal is not simply to suppress information, but to control the narrative of national identity itself. With this logic, factual reporting ceases to be a neutral act and is instead treated as a challenge to state power.
The erosion of protections for journalists is not a tragic side effect of war; it is a deliberate tactic in narrative warfare. As technologies allow reporters to broadcast instantly and globally, often bypassing official channels through social media, the ability to rewrite events becomes increasingly more difficult. At the same time, these platforms have become battlegrounds themselves, where states attempt to dilute, discredit or overwhelm eyewitness reporting with competing narratives and misinformation. This loss of control terrifies governments far more than conventional reporting ever did. For regimes seeking impunity, silencing journalists does not merely suppress information; it prevents crimes from ever fully solidifying in public memory, where they might demand accountability.
If journalists are not protected, war crimes do not simply become easier to commit; they become harder to verify, harder to prosecute and easier to deny. The international community must treat the deliberate targeting of reporters as a direct attack on civilian rights, not merely on press freedom. Protecting journalists is not symbolic; it is the foundation of public truth. Without those who document conflict, the atrocities do not stop - they simply go unseen.