In 1981, when the Committee to Protect Journalists was founded, military dictators ruled Latin America, the Iron Curtain was firmly in place, and Cold War-fuelled conflicts raged across Africa and Asia.

Press freedom was a foreign concept in much of the world as journalists routinely confronted violence and imprisonment. In the Soviet Union, State censorship was not only a fact of life, it was justified in moral terms. Meanwhile, more than 100 journalists were killed in Argentina’s dirty war, most of them disappeared by military-run death squads.

By the end of the decade the Berlin Wall had come down. Democracy had returned to Latin America. Rapid economic expansion in Asia created pressure for political change. Press freedom took hold.

Journalists paid a terrible price covering post-Cold War conflicts, particularly in the Balkans. But overall, their situation improved dramatically. The number of journalists imprisoned around the world began to decline. There were 128 in jail at the end of 1997; by the end of 2000, there were 81. As conflicts ebbed, the number of journalists killed each year also showed a downward trajectory.

But in recent years, the trend has reversed and the numbers have once again started to climb. At the end of 2006, 134 journalists were in jail around the world. 56 were killed in the line of duty last year.

The war in Iraq, the most deadly conflict for journalists in CPJ’s history, is the primary reason for the heightened death toll. More than 150 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since the March 2003 US-led invasion. Only a handful has been caught in crossfire; most have been targeted for murder. Increasingly, for journalists operating in war zones like Iraq, a press pass is more likely to make them a target than serve as a source of protection.

‘In recent years, things have got worse, not better. Journalists, of course, are being killed in Iraq, and thrown in jail in places like Cuba and China. But the practice of journalism is also increasingly limited in nominally democratic countries.’

Around the world, five countries are responsible for the nearly two-thirds of all journalists in jail: China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Burma (Myanmar). Countries that engage in media repression on a massive scale generally care little about what the rest of the world thinks of them. All five of these countries fit the bill, although China has recently begun to pay more attention to its international image as the 2008 Olympics approach.

More insidious is the rise of elected autocrats around the world who pay lip service to democratic ideals but are deeply distrustful of any institution that limits their power, including the media. These so-called ‘democratators’, of which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez are perhaps the best examples, have used legal tactics, ranging from punitive tax audits to government-orchestrated hostile takeovers to licensing and regulation, in order to marginalise and isolate the media. Journalists don’t necessarily end up in jail, but the flow of information is deeply curtailed.

Over the last quarter-century, press freedom has expanded enormously, and today journalists in many parts of the world operate with relative freedom and security. But in recent years, things have got worse, not better. Journalists, of course, are being killed in Iraq, and thrown in jail in places like Cuba and China. But the practice of journalism is also increasingly limited in nominally democratic countries. Sophisticated autocrats have developed tools for managing information that are more resistant to traditional name-and-shame advocacy. The press freedom movement has achieved some important victories; but the challenges ahead may be even greater.