235 journalists have succumbed to COVID-19 in India since the pandemic hit last year

India is fast emerging as the most COVID-19 affected nation in the world even for mediapersons with 235 journalists losing their life to Corona complications ever since the pandemic hit the country in 2020.

Most of them were based in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

According to the list compiled by the Network of Women in Media, India, several of the journalists who have died were in their mid-forties.

The list was last updated on May 9. It is a dynamic list and is updated regularly from different sources including the Press Emblem Campaign.

As per the list, more than 50 journalists are from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, 43 from Maharashtra, 42 from Madhya Pradesh, 25 from Odisha and 25 from Uttar Pradesh.

NWMI noted that journalists have operated on the frontlines over the past year. “When the nation was in lockdown and when it was in unmasked denial and at every stage in between, journalists have been reporting. They have written, recorded videos, taken photographs, analysed data, read stacks of papers, recorded podcasts. They have walked, driven, taken trains and buses. And many of them have done so in full awareness that there will be no witness to their suffering and no bard for their heroism,” stated NWMI.

In the last week of April, a Geneva-based media rights body, Press Emblem Campaign, found that as many as three journalists die in India everyday due to COVID-19.

While the global tally of the number of journalists who died due to COVID-19 reached 1248 scribes in 75 countries, Brazil follows India with 187 media corona casualties and then Peru with 140 journalists dead. (https://pressemblem.ch/pec-news)

Mexico reported 109 corona-victims among journalists till date, followed by Italy, Bangladesh (52 each), Colombia (51), USA, Ecuador (47 each), United Kingdom (28), Dominican Republic (27), Pakistan (26), Turkey (24), Argentina, Iran, Russia (21 each), Venezuela (17), Panama (16), Spain, Ukraine (15 each), Bolivia, Egypt (14 each), Honduras (10), Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Africa, France (9 each), Guatemala (8), Nepal, Nicaragua (7), Kenya, Paraguay, Uruguay (5 each).

“Journalists are engaged in a profession which is particularly exposed to the virus and it’s an unprecedented loss to the profession as a number of them died for lack of adequate protective measures when doing their job. But the media workers have an important role to play in the fight against the virus. So their safety should be a priority as they have to continue providing information from the ground,” said Blaise Lempen, secretary-general of PEC, according to a report on the website.