Media Unions Join Global Call for Investigation into Media Worker Deaths Worldwide

Washington, D.C. – In a letter to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton, The Newspaper Guild-CWA and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists called for support of efforts underway at the U.N. to urge "all governments of the world to honor their obligation to investigate" the growing crisis of the killing of journalists and media workers around the world.

President Linda Foley of TNG-CWA and Thomas R. Carpenter, General Counsel and National Director of Legislative Affairs for AFTRA, contacted Bolton as part of the International Federation of Journalists' global campaign to focus attention on the deadly dangers facing media staff. The IFJ and media organizations around the world will mark April 8, the third anniversary of the attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, with events and calls for action to address the horror over attacks on journalists and media staff in Iraq and elsewhere in the world.

"Last year, some 150 journalists and media staff were killed, 89 of them for exercising their professional duties. Many were targeted by ruthless terrorists and criminals," Foley and Carpenter wrote.

They renewed the call for an independent investigation into the deaths of two journalists in the Palestine Hotel attack, as well as a full review of 18 other cases involving the deaths of media staff in Iraq.

Further, "killings that have gone unpunished in Ukraine, the Philippines and Latin America must be addressed, and we believe that action must be taken at the level of the United Nations to force governments to track down the killers and bring them to justice," they wrote.

More information on the International Federation of Journalists' April 8 events and other actions to safeguard media workers is available at www.ifj.org.

TNG-CWA represents 35,000 journalists and media workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. AFTRA represents more than 70,000 members working in the news, information and entertainment industries. Both are affiliates of the IFJ which represents more than half a million journalists in 110 countries.

For more information, John Hinrichs, AFTRA National Director of Communications, jhinrichs@aftra.com, 323-634-8115 or 323-816-2721 cell, or Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, cjohnson@cwa-union.org  202.434.1168 or 202-415-6566 cell