Journalists Memorial

Around the world, journalists place themselves in peril every day. Some are deliberately targeted, while others get too close to danger. Sometimes, they pay with their lives for doing their jobs.

For decades, Freedom Forum has highlighted the importance of a free press and the risks many journalists take to inform the public.

Freedom Forum’s Journalists Memorial database lists the names of 2,355 reporters, editors, photographers and broadcasters who died covering the news between 1837 and 2019.

From 1996 to 2002, a glass memorial commemorating fallen journalists stood in Freedom Park, adjacent to the Newseum in Arlington, Virginia. The memorial was redesigned and featured prominently on the third floor of the Newseum when it reopened in Washington, D.C., in 2008, until it closed in December 2019.

The Newseum and Freedom Forum also held annual Journalists Memorial rededication ceremonies in Arlington and then in Washington, D.C., gathering journalists, colleagues, family members, dignitaries and museum visitors to remember those who paid the ultimate price to report the news.

This important work continues through the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation. In 2020, Congress passed the Fallen Journalists Memorial Act. It authorizes the foundation to “establish a commemorative work on Federal land in the District of Columbia and its environs to commemorate America’s commitment to a free press by honoring journalists who sacrificed their lives in service to that cause.”

Designs were unveiled in September 2024, showing the memorial as it will appear near the U.S. Capitol.