Methodology
Journalists and Media Workers
A detailed overview of the ACLED's data coverage and definition regarding journalists and media workers.
Scope and coverage in ACLED data
Published on: 16 February 2023 | Last updated: 7 May 2024
The scope of the data
Q: How does ACLED define ‘journalists’?
A:
The ‘Journalists’ associated actor includes all civilians who engage professionally in the creation of news media. A non-exhaustive list includes: journalists, media editors, camera operators and photographers, news reporters/broadcasters, etc.
Q: What does ‘disorder involving journalists and media workers’ mean?
A:
The ‘Journalists’ associated actor is coded in any event involving media workers. This includes cases in which media workers are specifically targeted or events in which media workers are part of a larger group of civilian victims. The ‘Journalists’ associated actor may also be found under the Riots and Protests event types, as the term disorder includes all forms of political violence and demonstrations.
Q: Do these data capture all types of violence that media workers face?
A:
No. Only political violence is included, meaning that criminal violence is excluded. ACLED views journalists and other prominent media professionals as having inherently political occupations and journalists are often targeted for political reasons. As such, the threshold for inclusion when circumstances are unknown is lower than for other groups.
Q: Can these data tell me how many media workers have been targeted?
A:
No. ACLED is an event-based dataset, meaning that each entry in the dataset is an ‘event’; events are denoted by the involvement of designated actors, occurring in a specific named location and on a specific day. The number of events should therefore not be conflated with the number of victims.
Coverage in both time and space
Q: What countries and regions are covered in these data?
A:
All countries covered by ACLED – currently 149 countries and territories across various regions. Future spatial expansions by ACLED include Western Europe, and East Asia.
Q: Can I do regional comparisons using these data?
A:
Yes, with certain caveats. An important point to remember regarding coverage is ACLED’s non-uniform coverage of regions over time.
Q: What time period is covered in these data?
A:
Temporal coverage across regions of ACLED coverage varies (see Q&A above). Once ACLED begins coverage of a country, it is continuously covered.
Data accessibility
Q: How can I access these data?
A:
These data are publicly accessible via ACLED’s website as a curated data file. The file is updated on a weekly basis.
Q: How often are data updated?
A:
Data are updated on a weekly basis in conjunction with ACLED’s weekly data release schedule.
Q: How do I cite these data?
A:
Please see ACLED’s Terms of Use and Attribution Policy.
Other
Q: How can I help improve ACLED’s coverage of disorder involving health workers?
A:
If you are an organization collecting information on disorder involving media workers and are interested in a partnership with ACLED to help extend coverage, please reach out to us.
