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It is an increasingly dangerous time to be a member of the press.

In its annual report set to publish Tuesday morning, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that the number of journalists killed "increased sharply" in 2022, according to an advance copy of the report I have reviewed.

In total, the press advocacy organization said a staggering 67 journalists and others in the media profession were killed worldwide last year. That figure is more than double what was reported in 2021, when 28 journalists were killed.

"These figures point to a precipitous decline in press freedom, with the highest number of journalist killings since 2018,” CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg told me.

“Meanwhile, governments continue to imprison record numbers of journalists and fail to confront the spiraling violence and culture of impunity that have effectively silenced entire communities around the world," Ginsberg added.

The disturbing report comes on the heels of CPJ's annual prison census which found a record 363 reporters were imprisoned in 2022. That number represented a 30-year high, and comes after last year's report that also found a record number of journalists deprived of their freedom.

It is no surprise that Ukraine was the deadliest country for journalists in 2022, with 15 members of the press killed in the war-torn country while covering Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion.

That includes Pierre Zakrzewski, a 55-year-old longtime war photojournalist, and Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, a 24-year-old Ukrainian journalist, who were killed last year while covering the war for Fox News.

But, one of the striking points highlighted by the report is just how perilous it currently is to practice journalism in Latin America. CPJ found that, despite the war being waged in Eastern Europe, Latin America was "the deadliest region for the press" in 2022, with more than 30 journalists killed.

In Mexico, where journalists were gruesomely murdered throughout 2022, prompting human rights advocates to express extreme concern, 13 journalists were killed in 2022, up from the nine killed in 2021. And in Haiti, seven members of the media were killed in 2022.

"Covering politics, crime, and corruption," Ginsberg noted, "can be equally or more deadly than covering a full-scale war."

———  BELOW THE FOLD  ———

Flogging Fox: Gavin Newsom laced into Fox News on Monday as he spoke with reporters while visiting Monterey Park, the site of America's latest deadly mass shooting. Newsom went after the right-wing talk channel for "not doing a damn thing about gun safety, not a damn thing for decades." Newsom summarized and mocked the messaging that comes out of the network after such tragedies. "'It’s not the right time, not the right time, not the right time.' Rinse, repeat. Not the right time, Sandy Hook, not the right time, rinse, repeat. Uvalde. Remember Uvalde? Remember? Rinse, repeat. You don’t remember the Borderline here, 13 people, look that one up. Rinse, repeat. Not a damn thing they do. And we know it. And we allow them to get away with that." A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

WaPo For Sale : The New York Post raised eyebrows on Monday morning when it reported that Jeff Bezos will sell The Washington Post to purchase the Commanders. That report, however, was quickly rebutted by a spokesperson for Bezos and the newspaper, both of whom denied the newspaper is for sale. During his visit to WaPo HQ last week, Bezos also told the outlet's senior staffers in private meetings that he had no plans to sell the paper, a source told CNN's Chloe Melas. Of course, saying that the newspaper is not currently for sale and that Bezos has no plans to sell it, is not necessarily an airtight, emphatic denial. So we'll see. But, for now, the New York Post has watered down its headline, changing it from declaring Bezos definitively "will" sell the newspaper to one that says he "may" sell it.

M&M Mania: Fox News can claim its scalp. After a tsunami of bad faith criticism from the talk channel (and broader right-wing media universe) about the candy supposedly going "woke," M&M's has made the decision to pull its "spokescandies." In a remarkable statement, M&M's acknowledged the criticism it received ("we get it — even a candy's shoes can be polarizing"), though it notably left out where specifically the condemnation was coming from. M&Ms said that, during the "indefinite pause" of its spokescandies, Maya Rudolph will be the brand's spokesperson. "We are confident Ms. Rudolph will champion the power of fun to create a world where everyone feels they belong." CNN's Danielle Wiener-Bronner has details here.

► Parker Malloy said it well here: "Everything is so dumb. Unbelievably dumb. We live in the dumbest possible times. It must be nice to be on the political right, where you apparently have so few things to worry about that you devote hours of TV to raging about the marketing decisions of sketchy candy companies."

More Fentanyl Fiction: News outlets continue to push fears about police overdosing from brief exposures to fentanyl, despite medical professionals stressing that such stories simply do not add up. The latest example occurred over the weekend when WABC-TV and the New York Post both uncritically published reports (see here and here) based on a press release from a corrections officer union that said an officer was sent to the hospital after a brief exposure to the opioid, "despite wearing several layers of gloves."

But as Dr. Leana Wen told me last month, opioids "are not well-absorbed through the skin except through prolonged exposure," nevermind a person wearing several layers of gloves. So what is occurring when officers believe they're overdosing after brief exposure? Symptoms they experience are more consistent with severe anxiety attacks from seeing the drug, probably in part as a result of headlines suggesting such interaction can be lethal. It's a feedback loop: frightening headlines are printed about fentanyl exposures, officers read those headlines, some then have panic attacks when they come across the drug, more scary headlines are printed, and on and on it goes.

► Neither the Post nor WABC-TV responded to requests for comment. I also asked the police union if they had a toxicology report or other information to support its press release. I received a spicy call from the union spokesperson, who declined to say whether he had such a toxicology report. "I think anyone who questions this is going to be severely proven wrong," he insisted.

A Slimmer Spotify: Audio giant Spotify became the latest tech company to announce layoffs Monday. The music streamer said that it will cut 6% of its staff, which translates to roughly 600 employees. In a letter to employees, which was posted online, CEO Daniel Ek blamed himself for being too optimistic as the company grew. "Like many other leaders, I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of a slowdown in ads would insulate us," Ek said. "In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth. And for this reason, today, we are reducing our employee base by about 6% across the company." CNN's Hanna Ziady has details here. 

► Ek also announced that Spotify would restructure at the top. Dawn Ostroff will depart Spotify after serving as chief content and advertising officer. Meanwhile, Gustav Söderström was promoted to chief product officer and Alex Norström to chief business officer.

Cameron's Cathedral: You can add another column to James Cameron's cathedral of hits to earn more than $2 billion. "Avatar: The Way of Water" passed the threshold over the weekend, representing the third film from Cameron to do so — an impressive feat, to say the least. "Cameron has yet again bested the doubters with 'Avatar: The Way of Water's' enormous success and staying power as it surpasses such a rare global box office milestone," Box Office Pro chief analyst Shawn Robbins told me. "Whatever the magic touch is, he certainly seems to have it." It's hard to deny that.

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will see you back in your inbox this time tomorrow.