RT reports:
Governments, NGOs and journalists across the globe have condemned a leak of personal data of more than 4,000 media staff, accused by pro-Kiev activists of “collaborating with terrorists” for their reporting from war-torn eastern Ukraine.
The names on the list include people working for respectable outlets, such as news agencies AFP, AP and Reuters, broadcasters BBC, CNN, CCTV, Deutsche Welle and Al Jazeera, newspapers, including the New York Times, Gazeta Wyborcza and Kyiv Post, news websites Vice News and Daily Beast and many others. RT journalists are on the list too.
“This is a very alarming development which could further endanger the safety of journalists, who report on issues of public interest and they should not be harassed for doing their job,” said OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović.
Read more on RT.
This is not just a list of names being released, and some journalists have reported already receiving threats. Their details were reportedly hacked one month prior to their release, but it’s not clear how the hacks were accomplished. So far, I don’t think I’ve seen any media/news agencies acknowledging any such alleged hack of their journalists’ information.
According to Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, and as reported on Global Voices, the hackers allegedly managed to acquire 7 terabytes of information, with the 1.25-megabyte spreadsheet of accredited journalists being only a small part of the larger hack.