Any way you look at it, journalism is a dangerous way to make a living.

The recent attacks on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo made international headlines. But the bodies, lots and lots of bodies of working journalists, were already there.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international free speech advocacy group, more tham 1,100 journalists of all types have lost their lives since 1992. And those are the ones CPJ know about. Certainly there may be others.

Here’s a small taste of what’s happened recently, as compiled by CPJ:

Journalist detentions and persecutions continue in Iran.

Vietnamese authorities are cracking down on online bloggers.

A tabloid reporter was recently gunned down in the Philippines.

A journalist was killed in a Yemeni bombing.

China, the largest jailer of journalists by far, has turned the key on another 44 since the first of the year.

A journalist was kidnapped from his home in Mexico.

Even at the local level, most journalists have been the subject of threats, intimidation and harrassment to one degree and another over the years.

Why do it? For the journalists we know, it’s a dedication to the truth and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

It’s a desire to shine a bright light on to people, places and things that otherwise may not be known. And if something isn’t known or understood, how can the public decide how it feels?

It can’t. And that, we believe, is the point.