The story of corruption is often the story of the wicked businessman who arrives in a country with bundles of cash, or it’s the story of greedy and opportunistic government officials who use their authority to enrich themselves. Only occasionally does the camera back up to capture the elaborate and deviant dance between the two—giver and taker—and more rarely still do we get a glimpse of the journalists who investigate and report these stories.

All but a very small handful of countries have been slow to expose and prosecute bribery. Of the countries that prosecute domestic bribery, the prosecutions are often directed at the former government by its successor or at political opponents within the current government. To tell governments that they should work harder to root out corruption when elected officials are an essential party to and beneficiary of these transactions is to deliver an unpopular message. To expose the companies that have used bribery as a cynical business strategy is not more popular. “Fourth estate” investigation of corruption, then, pits journalists against the most powerful and entrenched interests in the country. Few themes do this more starkly. Corruption is an abuse of power and the ability to silence with impunity those who would expose it is an unfortunate license of power.

A simple search of a few key sites dedicated to the protection of journalists and freedom of the press resulted in hundreds of stories about journalists murdered while investigating corruption. We cannot say murdered because they were investigating corruption, because most of the deaths were never investigated. The cases which were investigated resulted most commonly in conclusions that the reporters had died accidental deaths or were the victims of crime unrelated to their work. Bear in mind that some of these journalists were tortured, decapitated, sprayed with acid, killed by explosive devices in their briefcases or cars, or shot in their homes with their household effects left undisturbed. Some were left with warning notes on their bodies.

Why don’t we hear more about these assassinations? Perhaps because the journalists work almost exclusively on domestic stories, so they are often unknown outside their home countries. Perhaps because they operated in settings of entrenched fear and their murders generate a second wave of terror amongst their colleagues.

Before we turn back to longstanding debates about the roots of bribery, whether those who pay or those who demand are more culpable and who the real victims of corruption are, we should acknowledge the contribution of the investigative journalists who bring these stories to the public’s attention, who ferret out the facts, insist on the narrative and verify the details – or, in too many cases, die trying.