How Can Newsrooms Support Women Journalists Who Are Attacked Online?

In light of the news that the United States Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the historic ruling that guaranteed a woman’s right to exercise their reproductive rights without excessive government restriction, it appears that misogyny has thrown gasoline onto its already ugly flame. Women are under attack both from individuals and institutions around the world. And according to research, most newsrooms are not doing all they could be doing to protect women journalists.

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and UNESCO recently released findings that showed most newsrooms leave their women on their own to deal with all types of personal attacks, ranging from online tirades to threats against their lives and livelihood. After analyzing findings from 15 country case studies of newsroom responses to online attacks, as well as surveying 714 journalists, editors and experts who identify as female, the research concluded that “there is a need to shift the onus for managing gendered online violence from the individual journalists under attack to the news organizations that hire them, the political and other actors who frequently instigate and fuel attacks, and the digital services that act as vectors for abuse.”

So what can newsrooms provide to ensure the physical and emotional safety of their female journalists?  

WRITTEN PROTOCOLS FOR EACH TYPE OF VIOLENCE

Having processes in place is one of the most basic things any organization can do to make its workers feel supported. However, most newsrooms lack a unifying message to respond to any and all visible violent threats; such as online violence. According to ICFJ and UNESCO’s research, “Very few women who reported online violence were offered support by their employer: only seven were offered counseling, time off work to recover, or physical security.” Only 21 of the 714 journalists surveyed were offered any digital security at all, despite the attacks being digital in nature.  

CLEAR RULES ON SOCIAL MEDIA THAT DON’T LIMIT JOURNALISTS

Most reporters now come with a disclaimer in their Twitter bio: “opinions are my own” or “opinions do not reflect my employer.” While these are useful when journalists are operating on their own, it’s not useful when they are being attacked. Newsroom rules often victim blame and silence journalists, and journalists may not defend themselves for fear of being fired. Newsrooms must instead provide clear guidelines for how to respond in times of violence. They must also be clear that this procedure exists for the purpose of and successfully does the job of protecting the journalist themselves as well as the newsroom and other journalists within it.

DIVERSITY IN NEWSROOMS

Women do not want to report the threats of violence they receive to men twice their age–at least, that’s what the research shows. Women are underrepresented in newsrooms, as are people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, trans people, and almost any other minority. This lack of diverse atmosphere has lead several people, including BBC reporter Rianna Croxford, to remain silent when they suffer attacks. Croxford endured several online hate-fueled threats which called her a “monkey” and the n-word. “I felt like I had to be silent because it's the BBC. You don't want to bring it into disrepute,” she said. “As a journalist of color, I sometimes feel you’ve got to work harder, that you can’t afford to make mistakes, and this feeling suddenly felt amplified.”

CREATE A ROLE TO MONITOR ONLINE VIOLENCE

Reach LLC, one of Britain’s largest newspaper groups, created the role of Online Safety Editor in response to growing attacks against UK journalists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The role will “support Reach staff who are receiving online abuse and work on measures both internally and with external partners such as social media platforms to try and prevent further harassment.” Reach referred to online violence against journalists as “endemic” in the current landscape. 

DOCUMENT ALL INSTANCES OF VIOLENCE

This sets the expectation that any and all violent threats are to be taken seriously, thoroughly documented, and monitored to make sure threats of violence do not escalate into real life violence. A clear point person must be made available to receive reports, document them appropriately, and follow up with victims–just as Reach did by creating the “Online Safety Editor” role. Documenting the violence will also turn up patterns, which will inform the newsroom’s standardized procedure for dealing with similar events in future.  

REGULAR RISK ASSESSMENT

It’s not enough to keep track of the threats–it’s important to keep track of the frequency, the severity, and the danger each one poses so as to stop the situation from getting out of control. Risk assessment also takes the journalist themselves into account and what they are most at risk of being targeted for. For example, female journalists are a prime target in a landscape reporting on Roe vs. Wade. Risk assessment would tell any journalist writing on the subject that there will be online attacks–the journalist accepting this risk before writing the piece will also safeguard their own mental health. 

SUPPORT AND ADVOCACY

Journalists are people and people will do anything to feel supported and see themselves represented. If the newsroom immediately offers the journalist mental health support, safety protocols, and takes the incident seriously, the journalist will be more likely to want to come to the aid of another suffering the same issue. Exposing the violence and publicly naming it as wrong is an important step too, says UNESCO. “The core skills that should be found in every newsroom — the ability to investigate and expose wrongdoing, to explain complex ideas to the public, and to report in the public interest — can become powerful tools in the fight against gendered online violence, if newsrooms are willing to use them,” reads the report.

Newsrooms’ responsibility to protect their journalists can only better serve the newsroom in the long run, as the freedom to report information without the fear of bodily harm or death is tantamount to press freedoms. Press freedom starts on the individual level.