The International Women’s Media Foundation in partnership with TrollBusters and Dr. Michelle Ferrier, and supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, is conducting a poll that will measure for the first time the scope and impact of online attacks in the United States on individual journalists and news they produce. The data collected in the study will be used to provide recommendations to both media organizations and journalists working in this environment to mitigate the impact of online harassment.

We are asking journalists for their help by participating in the survey. Only journalists can provide valuable feedback on key issues they face in today’s media landscape, be it on the ground or online. We are aiming for at least 1,000 responses, which will be completely anonymous. The survey takes about ten minutes to complete and will provide data that will inform future organizational policies and programs to support journalists to work more safely online. U.S.-based journalists can complete the survey by clicking here.

Misogyny Can Deter Expression

Recent Gallup Poll findings show a downward trend in Americans’ trust in the media over the past few decades, due mostly because of increasing perceptions of bias in news reporting. This distrust and animosity is playing out in the physical and digital world. There is ample anecdotal evidence suggesting that, like sexual harassment in the workplace, female journalists also bear the brunt of online attacks. The survey is intended to provide the first set of empirical data. In the case of women writers, misogynistic attacks can create a chilling effect that silences their voices online and create a deterrent to freedom of expression that ultimately erodes the freedom of the press. The effect is accentuated for minorities and those from the LGBTQI communities.

In the nearly 30 years of its existence, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) has repeatedly heard of aggressions perpetrated against remarkably brave journalists in all corners of the world. These are often the first women in their newsrooms, the first to push into the ranks of leadership, and the first to be attacked just because of their gender. In the IWMF’s 2015 report “Violence and Harassment against Women in the News Media: A Global Picture,” two-thirds of those surveyed experienced acts of intimidation, threats and abuse, and one-fifth had experienced digital hacking or electronic monitoring.

We Need More Data

We are now seeing an increased demand for attention to digital security to reduce risks; the IWMF regularly hears anecdotes and testimonials of female journalists experiencing online harassment. However, at this point, there are few tools available to help journalists protect themselves online.

The data collected through this study will enable us to truly understand the size and scope of the problem, which is essential to mounting an effective response and supporting female journalists who live with this threat. The study will update the data on the scale and scope of online abuse against journalists. It will enable deeper insights into how online trolling – which is almost always violent or sexualized in nature when directed at women – is aimed at silencing and censoring female journalists.

While some news organizations have policies on digital security, many organizations do not yet have digital security training or policies in place to support the targets of such attacks. In addition, there is little legislation that adequately address digital harassment; in many cases, law enforcement agencies simply issue a report and take no further action. Digital harassment against women journalists in particular has kept some journalists from pursuing a story.

At the 2017 Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain, the IWMF, The Committee to Protect Journalists, and TrollBusters facilitated an active discussion on the threats and dangers faced online by women journalists. From this, and as a result of interviews with a range of media professionals around the world, the IWMF developed a list of next steps and guidelines for those interested in the issue of journalist’s online safety. We will be continuing the discussion at the upcoming 2018 Internet Freedom Festival, again next week in Valencia.

The impact of online harassment is the same as the impact of physical harassment, namely intimidation inhibits women journalists from doing their jobs. As one attendee stated at the 2017 conference, ending the impunity for crimes against journalists “should be a top priority of civil society, professional organizations, governments and multilateral institutions worldwide.”

What Needs to Happen

The industry can promote as many good practices and sanctions as possible, but journalist safety will not improve without focused attention on the issue from governments demonstrating a real commitment to journalist safety. Specifically, attendees recommended improving monitoring and tracking mechanisms for states’ reporting on journalist safety; pushing for greater transparency in the treatment of and value of the press; and focusing on diplomatic and political attention to the issue.

We need to create a holistic culture of safety, embedded within all levels of news organizations. As one attendee stated, “It’s not enough that a freelancer is aware, it’s not enough that an editor is aware, they both need to be aware. It’s a culture of safety. Every actor, every stakeholder, needs to be in line in making that a priority.”

For the last five years the IWMF has focused extensively on increased training and access to resources for journalists, including digital security training, mental health and trauma training and access to emergency assistance. We encourage news organizations to subsidize or cover hostile environments and first aid training (HEFAT) for all journalists.

There is a need for increased security protocols for journalists working in hostile environments or covering dangerous topics. Most journalists who are killed or injured while reporting are local journalists and may be covering crime, corruption or business practices; media professionals therefore recommend an increase in both physical and digital security training at the local level.

The IWMF encourages all professionals related to the media industry to be actively working to make journalists safer. For example, media organizations should conduct risk assessments (many of which have no cost) before dispatching journalists, whether staffed, freelancers or local; and should have standard processes, training and toolkits. Journalism schools should include safety training, especially digital safety; educate their students to expect and demand safe environments from their employers; and include courses on international laws and human rights standards, as well as national laws and the cultural, ethnic, religious, historical and political relations of the states or regions in which they may be reporting.

The media industry must take more responsibility for those who are involved but not directly related to them, including fixers and drivers. It is these individuals who are the front line in ensuring journalist safety when operating away from their home countries.

To ensure the best implementation of journalist safety measures, we need to collaborate and share results and best industry practices. Journalists need to participate by providing the data that will be used to support them.

Portions of this story were originally published in “New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Counting Online Abuse of Female Journalists, OSCE.”

Elisa Lees Munoz is Executive Director of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

The post How Digital Harassment of Female Journalists Threatens Freedom of Expression appeared first on MediaShift.

Kim Wall, a Swedish freelancer who wrote for the New York Times and the Guardian, was brutally murdered in mid-August, allegedly by the submarine inventor she was interviewing for a feature story. Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, who led the Panama Papers investigation and exposed government corruption in Malta, was the victim of a car bombing on October 16. In September, American-born journalist Hala Barakat was murdered along with her mother, a Syrian activist, in Istanbul. Gauri Lankesh, an Indian journalist and critic of her country’s ruling party, was shot outside her home in September as well. Tatyana Felgenhauer, a journalist at Russia’s only independent radio station, barely survived being stabbed in the neck during a break-in at her studio on October 23.

Some argue that journalism has grown too dangerous for women, which exacerbates the problem in very real ways. Escalating challenges to press freedom and women’s rights also are having an impact. What can we do to protect women journalists and ensure a diversity of voices in media?

Journalist deaths by the numbers

Let’s start with the data. Tracking journalist deaths can be complicated; the criteria used by monitoring organizations differ in how “journalist” is defined, whether accidental deaths are included along with targeted killings, and whether or not it can be proven that a journalist was killed due to their work product. To give an idea of scope, sources such as Committee to Protect Journalists and Press Emblem Campaign say that the number of journalists killed so far in 2017 is in the 50-85 range, and roughly 15 percent are women. The overall number of women journalists worldwide lags far behind men — only a quarter are women, according to the Global Media Monitoring Project, and the percent varies dramatically by country. Shared research methodologies would support even more accurate collection of data globally.

Why, then, should we pay special attention to women journalists who die on the job?

When women journalists persist, audiences benefit

First is the especially brazen and gruesome nature of the killings this year. As friends of Kim Wall, who was a 2016 fellow for my organization, the International Women’s Media Foundation, we watched in horror as outlets reported the brutality of her murder near Copenhagen. After her car was bombed, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s body was hard to identify. These reporters are not on the fringe; both Carauna Galizia and India’s Gauri Lankesh were widely read in their countries. Targeting a citizen of the European Union is also unusual. It appears that perpetrators are feeling bolder than ever.

The number of women journalists killed is on the rise as well. According to a 2016 report of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), between 2006 and 2013, four women journalists were killed per year on average; in 2014/2015 it was nine. This year it’s 13, with two months to go (see Figure 1). The UN Secretary General has drawn attention to the fact that more women are being targeted and in an August report to the UN General Assembly, called for an increased focus on their safety.

While all journalists are subject to human rights abuses, women face additional gender-related threats, harassment and violence. At IWMF’s Courage in Journalism Awards in October, a captivated audience watched footage of Kazakh journalist Saniya Toiken being arrested and detained by authorities that she had recorded on her mobile phone. Many women work in areas where women have few rights to begin with. The digital space offers new frontiers for harassment; soon the IWMF will embark on a study with Trollbusters and Craig Newmark Philanthropies to assess how online trolling affects women journalists. Whether digital or in-person, the abuse can prevent women from entering the field, prompt them to leave it, block survivors from seeking justice, and more.

Swedish journalist Kim Wall at a HEFAT training in Uganda. Wall was killed in Denmark in August 2017. (Image courtesy IWMF)

That the gender gap in journalism is alive and well may not be a huge surprise. Without diverse voices and viewpoints, though, our body of knowledge is neither rich nor complete. Their gender can also offer special opportunities for bringing us the truth. Courage winner and NPR foreign correspondent Deborah Amos described being able to travel more freely in Syria while wearing a hijab. Hadeel al-Yamani, the first women TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic in Yemen, spoke about interviewing families in spaces where men journalists are simply are not permitted. All shared their commitment to covering the human side of conflict, regardless of risk. Several dedicated their awards to the true heroes, the people in their stories. These themes have been repeated over and over again in the program’s 28 years.

How do we keep women journalists safe? 

According to the IPDC report, the answer comes down to “three Ps”: prevention, protection, and prosecution. While the third P speaks to legal and judicial system failures that allow many perpetrators to go free, at the IWMF we have found we can help address the first two one-on-one, through hostile environment first aid trainings (HEFAT). These trainings use realistic scenarios to equip women journalists — and men as well — to avoid dangerous situations, escape as needed, and treat injuries in real-time. One of the hundreds of journalists we’ve trained, photojournalist Adriane Ohanesian, recently told us that HEFAT saved her life in the Democratic Republic of Congo. HEFAT is especially critical for freelancers like Adriane, who news organizations are turning to more and more to produce content but who usually can’t afford the high HEFAT price-tag, relying instead on fellowships, grants, and other methods to do their work.

The media community has grown more attuned to these risks since 2015, when a number of entities formed the ACOS (A Culture of Safety) Alliance and developed a set of Freelance Journalist Safety Principles that serve as standards for hiring, compensation, and support in the field. Over 60 outlets and NGOs, including the IWMF, have signed on. Grantmakers need to follow guidelines like these as well.

All of these measures will support all journalists. However, we need to recognize that gender balance and safety are critical aspects of press freedom that need to be addressed explicitly. With women’s issues in the news and as attacks escalate, the time is now to acknowledge journalists who persist amid incredible challenges in bringing us the truth. And to equip more women to make vital contributions, safely. 

Figure 1: Women journalists killed, January-October 2017

Source: Press Emblem Campaign http://pressemblem.ch/casualties.shtml and various media reports

Elisa Lees Muñoz is Executive Director of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

The post Why We Should Prioritize Women Journalists’ Safety appeared first on MediaShift.