"This chapter discusses the safety measures that newsrooms should adopt to help fight various forms of harassment. The chapter comes against the background of previous studies having found that newsrooms are ill-prepared to address different forms of harassment. As a result, journalists are left wit
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h the burden of fighting threats on their own. This chapter outlines possible measures that newsrooms, government institutions, and media-related civil society organisations can possibly implement to help fight online and offline forms of harassment. Some of the possible solutions that have been put forward by this chapter include the setting up of the legal department within the newsrooms to help swiftly address cases of harassment and the need for an open and daily discussion on harassment so that victims can feel comfortable coming up in the open. Governments and civil society organisations should formulate harassment policies that newsrooms to be implemented by newsrooms." (Abstract)
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"In the digital world, every profession has seen a massive transformation in terms of working mechanisms, approaches to the problem, dealing with prospects, moving forward to conceptualising the solution and so on. Likewise, the media field has also seen a massive transformation. The working pattern
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and the types of problems employees face also become a significant threat to many media professionals, especially journalists. The threat to journalists is a significant hindrance today to the younger generation, and journalism has become one of the dangerous professions, citing the transformation and risks involved. In many countries, especially in South Asia, journalists face surveillance, legislation, threats, violence, conflicts, workplace harassment, intimidation, impersonation, forced detention, kidnapping and killing, which affect their work patterns and result in a lack of free speech and press freedom. Many countries have faced allegations dealing with journalist threats in the last 25 years. Especially women journalists today face various consequences inside and outside the organisation when they are physically and emotionally at work. The war and conflict zone reporting also burdens the journalists, who must undergo safety and security training to mitigate the risks. Digital surveillance, safety and security concerns for journalists are increasing internally and externally. Hence, many organisations are training their journalists to secure them from risks by assessing complications and processes involved in their duty. The high increase in insecurities and threats has become a potential area to study. This study will assess journalist’s risks and threats in South Asian countries. The level of media freedom, the measures taken by the media organisations/government to manage risk, journalist’s current situation, work culture, protection level in different countries, and different types of risks (physical, psychological, financial, digital, gender-specific, public and legal) evaluated through secondary data. It will help us to understand and evaluate the current situation by comparing different countries in South Asia. The information presented in this research will be helpful for policymaking to secure the journalists from threats." (Abstract)
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"The press in Switzerland is mainly characterized by external pluralism, with more or less clearly aligned political positions in the case of some news outlets. In line with Hallin and Mancini's model, the public service media plays a significant role in Switzerland. Besides the public service media
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, there are several private and commercial broadcasters. In terms of press freedom, Switzerland currently holds the 12th position of the 2023 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. Generally, the Swiss media landscape offers a free, safe, and secure environment for reporters and journalists. The situation regarding news media and journalism in Switzerland is likely to grow more challenging as the economic context – in particular for the press – will be increasingly uncertain. Switzerland can be regarded as a country with favorable conditions for populist political communication due to its direct democratic and consociational political system." (Abstract)
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"This book offers a first-of-its-kind practical, person-centred guide to managing and contextualising journalists’ emotional wellbeing and mental health. Drawing on the author’s experience as a storyteller, journalist, and media safety consultant, this book combines significant lived personal ex
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perience with reflections from an international network of journalists and mental health experts to collate industry good practice and guidance. It takes readers through a history of mental health discussions in the industry, which have moved from a focus around war correspondents and post-traumatic stress disorder to considerations of vicarious trauma, moral injury, and the impact of online harm on journalists. It shows how pressures that were already facing the industry have been exacerbated by the global pandemic, giving rise to the prospect of a mental health crisis in the media if unaddressed. As a counter to this concern, Storm shares insights from experts on what leaders can do create safer workplaces and processes, how they can channel the empathy that is core to healthy journalism to promote the health of its people, and how they should consider mental health as intersecting with other issues such as physical safety, diversity and inclusion. Insights from science shed light on resilience levels, how our brains and bodies respond to trauma, and strategies that can be adopted to recover from challenging experiences. Whilst finding that some news organisations are starting to take note, Storm shows how others need to do more, offering ways in which newsrooms can learn from the lessons of recent years to bring about long-lasting change." (Abstract)
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"The transformations in the media and political landscapes in Egypt over the last decade and their implications on media pluralism and freedom of expression are well documented. However, less is known about how Egyptian journalists themselves experience these changes; how their relationships with au
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thorities and ordinary citizens are being redefined, and how journalists’ routines and practices are evolving. Through interviews with twenty Egyptian journalists working for different types of media outlets (government-owned, independent, privately owned, opposition and new start-ups), this article records and analyses journalists’ experiences with both authorities and citizens amid the current transitional period, assessing to what extent these relationships and experiences are impacting journalism practices in Egypt. Findings reveal that journalists perceive a hostile stance from both officials and ordinary citizens towards journalists due to a common belief that journalists played a role in the removal of previous regimes and therefore are seen as “destabilising agents”. This prevents journalists from accessing both information and news sources, forcing journalists to produce unified content and practice self-censorship and “service journalism” as opposed to original and investigative stories. These challenges are discussed in light of research on media and democratic transition." (Abstract)
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"The chapter examines the cost of dissent in a governance system that is structured by ‘political marketplace.’ Informed by Alex de Waal ‘political marketplace’ conceptual framework and employing a phenomenological approach, the chapter chronicles the lived experiences of nine independent jo
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urnalists who have endured harassment of different kinds for daring to dissent and for refusing to tiptoe official lines. It also scrutinizes the impact of such experiences on their professional practice, on their safety and security and the overall well-being of their families as well as what all this meant for the media space and the broader political reform in Ethiopia. The study revealed that the study subjects fell victim to dramatized arrests, enforced disappearances, trumped-up charges, weaponized court system and suffered inhumane treatment of different kinds at the hands of law enforcement agents. And such harrowing experiences have pushed the overwhelming majority of the victims to either be very cautious and exercise more self-censorship in their journalistic practice, or decide to quit altogether the profession they loved, or even contemplate exile as an option." (Abstract)
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"This paper examines the current state of legal protections for journalists in China, focusing on the challenges they face and proposing comprehensive recommendations to enhance press freedom. It analyzes the historical evolution of these protections, the existing legal framework, and compares them
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with international standards. Through case studies and statistical data, the paper highlights the systemic issues contributing to legal failures and harassment faced by journalists. The study concludes with actionable recommendations to reform legal frameworks, strengthen judicial independence, establish independent regulatory bodies, improve access to information, protect digital rights, and support journalist safety. By implementing these measures, China can foster a more open and free media environment, contributing to the country’s development and democratic processes." (Abstract)
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"The global importance of the press and freedom of speech in promoting democracy, good governance, and human development is widely recognized. Unfortunately, despite being crucial for the advancement of democracy, violence against journalists in Indonesia and other countries continues to increase. I
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n addition to encountering physical, psychological, and sexual harm, journalists also confront the legal consequences imposed by provisions of certain Laws that can potentially subject them to criminal charges. This paper seeks to explain violent incidents and potential articles in the existing and the Indonesian New Penal Code, the Information and Electronic Transaction Act, and the Personal Data Protection Act that might be employed to criminalize journalists. The imposition of these laws may significantly impact press freedom, impartiality, and information integrity, they are inextricably linked to press freedom and media independence limitations. A normative legal approach is used in this study. Data were obtained from existing laws, online data, research studies, and contemporary books. The study employs a descriptive-qualitative analysis. The study’s findings indicate that violence against journalists is prevalent in different parts of Indonesia. Journalists often encounter infringements upon their rights to access information by employing physical or psychological means such as intimidation, harassment, and various forms of violence, including the possibility of being imprisoned by employing articles stipulated in some Indonesian Laws. Threats of criminalization, violence and attacks against journalists will create a fearful climate for media professionals, impeding the free circulation of information, opinions, and ideas for all citizens." (Abstract)
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"The media plays an important role in disseminating vital information and being ‘watchdogs’ of government misconduct. Press freedom is constitutionally guaranteed in the Philippines, but the space for journalists and media companies continues to shrink. This is because constant attempts have bee
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n made to suppress and silence them through the government’s targeted attacks, which can be characterized into three categories: classifying media as allies and enemies, the weaponization of laws, and personal and institutional attacks. The emergence of COVID-19 made press freedom even more challenging due to the threat of infection and government-imposed restrictions and measures. This research deployed interviews with multiple journalists and a review of secondary data. The study shows that state interference, challenges in fulfilling journalistic roles, and the obstruction of the free flow of information during the pandemic resulted in three levels of fear among journalists: fear of losing one’s network, fear of losing credibility, and fear of personal safety." (Abstract)
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"The coronavirus pandemic brought immense challenges to journalists worldwide, including new threats to media freedom, journalism safety and practice. The impact of the pandemic on journalism is yet to be fully understood and examined but this paper contributes to the field by focusing on the impact
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of the COVID-19 health crisis on the media in countries with democratic deficits, such as Bulgaria. Studies on former Eastern bloc countries have become few and far between recently so this research aims to fill this gap by examining how the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions have impacted journalism practice in Bulgaria and how journalists, and independent media organisations responded and adapted to the pressures in 2020. Our findings from semi structured interviews with media practitioners show that it is the independent media that has borne the brunt of the crisis. In addition to existing challenges to press freedom, many Bulgarian journalists encountered new limits to their daily practice in reporting on a topic of significant public importance." (Abstract)
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"The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for newsrooms across the world range from severe economic hardship to increased threats to press freedom. The “perfect storm” that engulfed the media and journalists globally has threatened and continues to challenge their existence, and the core of the
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ir mission to serve the public interest. This study maps the impact of external political, economic, legal and societal factors on journalistic freedom and the way(s) news organizations and journalists operate in times of global crisis in four Southern European countries. It provides a fuller cross-national perspective on the complex relationship between media, journalism and politics in countries with existing democratic deficits. Findings are based on 32 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in four Southern European countries, namely Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, conducted in 2022. We find increased economic challenges to their fragile media markets, high level of state intervention, political parallelism in coverage of the pandemic and beyond, and numerous threats to the autonomy of journalists that hamper journalism and question its development in the future. The study’s implications are relevant to different contexts, particularly in countries where journalism and media face similar challenges." (Abstract)
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"After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the peninsula experienced a progressive transition of telecommunication and broadcasting infrastructure under Russian influence, followed by a wave of repression of Ukrainian media. Between 2014 and 2015, dozens of Ukrainian media organization
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s and independent journalists left the peninsula to continue working in exile. This paper explores the phenomenon of informational annexation using a mixed methods approach consisting of in-depth interviews with media and IT professionals as well as digital ethnography and network measurements. It argues that, besides pressure from pro-Russian authorities, journalistic work in the area is challenged by legal and infrastructural factors such as the absence of legal and financial protections for Ukrainian journalists traveling to Crimea, lack of holistic digital security within media organizations, and increased Internet censorship in Crimea. By analyzing the risk perceptions and digital security practices of exiled and Crimean civic journalists, this paper explores how informational annexation challenges journalistic work on the infrastructural and organizational level, enabling the rise of civic journalism, and how it affects journalists' individual digital security practices. In the context of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this research provides insights into some of the informational annexation tactics used by Russians in the occupied Ukrainian territories." (Abstract)
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"Amid growing concern over harassment and intimidation targeting journalists, scholarly attention to their occurrence and implications has mushroomed. One aspect of these phenomena that often gets overlooked is that not all journalists seem equally targeted or affected. Applying ordinal regression a
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nalysis of 505 sets of questionnaire responses from Finnish professional journalists, the authors found that only a small proportion of respondents experienced harassment and intimidation regularly, while the vast majority reported being targeted very rarely, if at all. The findings illustrate how certain positions and aspects of journalistic work bring increased risk of facing harassment and intimidation, with investigative journalism, published opinion pieces, work in public broadcasting, and social-media visibility as a journalist identified as strong risk factors. At least in the Finnish context, these facets of the work seem to outweigh personal factors (age, gender, etc.) in predicting overall risk. The evidence supports the call for more comprehensive and carefully designed research arrangements that also acknowledge the role of multiple facets of journalistic work in future studies of harassment and intimidation." (Abstract)
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"This study explores the extent to which the Corona pandemic has changed the working conditions of journalists in Germany and how they perceive these changes. The goal is to provide both the scale and qualitative nature of Corona-induced changes in the working environment of journalists by means of
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an online survey of German journalists (n*=*983) in different employment situations. The results indicate that objective changes such as short-time work, income losses and the sudden shift to home office have notably shaped the world of journalistic work. On a subjective level, journalists’ responses mainly point to the personal financial fallout and resulting existential fears. Our findings suggest an intensified precarity in the working environment of journalists and highlight a growing gap between freelance and employed journalists." (Abstract)
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"This article discusses online harassment against women journalists exploring self-reported incidents, effects, and trust in safety mechanisms. Drawing on twenty-five semi-structured interviews of women journalists in Portugal, we use a feminist and critical realist framework to explore the causal s
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tructures and generative mechanisms that explain their vulnerability to online abuse. We identify three overarching themes: increasing visibility in a context of higher hostility towards journalism and insufficient safety mechanisms; intersectional gender inequality and cultural mores that foster it; and (individual) responses to harassment. These themes show that women journalists’ actions are both constrained and enabled by existing structures and cultural attitudes. While they tend to deny harassment is caused by their gender, seeing it mainly because of their job, they admit the sexualised and gendered nature of the insults, seeing this as an added offence not experienced by their male counterparts. They also see harassment as a continuation of inequality and prevailing sexism and find the protection mechanisms insufficient and ineffective. As a result, they assume an extra burden of emotional labour to deal with online bullying, admitting self-censoring and the need to develop resilience strategies." (Abstract)
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"In the digital era, journalists are targeted with online abuse including serious threats of violence. These censorship tactics are a direct threat to media freedom. Although the UK Government intended to tackle online abuse of journalists in the Online Safety Act 2023, provisions fit for that purpo
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se never materialised. This paper reveals why that was the case and what can be done about it. It finds that there is ongoing tension in the press industry about press regulation, with implications for journalist safety; that the Government carved out special privileges for the press’ online content but did not similarly protect journalist digital safety; that journalist safety was largely ignored in Parliament; and that repeated Government disintegration and shifting policies stripped away provisions that could have been improved to better protect journalists. This paper concludes with suggestions for how journalist safety can be better protected in the OSA regime." (Abstract)
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"Criticism towards journalists has increased significantly since the internet created easy and anonymous communication and has turned more abusive and threatening in recent years, becoming a regular feature of journalists’ work environment, particularly for women. This article presents survey data
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about the amount and nature of online and offline abuse, threats and violence experienced by journalists at Aotearoa New Zealand's largest news media company, Stuff. All respondents had experienced abuse, violence and/or threats, which they widely considered to be part of the job, but women received more identity and appearance-based abuse and men experienced more in-person threats of, and actual violence. Gender plays a part in how the journalists cope with the abrasive abuse received because of their job, with many more women and particularly Maori women considering leaving the profession. In line with calls for more intersectional analysis of journalists’ workplace experiences, our study considers the complex and nuanced ways that ethnicity intersects with gender to shape Maori and Pakeha journalists’ encounters with abuse, threats and violence. For instance, our subset of Maori women journalists experienced the highest rates of offline threats and violence." (Abstract)
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"This study investigates the experiences of journalists during COVID-19 pandemic from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) through a series of focus group discussions (FGDs). The research aims to develop strategies for enhancing journalists' capabilities and well-being in anticipat
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ion of future pandemics. The FGDs involved seasoned journalists from central press clubs in all regions, who provided insights into the challenges they faced and the strategies they adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thematic analysis, conducted using NVivo software, revealed eight key themes related to the pandemic's impact on journalism. These themes informed a set of consolidated recommendations designed to improve journalists' safety, mental health, and access to information. The recommendations also emphasize strengthening legal protections, creating capacity-building opportunities, fostering networking and collaboration, and implementing specialized health reporting training. By addressing these recommendations, the study proposes a framework to bolster journalists' resilience and effectiveness in navigating future crises." (Abstract)
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"This study examines digital media criticism—publicly shared evaluations and judgements of journalistic text and actors on various digital platforms—as a risk to journalism. It specifically interrogates how journalists negotiate the diverse nature of criticism in digital spaces and in a comparat
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ive context. Through qualitative interviews with practising journalists, the paper identifies the following four main journalistic responses to digital media criticism: consolidation (ringfencing journalistic discourse); filtering (cleaning up journalistic discourse); rationalisation (acknowledging criticism or non-responses) and counter-discourse (counteracting anti-media discourses). These responses, referred to as forms of digital discursive resistance, show that journalists are both defensive against and accommodating of risks to journalistic authority, but usually aim to reinforce and expand journalistic discourse in digital spaces." (Abstract)
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"Concerns about the disproportionate levels of online gender-based abuse experienced by female journalists when compared to their male counterparts have attracted sizeable scholarly attention in the last few years. Extant studies have highlighted that female journalists experience online forms of ha
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rassment such as name calling, body shaming, trolling, verbal abuse, sextortion, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, manipulation of photos, cyberstalking, doxing, hacking, receiving unwanted, offensive sexually explicit emails or messages, and inappropriate advances on social media platforms, in the line of duty. Although these findings are true in some of the newsrooms in the global North, there is a disconcerting absence of systematic studies looking at the experiences of female journalists in selected newsrooms in Africa in general and Namibia in particular. This article seeks to fill this lacuna by empirically investigating the extent to which online gender-based violence is deep-seated social problem in selected Namibian newsrooms. It deploys the intersectional approach to analyze the online gender-based violence experienced by female journalists in Namibia. Drawing our data from interviews with female journalists in selected Namibian newsrooms, overall, our findings suggest that cases of online gender-based violence against female journalists are still negligible when compared to other contexts, it is happening, nonetheless. This emerging phenomenon is largely underreported. Furthermore, it is occurring in an environment devoid of legislative, institutional, and newsroom-specific mechanisms aimed at ensuring the safety of female journalists. Namibian female journalists are facing unique online gender-based violence, which contributes immensely towards self-censorship and retreating from the public sphere." (Abstract)
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