Trying to comprehend—and end—violence aimed at women journalists

Ghada Oueiss remembers receiving a death threat every day that she went on air with Al Jazeera. One that she will never forget said: “You will be looking at the camera to talk to your audience… You will notice that there is a gun and [a] bullet, that bullet will go straight to your head.”

That quote is from a UNESCO research paper titled The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists. Oueiss’s experience is just one of many examples in the paper of the threats of physical and sexual violence that continue to plague women journalists around the world.

Such threats do double harm to our societies: at the individual level, they target, bully and intimidate women, with the aim of preventing them from pursuing their chosen careers. On a societal level, they harm democracy with a silencing effect that aims to diminish freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Disinformation campaigns work at both levels, operationalizing threats against women journalists to undercut public trust in critical journalism and facts in general.

Female journalists around the world targeted

The UNESCO paper makes for gripping, if dismaying, reading. Published in spring 2021, it is the result of a wider global study of online violence against women journalists commissioned by UNESCO and produced by the International Center for Journalists. The study surveyed more than 900 journalists from 125 countries. Among other things, it found that:

• Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents who identified as women said they had experienced online violence.
• Respondents faced threats of physical violence (including death threats) and sexual violence, and that these threats extended to family members and others close to them.
• More than 40 per cent of respondents said they had been targeted in online attacks linked to orchestrated disinformation campaigns.

Another recent publication, titled Half the story is never enough: threats facing women journalists, features papers written by female journalists in different parts of the world about the challenges they face at work. In the report, which was launched last year by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, Journalists for Human Rights and World Press Freedom Canada:

• Canadian journalist Rachel Pulfer looks at the influence of gendered attacks and sexual harassment globally, how women are portrayed in media and perceived in society, and more.
• Indigenous journalist Karyn Pugliese (aka Pabàmàdiz, Algonquin, Pikwàkanagàn First Nation) draws on interviews with 15 female Indigenous journalists in Canada to expose the issues that threaten their careers.
• Sandra Safi Bashengezi, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sheds light on the harmful stereotypes that stop women journalists in her country from advancing.
• Nisreen Anabli, a Syrian human rights journalist living in Turkey, discusses the security and social risks that prevent women from doing their best work in conflict zones in and near Syria.

Government-sponsored violence

Both publications mention Maria Ressa, co-founder of Manila-based news site Rappler. Ressa has often reported critically on Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who has publicly warned journalists that they are not exempt from assassination. The Chilling reports that Ressa has been the subject of death threats, rape threats, doxxing¹, and racist, sexist and misogynist abuse. At one point, she received online hate messages via Facebook at the rate of 90 per hour.

Political influencers—emboldened by Duterte—have painted Ressa as a criminal because of her work.

“It’s meant to pound me to silence,” Ressa said in her keynote address at the 2020 webinar, Growing Threats to Media Freedom: Democracy Under Assault. “In 2019, [the government] issued eight arrest warrants against me, eight criminal cases against Rappler, arrested me twice in a five-week period (and detained me overnight) to try to intimidate us to silence.” 

Ressa is just one woman. There are thousands like her around the world who face similar threats just for doing their jobs.

The search for solutions

We urgently need to identify and implement lasting solutions. Some suggestions contained in The Chilling and the PEN America No Excuse for Abuse report include improvements to the technical design and business models of social media, rapid response units staffed by multilingual employees with expertise in press freedom and gender-based violence, an SOS button that can trigger protections, and a system of escalating penalties for abusive behaviours.

Half the story is never enough puts forward suggestions for workplace changes like promoting women of colour in clusters to avoid tokenism and isolation and better newsroom policies on sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse. It also emphasizes the importance of broader industry measures such as building global communities across media, government and civil society to support journalists.

Half the story is never enough takes its title from words by Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong, who once said that if you don’t have women covering the news, you’re only getting half the story. The Chilling takes it title from the way online violence against women journalists aims to chill and diminish their active participation in public debate.

Both are important reading in our current environment of media mistrust and online hatred.