Report flags dangers of online harassment, particularly for female journalists

CNN Business has published a new report highlighting the dangers of online harassment, a particular concern for female journalists.

It quotes Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, who calls upon social media companies to play a bigger role in monitoring platforms to mitigate these types of attacks.

“We don’t want journalists to be fearful of reporting on issues,” Radsch told CNN’s Brian Stelter on “Reliable Sources” Sunday.said. “It’s not enough to mute or block somebody. You need to know if those threats are coming through, and we need more proactive responses from the tech platforms.”

Radsch’s comments come after the release of a new survey from the Committee to Protect Journalists about female journalists’ perception of their own safety and freedom in the United States and Canada.

The report highlights risks journalists face in two countries not often thought to be dangerous to the press, but where 85 per cent of respondents said they feel less safe than they did five years ago.

Respondents said they faced worse harassment for covering key subjects such as local or national politics, or extremism. That harassment from readers and online trolls ranged from unsolicited sexual messages to threats of violence, rape or death, and also included the publication of reporters’ private information online.

The past two years have been dangerous for journalists in the United States. In June 2018, five newsroom workers were shot and killed at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, and another reporter was killed earlier that year in Chicago. Before 2018, the last time a journalist was killed for their work in the United States was in 2007. Already this year, the US Press Freedom Tracker pins the number of attacks on journalists working in the United States at 28. A Reporters Without Borders report found more journalists were killed worldwide in 2018 than in any other year on record.

Survey respondents also said they feel anti-press rhetoric from President Donald Trump and his administration contributes to the threats journalists face.

Yvonne Zacharias