When a WSJ reporter received death threats for her coverage

Preetika Rana

Wall Street Journal deputy business editor Nikki Waller spoke with reporter Preetika Rana about her job for the newspaper’s women’s newsletter.

Here’s an excerpt:

WSJ: What is the most challenging story you’ve worked on?
PR: I’ve been extremely fortunate to work for the Journal in India, Hong Kong and the U.S.
Last year, I was sent to cover the unprecedented military clampdown in India, where I began my career at the WSJ nearly a decade ago. My coverage outlined how people in Kashmir — cut off from landlines, cellphones and the internet at the time — were struggling to access lifesaving drugs and critical care.
News out of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, stokes emotions in a largely Hindu country. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over it; both countries claim the region in its entirety.
India’s foreign ministry denounced my coverage as fake news. Death threats flooded my inbox. My photos circulated on Twitter. The Journal’s global security team eventually suspended my social-media accounts.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.