"Definitions of impunity regarding crimes against journalists have thus far been too narrow. Therefore, we propose a new approach to understanding impunity as also being grounded in journalists’ lived reality and perceptions to better understand the complexity and breadth of impunity. It is based
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on the findings obtained through a set of semi-structured interviews with 40 editors and senior journalists in five countries and expressed in a new typology of impunity. We argue that what we call the ‘Politics of Impunity’ is a policy of governance whereby impunity is used as a political tool by the state and state-sponsored actors to achieve journalistic self-censorship. This is done through the deliberate deprivation of private autonomy brought about by the enforced exile of journalists into a ‘space of exception’ where they are both within and beyond the law. The exercise of the ‘Politics of Impunity’ in an increasing number of states creates an environment that only allows for politically compliant journalism." (Abstract)
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"This chapter examines the root causes, development, and corrosive effects of the progressive “capture” of influential media by populist governments and other vested interests in Central and Eastern Europe over the past 20 years. Many countries in the region have proved vulnerable to media captu
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re due to the weakness and partisan manipulation of democratic institutions in post-communist societies. In Russia, Hungary, and Poland, political forces have variously used oppressive laws and arbitrary penalties, intimidation and coercion, and regulatory and financial controls as well as inducements to gain a dominant share of media markets, advance their self-interested goals, and propagate their hold on power. The widespread instrumentalization of the media for political and economic gain represents an existential challenge to media diversity and the ethical principles of journalism, and has undermined media independence and the essential role of a free press as a public watchdog. Governments and their allies have promoted unethical practices by captive media including falsehoods and propaganda, biased reporting, intense pressures to self-censor, and smear campaigns aimed at discrediting opponents and suppressing critical voices. This analysis exposes the extent of the damage done and the immensity of the task of restoring conditions for media freedom to flourish." (Abstract)
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"Journalism schools have being witnessing an increase in female enrollment in Nigeria, but this is not proportional to the number of women who work in media organizations. For the women who eventually get employed as journalists, they experience various safety challenges which affect their advanceme
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nt and continued presence in journalism. This chapter looked at safety challenges faced by female journalists in selected media organizations in Kano state of Nigeria. The study was hinged on spiral of silence theory to show how female journalists keep mute about the challenges they experience and prefer to report the so-called soft news. The study used focus group discussion and in-depth interview as the research methodology. Four sessions were held with each group consisting of eight female journalists. Findings show that majority of the participants had experienced threats, attacks, harassments, marginalization, and discrimination. In addition, most media organizations do not have laid down safety policies except for a few safety measures when the need arises." (Abstract)
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"This chapter examines Zimbabwean print journalists’ everyday newsmaking experiences during the 2008 disputed harmonized elections. The article is sequel to our article (Tsarwe and Mare 2019), which exclusively relied on qualitative content analysis of a state-owned weekly (The Sunday Mail) and tw
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o private-owned weeklies (The Financial Gazette and The Zimbabwe Independent) to show how news articles were framed in ways that could have escalated political polarization and hatred among different political groups. While the three newspapers remain our sample as in our previous paper, in this chapter we rely exclusively on verbalized personal accounts (in-depth interviews) from journalists who reported on the various stages of the electoral conflict, with specific focus on how newsmaking cultures and other structural forces (such as influence from owners and politicians) may have driven Zimbabwean journalists to behave in the manner they did. The chapter, thus, provides compelling evidence on how various micro- and macro-structural factors contributed to the dissemination of hate speech, propaganda and “war” journalism discourses in a highly polarized Zimbabwe. We argue that although journalists from the three weekly newspapers have the agency to avoid the use of “war journalism frames”, they are embedded in socio-political, organizational and institutional structures, which militate against the realization of conflict-sensitive journalism." (Abstract)
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"In 2017, following the #MeToo movement stirred by the public outing of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the safety of women at the workplace became a prime agenda for international news media. Although far from being truly inclusive, the #MeToo movement rapidly spread to other parts of the worl
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d. Women of different nationalities, backgrounds, and race shared their stories of abuse and survival using the #MeToo hashtag and its variants. In 2018, women within the news media industry in India joined the movement and called out prominent editors, filmmakers, and artists on social media for perpetrating and abetting acts of sexual harassment and abuse against them. As an immediate result, several accused were made to resign from their organizations and dropped from prestigious public posts. However, a backlash to the movement followed soon after, most evidently in the form of victim-shaming and defamation lawsuits against women. Based on the theory of epistemic advantage, the study explores the perception of sexual harassment among journalists in India using in-depth interviews." (Abstract)
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"Mental health in workplaces is a global concern today, and Bangladesh is not an exception to that. It is a big concern in journalism as good journalism depends on healthy journalists and news organizations. Most of the scholarships on the topic have been done from the perspective of western and dev
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eloped countries. Little is known about it from the context of developing countries like Bangladesh. As such, the present study aimed at assessing mental health and well-being of professional journalists in Bangladesh. Data were collected through a survey using a semi-structured questionnaire from 191 Dhaka-based journalists reached with the aid of snowball sampling method. Psychometric instruments such as improvised depression scale, the perceived stress scale, Beck hopelessness scale (BHS), and satisfaction with life scale were used to collect data. The results show that most of the journalists perceive their job as highly stressful, suffer from depression up to some extent, are extremely dissatisfied with their life, and severely hopeless about their life and future." (Abstract)
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"Since 2000, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico. Today the country is one of the most dangerous in the world in which to be a reporter. In Surviving Mexico, Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine E. Relly examine the networks of political power, business interests, and organi
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zed crime that threaten and attack Mexican journalists, who forge ahead despite the risks. Amid the crackdown on drug cartels, overall violence in Mexico has increased, and journalists covering the conflict have grown more vulnerable. But it is not just criminal groups that want reporters out of the way. Government forces also attack journalists in order to shield corrupt authorities and the very criminals they are supposed to be fighting. Meanwhile some news organizations, enriched by their ties to corrupt government officials and criminal groups, fail to support their employees. In some cases, journalists must wait for a “green light” to publish not from their editors but from organized crime groups. Despite seemingly insurmountable constraints, journalists have turned to one another and to their communities to resist pressures and create their own networks of resilience. Drawing on a decade of rigorous research in Mexico, González de Bustamante and Relly explain how journalists have become their own activists and how they hold those in power accountable." (Publisher description)
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"Bulgarian journalists are under pressure. Although the country has been a member of the EU for 13 years and the legislation on freedom of speech corresponds to Western practices, the country ranks 111th in the annual Freedom of Speech Index. While the cases of work-related physical violence against
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journalists are rare, the cases of direct political pressure are increasing. The unification of ownership into large media cartels and the lack of transparency in the movement of financial flows from the state to certain media are among the main factors affecting the freedom of speech. The analysis of publications covering six cases of physical and verbal aggression on the websites of the five most visited online media in Bulgaria outlines the scheme for inducing self-censorship and the transition from active to passive news coverage within a short period of time. The survey, conducted with students in journalism and professional journalists, aims to show their experience with aggression, as well as to identify the forms of pressure they face on a daily basis." (Abstract)
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"Journalists, across the world, are ever more at risk of surveillance from state and non-state antagonists. However, to work safely in a monitored environment is a substantial challenge for journalists. In such regimes, journalists and media organizations are often prone to attacks by the state auth
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orities. Surveillance, no matter real or implied, the presence of state panopticon power is felt strongly by the journalists, especially in competitive authoritarian countries like Pakistan. While international organizations monitoring media freedom and journalists’ protection do regularly highlight the increasing surveillance of Pakistani journalists, it is imperative to investigate the way they experience it in their real lives and its implications for them. Thus, informed by the theoretical approaches of panopticism, post-panopticism and competitive authoritarianism, this study aims to address the journalists’ lived experiences of surveillance and its impacts on their professional and personal lives in Pakistan. To accomplish these aims, this study uses the qualitative methods of document review and in-depth interviews, and offers a thematic analysis of the gathered data." (Abstract)
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"The chapter identifies the new threats posed by digital developments and how they affect women journalists in particular. There are three main converging safety threats confronting women journalists in the digital age: online harassment and abuse against women journalists; orchestrated disinformati
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on campaigns targeting women journalists; and digital privacy and security threats exploiting women journalists' vulnerabilities. Online violence targeting women journalists manifests in a variety of ways that, nevertheless, share a number of common characteristics. The chapter exposes how a trend has emerged involving the specific targeting of women journalists by state and corporate actors engaged in “disinformation wars”. To illustrate the “new frontline” and bear witness of a rampant cyber-misogyny now confronting women journalists, the chapter presents four new international case studies from the Philippines, South Africa, India and Finland, and shows how all four female journalists used the techniques of research and investigative journalism against their attackers. Based on the research and policy analysis, the chapter ends with a series of recommendations, which could be used as part of a “combat plan” for key actors seeking to counter online violence against women journalists." (Abstract)
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"Media sector, in Nepal, has been vibrant and it is flourishing across all media outlets with about 1,000 newspapers, 600 radio stations, about five dozen television channels and more than 2,200 online news portals currently in operation across the country. Despite such an impressive figure, the rel
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uctance of media houses to spend on embracing the key dimensions of gender sensitivity including professional safety of women journalists at workplace has had a dropping effect on the entire sector. Women remain cut out of the key decision-making levels in media. Media houses do not have any comprehensive prevention, support, complaints, and redress system with regards to sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace. This chapter assesses the state of gender sensitivity in newsrooms of Nepal with reference to professional safety of women journalists. Observations indicate that media houses should give due priority to professional safety of women journalists." (Abstract)
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"Colombian journalists experience abundant threats and acts of violence as well as corporate and governmental obstacles to publishing the truth. In response, many reporters engage in selfcensorship, eschewing stories to protect their livelihoods—and their very lives. Our in-depth interviews with s
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ixteen journalists in the post-conflict era, some of whom have had to leave the country because of such threats, disclose the severity of the problem in deeply textured ways. The results show that dependency on sources and advertising, severe judicial and online harassment, and powerful editorial pressures prevent journalists from reporting freely. The generalized fear, the distribution of official advertising and political publicity, the media’s property, and local journalists’ vulnerability are the key factors that trigger self-censorship. Nevertheless, these journalists also have counterstrategies to circumvent the problem and further democracy, such as sharing scoops with colleagues when covering sensitive issues, finding international funding, or creating new online media." (Abstract)
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"Internet surveillance has become a crucial issue for journalism. The “Snowden moment” has shed light on the risks that journalists and their sources face while communicating online and has shown how journalists themselves can be targets of surveillance operations or other forms of malicious dig
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ital attacks from different actors. More recent revelations, such as those coming from the “Pegasus Project”, have underlined even more dangerous threats posed to the safety of journalists, increasingly targeted with spyware technology. Due to the sensitivity of their work and sources and given their strong “watchdog” role in democracies, investigative reporters are in a particularly dangerous position when it comes to the potential chilling effects of surveillance on their work of journalists. This paper analyzes investigative journalists’ views and self-reflections on the impacts of Internet surveillance on their work by means of in-depth qualitative interviews with reporters affiliated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and working in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. The paper touches on different angles of the Internet surveillance issue by analyzing journalists’ concerns about national and international surveillance players and the overall impact of surveillance on news work." (Abstract)
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"Globally, there is an increase in online attacks on journalists with gender dimensions to these attacks. Also, it is established that digital innovations have augmented free expression and the augmentation allows means for online attacks. Though evidence submits that studies on the problem of onlin
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e attacks on journalists abound, there is dearth of such studies in Ghana and this chapter attempts to fill this gap. Using the feminist theory, this chapter explores the types and sources of online attacks on male and female journalists in Ghana and investigates whether an increase in free expression is a contributing factor to the problem. To achieve this aim, the study employs qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and document reviews and offers a thematic analysis of the qualitative data to understand the lived experiences of Ghanaian journalists. Findings revealed that journalists frequently experience psychological and sexist online attacks when perpetrators express their views on unfavourable coverage from the media." (Abstract)
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"Journalists play a critical role in the dissemination of health information to the public. This chapter explores the challenges created by COVID-19 for journalists in Pakistan. It also examines how the pandemic has shed light on the disparities and safety risks in the Pakistani journalism and expos
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ed fault lines in journalism practices in the country. The authors randomly selected 50 profiles of journalists from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and analyzed the publicly available posts they created or shared on their profiles (n= 823). They found that the journalists were mainly concerned about their own well-being and the well-being of their families. They received threats for covering COVID-19 related stories. They were not trained enough to cover a health crisis like COVID-19, and therefore, a majority of the journalists did not follow standard operating procedures outlined by the Government of Pakistan. They suggest that the Government of Pakistan view these journalists as essential workers and frame precautions from healthcare organizations." (Abstract)
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"How did the home of freedom of expression become a very dangerous place to report the democratic process? Elena Cosentino, director of the International News Safety Institute, says the American experience is a lesson for us all." (Abstract)
"Zubair Mujahid was a journalist from Mirpurkhas in Pakistan whose stories exposed corruption and human rights abuses. His stories and columns were published in the Daily Jang, an Urdu language newspaper based in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest urban centre. On 23 November 2007, Zubair was shot while
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he was sitting on the back of his colleague’s motorcycle, driving home after a long working day. Our investigative team reviewed the official police files and interviewed twenty witnesses with the aim of uncovering new evidence to support the road to justice for Zubair. The investigation also included an analysis of Zubair’s publications prior to the murder, and threats he received in response to his writing. This report presents the findings of our investigation." (Abstract)
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"The media sector in Moldova is diverse. Dogged investigative reporting plays a vital role in public life. However, the legal framework governing the sector is unstable and underdeveloped. In 2020, much of the country’s political class treated the independent press with hostility, viewing journali
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sts as obstacles to rather than partners in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial sustainability continues to elude the sector. Many outlets are captured by and serve as mouthpieces for political interests, and the fallout of the pandemic has exacerbated the precarity experienced by the independent press." (Executive summary)
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"The journalists’ right to perform their watchdog role and to do their routine jobs without fear of being killed, kidnapped, harassed, and attacked is a topic of utmost importance for freedom of the media and freedom of expression. However, in the past decade, journalists’ killings across the gl
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obe indicate that journalism is no more a safe profession. Noticeably, the Asia-Pacific region is the third worst violator of media freedom in the world. While the level of media freedom and journalists’ safety is not better in the Middle East and the North African regions, the Asia-Pacific region stands out because it is home to the two of the top ten worst countries for journalists’ killings over the past 25 years, namely: Pakistan and India. Therefore, drawing on the system theory, this study aims to investigate the journalists’ lived experiences of diverse safety risks in Pakistan and India. To accomplish this aim, this study uses the qualitative methods of document reviews and in-depth interviews. Besides, this study uses thematic analysis to analyse the gathered data. The analyses of journalists’ lived experiences of safety risks reveal a stark systemic failure to protect them and safeguard their right to freedom of expression in these two countries." (Abstract)
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"Female journalists make up only between five to 10 percent of the total journalists in Indonesia. Consequently, this often gives women little bargaining power in the workplace. This research analyzes the prevalence and nature of sexual harassment experienced by Indonesian female journalists, as wel
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l as their coping techniques. In doing so, in-depth interviews with 10 Indonesian female journalists were conducted. Results show that the majority of respondents have encountered some type of sexual harassment, ranging from unwelcome sexual advances, sexual jokes, offensive flirtations, or actual sexual assaults. Based on the in-depth interviews, there were six main coping techniques used by the respondents: 1. Denial; 2. Ignoring the harassment; 3. Relying on the protection of male coworkers; 4. Appearing more masculine; 5. Being friendly and approachable to others; and, 6. Confronting and reporting. Data is analyzed using a feminist perspective, specifically the sociocultural theory. Though the participants in this study have learned to cope with such treatment, the overall persistence of sexual harassment may lead to such negative implications as further decrease of the number of female journalists, lack of diversity in the media, and the inability for journalists to be watchdogs." (Abstract)
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