"The Zimbabwean state has in recent years stepped up its surveillance efforts on citizens, civil society and journalists who are viewed as the “enemies of the state”. This state surveillance has been argued to infringe on citizens’ right to privacy and access to information. We are mindful tha
...
t the “Second Republic” or the “New Dispensation” government has invested heavily in surveillance to silence its critics, among them activists, opposition leaders and journalists. Based on this, the study critically examines the use of surveillance strategies by Zimbabwean journalists and assesses the challenges and opportunities. The study uses in-depth interviews with selected journalists from Zimpapers, Alpha Media Holdings and freelance journalists around the country. The data show that journalists in Zimbabwe use different surveillance strategies, while some are benefiting from state sources for surveillance. Journalists further indicated that they live in fear of the state, which tracks them down. As a result, however, journalists have resorted to various means of security, which include “hunting in packs” and deploying digital security strategies. Findings further demonstrate that newsrooms are poorly equipped with technology for surveillance." (Abstract)
more
"In the midst of a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists play an important role of sharing information of consequence with the public. As first responders to precarious events, they work in close proximity to the threat they are reporting on yet at the same time struggle with
...
other personal and professional responsibilities which are strenuous on their mental health. This chapter qualitatively interrogated journalists in order to understand their experiences with mental health during COVID-19 and how they worked through personal and social acceptability, biases and stigma as well as diagnosis. Of importance as well was to understand how they disclose, if they disclose at all, mental health issues and the different copying mechanisms. Findings show that journalists have a textbook but not applicable understanding of mental health, declaring that they many of them have experienced mental disorders without knowing. The consequences of COVID-19 measures such as layoffs, increased workload, inconsiderate media houses, brutality from law enforcement agencies were key contributors to mental health stresses. Journalists with supportive families seemed to have coped better while some buried themselves in multiple jobs to circumvent the stress that comes with financial privation." (Abstract)
more
"The online harassment of journalists is a phenomenon which has been on the rise in Europe over the last decade and it affects journalists' working lives. As an expression of mob censorship, online harassment raises questions about how media organisations react to online aggressions targeting their
...
journalists, the consequences on the victims’ well-being and on the role of journalism in society. Yet, previous research has shown the lack of support mechanisms provided by journalists’ employers. In this article, we explore the hypothesis that the lack of organisational support towards targeted journalists is partly due to the challenges faced by media managers when trying to make sense of the phenomenon. This article offers a unique viewpoint on how 22 Belgian media managers from five media organisations struggle to define what online harassment is and how to respond to it. In turn, it shows that the vague understanding of what online harassment is seems to favour case-by-case organisational responses. Missing words and unstructured actions related to online harassment impede media managers from addressing online harassment as a collective issue in journalism and its consequences on the democratic debate." (Abstract)
more
"This research was conducted through a survey (involving 1,256 respondents) and interviews (six informants) of female journalists in 191 cities, representing western, central, and eastern parts of Indonesia. This survey included 25 questions about the respondents’ violence experiences related to t
...
heir work in the digital and physical world. The forms of violence asked in the questionnaire cover all forms of violence that we could find in literature and case records in Indonesia and abroad, including various policies and practices of discrimination for female journalists in the workplace related to salaries, reporting assignments, and so on, which we included in the categories of violence in the physical domain. [...] According to the statements from the female journalists, as many as 1,077 respondents (85.7%) had experienced violence during their journalistic career. Of these, as many as 70.1% of the respondents had experienced violence in the digital domain as well as in the physical domain, 7.9% of respondents had experienced only violence in the digital domain (online), and 7.8% of respondents had experienced only violence in the physical domain (offline). Meanwhile, only 179 respondents (14.3%) never experienced any form of violence at all [...] Although the survey data do not show a strong relationship between the acts of violence and the topic of the journalists’ reporting, interviews show that female journalists are more vulnerable to violence when covering issues considered risky, such as gender and sexuality (LGBTIQ) and the environment. The latter finding is in line with the statement by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which classifies environmental investigations in developing countries as dangerous, second only to reporting of armed conflicts." (Executive summary, page 9)
more
"In global surveys, Latin America is all too often identified as one of the regions with the highest number of journalists killed for practicing their profession in the world. To explore the issues at stake, this chapter begins with a brief overview of the various faces of anti-press violence in thi
...
s complex region. More specifically, it asks: What are the factors behind the rampant violence against journalists in the region? Next, the chapter examines what can be done to protect them. Brazilian society learned of the lack of safety precautions journalists took on assignment and media houses’ little protection to their staff. Many journalists exert their agency to fight back with the help of coalitions, collectives, and allies. The chapter shows that training initiatives prove vital here, helping to secure positive ways forward for efforts to improve the profession’s prospects under such challenging conditions." (Abstract)
more
"This report analyses the model of a Public Inquiry - or a similarly independent process such as a parliamentary inquiry - that can run in parallel with a criminal investigation but has the broader remit of investigating the circumstances that led to murder, and the political climate within which it
...
happened. To this end, it will explore the efficacy of the Maltese Public Inquiry model as a good practice. It will highlight how it - or elements of it - can be followed by other countries in order to combat impunity for other cases of violence against journalists and, ultimately, prevent such cases. In particular, this report will identify the elements that allowed the Inquiry to function independently from the State, and from the ongoing criminal investigation. This report will also look at the recommendations made by the Public Inquiry and some of the steps required to implement them." (Introduction)
more
"Geo-strategically, Pakistan is placed in the region that has been frayed by wars conflict since the USSR’s (1979) invasion of Afghanistan. Since, Pakistan is sharing one of the longest borders with Afghanistan, hence could not remain impervious. The region, specially, Pakistan had not yet fully r
...
ecovered from horrors of the stated war when unfortunately, the episode of the September 11, 2001, provoked another war in the area, framed as “war against terrorism”. The said war prompted a wave of religious extremism and radicalism in the region. Tactically, the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011brought the war on terror to its ultimate end but its after effects is still seriously hurting Pakistan. This state of affairs paved way for the emergence of war reporting in Pakistan. By now, dozens of journalists have been killed during performing their professional duties. This paper is an effort to explore the issues of religious extremism and radicalism in Pakistan and associated threats for the journalists engaged in reporting the same. The study is quantitative in nature and makes use of a questionnaire for data collection. The study found that lack of safety protocol such as deficient safety gadgets; training deficiency; and rush to break news endanger war reporter’s lives." (Abstract)
more
"Diaspora journalists and digital media play an important role as stakeholders for war-ridden homeland media landscapes such as Syria. This study analyzes, from a safety in practice perspective, the physical and digital threats that challenge the work of Syrian citizen journalists examining the role
...
of three online advocacy networks created by Syrian diaspora journalists to promote newsafety. Through a meta-journalistic discourse analysis of the networks’ published visions and missions, and 12 in-depth interviews with the founders and other selected members of the networks, the paper investigates how journalists working for these networks perceive threats, what counterstrategies they adopt, and how they understand the changing nature of their roles. Findings demonstrate that diaspora journalists perceived physical and digital threats as inescapable, following them across borders. Counterstrategies are implemented through collaborations with civil society actors and human rights organizations, aiming to offer professional safety training programs and emergency rescue for journalists under attack, but also through the release of safety guides or codes of conduct. Grounded on the findings, we propose four novel journalistic roles for promoting newsafety from exile: sousveillance, defender, trainer, and regulator/policy developer. While the networks follow some traditional journalistic ideologies, they also show a hybrid conceptualization of journalism." (Abstract)
more
"This qualitative feminist study analyzes Egyptian women journalists’ articulations of their shifting roles, struggles, and resistances to the political, legal, socio-economic, and professional challenges in a shifting, hybrid, and digitalized journalistic field. Through analyzing 16 interviews wi
...
th women journalists representing different media affiliations, experiences, and demographics, this study explores their varied perceptions of the shifts in journalistic professionalism and press freedom in Egypt, their equally shifting professional roles and struggles, and their varied resistance mechanisms. On the one hand, this study unpacks the multiple challenges facing them, such as restricted journalistic autonomy, limited access to information and technology, sexual harassment, lack of job security, and other forms of professional discrimination, in a male-dominated profession and a patriarchal culture. On the other hand, it investigates the parallel resistance mechanisms they deploy to overcome these challenges. We argue that the amalgamation of these cyclical, push-and-pull dynamics gave birth to a new “differentiated media landscape” (Schroeder 2018), representing a third space between mainstream media and citizen journalism, the online and the offline, and the old and the new, in a rapidly evolving journalistic field." (Abstract)
more
"This study sought to examine work-related exposure to trauma and predictors of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms among regional journalists in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, a conflict-ridden area in northwest Pakistan. We recruited 216 KP journalists. Analysis of the surveys re
...
vealed a high prevalence of trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms. All of the participants had covered at least one trauma inducing event. Exposure to work-related trauma, active emotional coping and avoidant emotional coping were statistically significant factors associated with PTSD symptoms. This study is the first to highlight the severity of the impact of trauma on regional journalists in Pakistan." (Abstract)
more
"The advancement of digital technologies, political and legal changes, and the growth in the number of journalism schools in Ethiopia have generally contributed to the overall growth of media outlets and media workers. However, there is no comprehensive source of information that shows the impact of
...
these changes and developments in the general information ecosystem. Disinformation is still the major challenge the media space is grappling with. In addition, there are few developments in ethical and professional excellence among media practitioners. Therefore, the Center for the Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD) has been engaged in multiple activities to avail increased information about the media space, to raise the skills and capacities of journalists and online content creators, to bring journalists’ associations together, and to partner with other media support groups to encourage a professionally vibrant media culture. Thus, CARD commissioned this survey/review of the media landscape to help stakeholders understand the size and capacity of media outlets in Ethiopia. The survey ran a census of registered media outlets, and journalist associations, and disaggregated the data by their preferred medium of outlets as well as the professional background (training) of media workers. In addition, desk research has been conducted to understand the impact of legal and practical changes on Ethiopian media. This survey will be a powerful tool for stakeholders who are working on the media. It will help one have a better understanding of the capacity of media in Ethiopia to deliver diverse and alternative information to the diverse needs of Ethiopian society. Media support groups can accordingly design project activities to fill gaps and encourage improvements. The regulatory body, the Ethiopian Media Authority, can also use this to refine the media policy further and incentivize where the media is lagging." (Abstract)
more
"The political and media rhetoric of the pandemic is that of conflict and a call to arms in face of a hidden enemy. But this is not a distant war where journalists are parachuted in to report on the action for a few weeks and then fly home. It is on our own doorstep. Many of those covering the globa
...
l crisis do not correspond to the popular image of hardened conflict reporters and may have little experience in dealing with distressing stories of death, grief and mourning. How are journalists coping with the everyday diet of trauma when the corona frontline may be affecting their families, friends and colleagues? This article explores these issues through narrative interviews with UK-based journalists covering the pandemic for broadcast, print and digital media. It seeks to capture their “emotional labour” and explore possible differences in their practice and the coping strategies they employ. The paper locates this discussion within the context of an industry that has paid relatively little heed to these issues and considers what long-term implications the coronavirus may have for the next generation of digital journalists." (Abstract)
more
"Declines in the number of foreign correspondents and bureaus have caused media to rely on freelance journalists, particularly on coverage of complex and topical issues such as climate change. This study examines the challenges freelance climate journalists in South Asia face and how they negotiate
...
pay, benefits, and safety. Drawing from in-depth interviews of 15 journalists based in three South Asian countries - India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - the study finds that low wages, inconsistent work and perceived risk/anxiety over security - are the key challenges. The study argues that lack of financial and organizational support from the news media organizations impacts climate change coverage from a vulnerable region like South Asia. Freelance journalists often do not report on issues that can put them at physical and financial risks. Findings show that COVID-19 further impacts their financial security as many media outlets cut their budgets." (Abstract)
more
"At a time of growing threats to the press worldwide, including in supposedly ‘safe’ developed democracies, this article explores the nature of harassment perpetrated by strangers, one-time sources, and viewers against women broadcast journalists working at US local television stations. The stud
...
y investigates the emotional labor – the work of managing one’s emotions to keep others happy – that is required for journalists negotiating such harassment. Through qualitative interviews, our research shows that women in such roles face four main types of harassment: (1) disruptive in-person harassment, (2) physical and abrasive in-person harassment, (3) online harassment as unwanted sexual advances, and (4) online harassment as threats and criticisms. We find that women perform a significant degree of emotional labor as they regularly deal with harassment and simultaneously attempt to mitigate or prevent further harassment." (Abstract)
more
"Journalism is a demanding profession in Afghanistan, where females are less encouraged to become journalists. Even recently, the people of Afghanistan still do not encourage females to work outside. But still, a significant number of females are engaged in journalism. It contributes to society for
...
economic prosperity and changes the attitude toward the concept and process of development. A noticeable change is occurring in the social attitude symbolized by the advancement of females in the journalism sector. These contributions also pave the way for women's and human freedom. Afghan female journalists have made significant gains since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. 1741 working Afghan female journalists are a symbol for other Afghan females, who are living in their homes and are not permitted to work outside. These female journalists report on violence against women every day and publish and transmit them through their media and acquaint them with their Islamic and cultural rights. Even their (people) views towards females, who are working in the media are not very positive, but still, the Afghan female journalists continue to do their jobs. Besides the security issues that female journalists are facing daily, they are facing discrimination in and outside of the office and are also concerned about the future. So in this context, the main reason for this study is to reveal the working conditions and main challenges of Afghan female journalists." (Abstract)
more
"Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is generally attributed to an independent society where the basic rights of citizens are ensured. Balochistan, the western and resources rich province of Pakistan with its huge geopolitical importance has been under a strong wave of terrorism for the last
...
two decades. This menace of terrorism has severely affected citizens of the province including media workers.
Design/Methodology/Approach: This research endeavor is an attempt to explore the impact of terrorism on the performance of media professionals in Balochistan. The study is based on the Hierarchy of Influence model which provides ground to explore the influence of terrorism. In this quantitative study, the researchers employing the systematic sampling technique have selected 50 media professionals out of 194 registered journalists of five press clubs: Quetta, Chaman, Noshki, Mastung, and Loralai.
Findings: The survey findings show that terrorism has badly affected the quality of their reporting. The study also reveals that objective journalism is hard to follow in the province by journalists as they are always threatened not only by terrorists but also by the law enforcement agencies to mold the reports in their favor.
Implications/Originality/Value The findings also indicate that terrorism has also affected journalists’ personal lives." (Abstract)
more
"This paper is about newspaper journalism practices under the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Based on two separate theories - Communication Competence Theory, and Risk and Crisis Communication Management Theory -, this study intends to understand the challenges that newspaper journalists faced whi
...
le discharging their professional responsibilities and governing the newsroom operations during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. In addition, this paper explores the strategies that journalists followed to adapt to the changed working environments and engage themselves in the processes of news production and publication. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 12 journalists including three news managers from three national dailies - daily Prothom Alo, daily Samakal, and The Daily Star. Standing on findings, the discussion progressed around six areas – governance of newsroom operations, preparations, communication, newsgathering, restrictions, insecurity and protection. The key findings are: i) the COVID19 crisis appeared as a blow before the newspaper journalists of Bangladesh due to a policy-level shortcoming in terms of formulating plans beforehand to govern the newsroom operations in the face of the challenges that emerged along with the pandemic; ii) the journalists were not comfortable in adapting themselves to the working from home strategy as they struggled in gathering and verifying information, and doing required communions using the virtual communication methods while working from distance; and iii) the journalists experienced psychological pressures because of multiple factors that included -- limited access to protective gear and fear of infection; protection of family members; adapting themselves to the changed working environments; and tension of losing the job in the pandemic crisis." (Abstract)
more
"Pakistan is considered to be relatively unsafe for journalists; however, little is known about how working in situations that involve a high risk of trauma exposure and personal threat impacts journalists' mental health. The present study aimed to examine the associations among reporting on topics
...
that carry a high risk of trauma exposure; work-related personal threat exposure; and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of Pakistani journalists. Participants completed online assessments to report the extent of their exposure to trauma and threat in the last 6 months with regard to reporting on militancy, crime, bomb blasts, and natural disasters and exposure to electronic, verbal, and physical threats; stalking; kidnapping; and detention. Further, we assessed symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and stress using self-report instruments. Of the 296 participants, 34.1% showed clinically significant levels of PTSD, moderately elevated levels of depression, and severely elevated levels of anxiety. Linear regression analyses demonstrated an association between PTSD symptoms and a higher frequency of reporting on natural disasters, * = 2.40, p = .004, whereas symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress were associated with a lower frequency of reporting on bomb and suicide blasts, *s = -.93 - 1.61, p = <.001 - .047. Ideally, these findings will raise awareness about their situation, inform prevention and intervention efforts dedicated to journalists' mental health, and promote future research to elucidate the causal factors implicated in mental health symptoms in this population." (Abstract)
more
"This study is aimed at investigating the impact of security threats on the freedom of expression of Pakistani Television (TV) journalists. It has been observed that a growing trend of curtailment of freedom of expression is becoming new normal in the country. One of the significant problems related
...
to freedom of expression in Pakistani media has been attacks against journalists. Pakistan Press Foundation recorded that 73 journalists have been killed since 2002 (IPEX, PPF and RIDH, 2017). This study has identified the sources and nature of security threats to Pakistani TV journalists. These security threats include threats from owners to threats from secret agencies. The study has been done under the conceptual umbrella of Social Responsibility Theory since Normative Theory deals with agents of control that also govern the laws and regulation and put check on the press freedom. The qualitative research method was adopted to conduct this research. The data was collected from a group of 25 journalists, belonging to major TV news channels of Pakistan through purposive sampling. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to gather responses. The data was analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis technique. All responses were transcribed as verbatim, from which exploratory notes were prepared to derive emerging themes which were further categorized into sub-themes. The data revealed that the respondents not only had concerns regarding their job security rather they were also stopped from covering different packages. The research also presents recommendations to ensure maximum free expression for these journalists." (Abstract)
more
"The Philippine media presented itself as the vanguard of the Filipino people’s basic freedoms, especially the freedom of speech and expression. However, as with any responsibility that pertains to that freedom, the news media had its laws that may result in persecution. This study was aimed at in
...
vestigating journalists' experiences in Surigao City on media persecutions. A qualitative research method was utilized where Colaizzi’s strategy for phenomenological data analysis was used to analyze the gathered data. The results showed 18 themes that emerged from the clusters such as responsible execution of duties and responsibilities, coverage of important issues in the society, persecutions encountered through harassment, intimidation, censorship, reasons why journalists were persecuted, public officials as the common persecutors, reactions upon receiving the persecution, addressing and facing the persecution. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen the safety and security of the journalist not only in Surigao City but in the whole country in general." (Abstract)
more