"During the past two decades, numerous investigative journalist networks have emerged globally, through which journalists from different places and cultures collaborate. In this article, we focus specifically on the experiences of female investigative journalists and the ways in which they navigate
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challenges of intimidation, threats, and violence and adapt to stay safe and prosper in their practice. Our research is based on interviews with experienced and renowned investigative reporters, or so-called elite interviewees (Figenschou 2010), who have worked on transnational collaborations such as the Panama Papers, the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP), and the Forbidden Stories. We interviewed eleven female and four male investigative reporters within these networks, some of them twice, over a two-year period. The study findings show that while the cross-cultural environments of these networks can open doors and be beneficial to female journalists in cultures where women otherwise have limited professional leeway, these journalists must still manage a range of detrimental local conditions on the ground. When confronting globalized structures of crime and power through their collaborative and cross-cultural work, female journalists can face social and professional slander and physical and verbal attacks in return. The exchange of coping strategies within professional networks and collaborations will help to mitigate local challenges on the ground and sustain women's participation in professional journalism." (Abstract)
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"Between 2012 and 2016, UNESCO registered 530 deaths of journalists. They also published a statistic showing that television journalists were the most killed, followed by print media, radio and online journalists. Hinted in this statistics is the need to understand the relationship between the mediu
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m through which and in which the journalists produce news and the threats and dangers posed to them. In this article, we discuss this interlinkage and call it medium-specific threats. As examples of this interlinkage, we describe the cases of community radio journalists in the Philippines, photojournalists in Afghanistan and online journalists in Venezuela. Based on these examples from independently conducted studies from very different parts of the world, we make the broader case that while recognizing the prevailing political-economic and socio-cultural factors and forces at work in these media systems-in-flux, investigations of medium-specific threats to journalists are needed for more nuanced understanding of and thus mitigation of journalists’ insecurities." (Abstract)
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"This book explores the relationship between the safety of journalists and self-censorship practices around the world, including local case studies and regional and international perspectives. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from around the globe, Journalist Safety and Self-Censorship p
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rovides new and updated insights into patterns of self-censorship and free speech, focusing on a variety of factors that affect these issues, including surveillance, legislation, threats, violent conflict, gender-related stereotypes, digitisation and social media. The contributions examine topics such as trauma, risk and self-censorship among journalists in different regions of the world, including Central America, Estonia, Turkey, Uganda and Pakistan. The book also provides conceptual clarity to the notion of journalist self-censorship, and explores the question of how self-censorship may be studied empirically." (Publisher description)
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"In this study, I examine the perilous conditions facing Filipino journalists covering the Mindanao region, focusing on differences in threats and dangers faced by those who are local to the region and those parachuting in from Manila. Using a qualitative approach, I have conducted one group intervi
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ew with two local and two non-local journalists, and five in-depth one-to-one interviews with journalists and expert sources, in 2017. The study additionally draws on interviews with fourteen Filipino journalists and editors from 2014. The journalists perceive that safety differ depending on whether they are local to the conflict they cover or not. Safety issues are significant for the ways in which they operate in the field and decisions they make. Extra-judicial killings and impunity for perpetrators committing crimes against journalists perpetuate dangerous conditions particularly for local journalists, while kidnapping for ransom is among the greatest threats perceived by non-local journalists. In situations which non-local journalists can retreat, their local counterparts stay behind and face reprisals. Ethics is imperative to safety particularly for local journalists. Safety training should be tailored to and differentiate between security challenges. Collaboration between local and non-local journalists may improve their safety altogether, but media organisations must adequately compensate both." (Abstract)
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"Online harassment of women journalists imposes self-censorship and threatens women’s participation in online journalism. This is of grave concern for the development of freedom of speech and plurality in the media (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE], 2019). Part of this i
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ssue’s complexity was summarized by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Deputy General Secretary, Jeremy Dear: “In some parts of the world, it’s a result of what women write and in others it’s because of the mere fact that they write” (IFEX, 2019). Perhaps more often, these two motivational factors are working together creating a significantly more threatening online environment for female journalists than for their male colleagues. When such discontent appears within the ungoverned spheres of the Internet, the dimension of it seems to grow exponentially. The result is a climate of fear, silence and self-censorship – and potentially women’s absence in the future online public sphere. This chapter presents an explorative theoretical approach to understanding the processes at play when women journalists are threatened and harassed online. Looking primarily to research within gender- and feminist- theory, computer communication and cyber psychology studies and literature on antipress violence, I argue that female journalists’ predisposition to online harassment is largely connected to online governance (or lack thereof), an enduring patriarchy and a rise in threats against journalists." (Abstract)
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"Safety training courses and manuals are designed to provide journalists with guidance to assess and mitigate risk. In this article, we ask whether content of such training and guidance is informed by actual threats and risks relevant to journalists working in the field. Departing from our own previ
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ous research about threats and dangers faced by journalists working in conflict zones or covering dangerous beats, and a review of the literature addressing the issue of safety manuals for journalists, we evaluate the content of five safety-training documents. Of these, two are descriptions of internationally-focused safety courses, two are safety manuals produced for a national audience, and one is a handbook focusing specifically on safety for women reporters in the Arab region. The purpose is to identify various aspects of safety addressed in training and manuals offered to locally and internationally-deployed journalists-and illuminate how they may differ in focus and approach. Through a comparison of the content of the selected manuals and course descriptions, we conclude that these trainings and manuals to some extent address specific variations in context, but that detailed attention towards gender differences in risk and other personal characteristics are not given equivalent weight. The international training focuses excessively on physical environment issues (such as those of a 'hostile environment'), while the manuals with national or regional focus are practice-oriented and largely take a journalistic point of departure. We argue that training and manuals can benefit from considering both these aspects for risk assessment, but recommend that addressing journalistic practice and personal resources is fundamental to all journalist safety training since it is at the personal, practical, and media organisational levels that the mitigation encouraged by these trainings can happen." (Abstract)
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"Through interviews with 100 journalists and editors in seven countries, the authors examine safety as the main challenge for journalists covering war and conflict in both local and international contexts. The article places a particular focus on the situation for Filipino and Norwegian journalists.
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The underreporting of legal aspects of international conflict, combined with less security, means less presence and more journalistic coverage based on second-hand observation. The article argues that reduced access to conflict hotspots owing to the tactical targeting of journalists might distort the coverage of wars and conflicts, and affect the quality of journalism in future." (Abstract)
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