That would be illegal, right?
- unitwinidevaw2021
- Dec 6, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 7, 2021
In the 2019 documentary "A Dark Place", the journalist Linda Pelkonen describes her personal experience with harassment, following the publication of an article about a case of sexual assault: in the documentary, we get to hear the phone call between the journalist and her harasser, which contains the following exchange:
Pelkonen: "Are you threatening me?"
"No, absolutely not. That would be illegal...right?
This particular response by her harasser had us thinking about the many situations in which it may be hard for a woman to report the abuse she may have to endure due to her work, whether it's because she might not be properly protected by the law of her state, or because the law enforcement or the people around her might underestimate the scope of the problem. We decided to both research existing data about the issue of online harassment in the news-making industry and to ask a few questions to some women journalists, that were kind enough to share their stories with us.
Lastly, we decided that these results would be published on social media, so that we can spread more awareness about this topic.
According to a 2020 UNESCO report (based on the experience of 625 women journalists)
73% of women journalist experience some sort of violence online
25% have received threats of physical violence
In 20% of the cases, the online violence eventually lead to offline attacks on the person and/or abuse
found that HALF OF THE WOMEN DO NOT REPORT THE ABUSE.
Through some appeals on social media we found five journalists that were willing to share their stories of harassment and talk about their careers in journalism with us.
We asked the journalists some specific questions about their experience with online harassment.
The questions we asked the journalists
1. Do you identify as a woman? 2. How long have you worked in journalism? 3. Have you ever experienced some form of online harassment because of your job? 4. If you did, do you feel comfortable sharing your experience of harassment? 5. Did you ever try to report or tell someone about the harassment? What happened? 6. In your experience, is there any specific topic that causes a negative reaction from the public? 7. Do you feel protected by any law or the state
We also made sure that they were comfortable with sharing their stories and that they could keep an anonymous identity when we shared their answers. We explained where their stories would be published and for what purpose.
These are some quotes from the interviews that struck us from each journalist:
C.D. from Italy has been a journalist for 5 years. When she first started, at 19, she was harassed weekly by her director when she gave in the article she wrote. The director was trying to make her give up on her dream to become a journalist and stop working with him. She tried talking to people but very few comforted her.
Polly is from Brazil and has been working as a journalist since 2007. She suffered from harassment many times, especially because her work focuses on minority rights, which is a sensitive topic in Brazil. Seven years ago, she was physically assaulted by a federal deputy counselor and the company she worked for did not support her. Since she did not receive in case in case physical assault, she feels like online harassment will be more overlooked.
Martina is an Italian journalist and has been writing online for 5 years. She feels comfortable talking about her experiences with harassment online, but she knows she will not be able to report them to the authorities because they would be considered a form of violence. She tried to report a case of verbal harassment, but she experienced victim blaming as she was told that the problem was her way of expressing herself in that particular article.
Erica has been working with a local newspaper in Italy for 5 years. In 2018, she wrote an article about migrants coming to Italy that was not received well by the public. A man in particular, started harassing her online and was threatened of sexual violence. He told her he wished she would be assaulted by the migrants she was trying to protect. He also managed to get her phone number and call her asking her not to report him to the authorities. She tried to report but was not taken seriously.
I.M. has been working as a journalist in Sicily, Italy for 8 years. She has been having a hard time being recognized as a professional journalist, since many men do not accept women’s authority. She noticed that she received more negative reactions when she talked about mafia.
Since the 25th of November, we have been sharing other quotes on our IG page @thatwouldbeillegal.
Work done very well and very interesting.
The part of the interviews is the one that I find most impactful, it is important that this topic is sensitized. And you did it!
Great article, the personal comments really make us understand how individual women journalists suffer to speak about harassements and verbal abuses
Firstly, THANKS for raising awareness in so interesting and approachable way! 😀
I like the idea that vast majority of your project is based on examples and also that each info is so clearly presented. I believe that people will remember a lot from your work!
Reading your work has been very interesting to me.
What strikes me in particular are the data in the Unesco report, which I didn't think were so high.
It's easy to think that violence against women journalists is an event limited to certain realities or contexts, but real testimonies (such as those you reported) manage to make the topic closer than it may seem.
Thank you for raising my awareness on this topic. I hope this will help others and that in the future this will lead to a significant decrease the cases of violence against women journalists.