What are newsrooms to do when laptops and phones become hostile environments? Join us for a workshop bringing managers, editors, and reporters together to share tips and strategies for how to better support staff and colleagues facing online abuse.
Journalists, especially women, people of color, and members of LGBTQ+ community, are routinely subjected to abuse, hate, and threats online in retaliation for their work. Perpetrators range from lone-wolf haters to synchronized armies set in motion by interest groups or political actors. Abusive trolls have turned social media platforms into battlefields and expanded hostile environments from war zones to offices. As the internet has become central to how journalists and newsrooms do their jobs, especially in the COVID19 era, “going offline” is not an option. How can newsrooms better support and equip staff to fight back? What internal policies and protocols can they set up? How do they balance the need to engage their audiences while ensuring the safety of their journalists?
Suggested Speaker(s)
- Viktorya Vilk
Program Director, Digital Safety and Free Expression, PEN America - Elodie Vialle
Journalist and Knight Wallace Fellow, University of Michigan