A Guide to Protecting Newsrooms and Journalists Against Online Violence

"Online violence poses a constant threat to journalists, resulting in serious implications for press freedom, including self-censorship."  

This guide is designed for newsroom managers who want to create and implement policies to better protect their staff from online abuse. It offers guidance on what to include when writing policies, as well as online templates for different policies that newsroom managers can adapt to the needs of their staff. The guide covers a number of protection measures, such as creating awareness of online violence in the newsroom, improving digital safety, doing risk assessments, and creating a reporting and escalation policy. It is based on the experience of the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), which has supported newsrooms around the world with the development of guidelines to combat online abuse. The guide also includes case studies based on some of this work, which range from a small specialised outlet covering health in South Africa to established independent newsrooms in Argentina and the United States.

As explained in the guide, "Online violence is the silent scourge of the newsroom. For too long journalists have endured constant harassment, resulting in serious implications for press freedom, including self-censorship. This abuse disproportionately affects women and diverse journalists who are often reluctant to speak out for fear of jeopardizing their careers. This culture of silence results in inadequate support from newsrooms for both staff and freelancers who are targeted simply for doing their jobs." 

Each chapter in the guide discusses why the particular policy or action is important and what to consider when implementing it, in addition to the downloadable templates and case studies of IWMF's support to newsrooms. The guidance covers the following:   

• Creating awareness of online violence in the newsroom
• Creating staff surveys of online violence
• Ensuring digital safety and online violence
• Creating and implementing a checklist for protecting staff data
• Conducting online violence risk assessments
• Creating a reporting and escalating policy
• Creating statements of support statements of clarification and/or a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• Creating an online violence guide

Following the publication of the main guide, the IWMF identified a need from newsrooms to better support their freelance staff with issues around online violence. A separate guide was therefore published in April 2024, which is based on 3 focus groups held by IWMF with 13 freelancers over a 6-month period.