MFRR Summit | Online Harassment: Mitigating the emotional and professional impact of online hate

Online harassment can take a myriad of forms and shapes – and the emotional and professional impact on targeted journalists can, too. In this workshop we will introduce some of the tactics used to silence and intimidate independent reporters and discuss the best strategies to address them. We will do so using an analytical approach that will provide both journalists and media managers with unique tools to first analyse the attack and, second, to assess the potential impact on the reporter, and finally, adopt the best approach to combat the attack based on limited resources. The measures that we will share draw from interviews with more than 110 editors, journalists and community managers conducted over working visits to 45 newsrooms across Europe, as well as additional expert meetings and focus groups with legal experts, civil society representatives and academics. Since 2014, the International Press Institute (IPI) has been systematically researching online harassment as a new form of silencing critical, independent media. Our work has unveiled patterns of online attacks, analysed the emotional and professional impact on journalists, and collected best practices for newsrooms to address the phenomenon.

Lead by:

• Javier Luque Martínez, Head of Digital Communications, International Press Institute