Harassed

In October 2015, when I solicited Chinese readers’ views on gender issues in journalism, one comment spoke volumes about the state of the debate in China: “Women can take advantage of their looks and feminine traits to attract well-known and powerful men to accept their interviews.”

Heba Alshibani did not set out to become a journalist. She had expected to become an academic, as many members of her Libyan family had before the February 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi. But when the violence did not abate after Qaddafi’s overthrow, Alshibani witnessed events that she felt compelled…

It feels strange to be writing about friends in jail. You wonder what kind of a friend you are–free to breathe the air, to walk the streets, to continue to work, while your friends cannot. Why do you deserve this privilege?

Ana Freitas, a 26-year-old Brazilian journalist who covers pop culture, recalled how she once had trouble convincing an editor at the news outlet YouPix to publish an article she had written about women and minorities being unwelcome on comment boards related to pop cultural videos, movies, comics or gaming.

A plurality of online voices is good for democracy, yet one group has come under attack in the most gruesome ways. Threats of rape, physical violence and graphic imagery are showing up in the inboxes and on the social media platforms of female journalists across the globe. Though online harassment of journalists is not new,…

When it comes to abusive readers’ comments and tweets from Internet trolls, Katherine O’Donnell has heard it all. For years, O’Donnell, who is night editor of the Scottish edition of the U.K.’s The Times, has borne the brunt of personal attacks, including about her gender, from online trolls who take umbrage at articles in her…

Even today, the words scribbled across the pages in angry ALL CAPS are hard to look at. “HOW DO YOU GET A NIGGER OUT OF A TREE? CUT THE ROPE!!” “BEFORE THIS WORLD ENDS, THERE WILL BE A RACE WAR…” “ALL YOU PEOPLE DO IS CRY BITCH WINE [sic], BITCH.” “HAVE YOU PLAYED THE RACE…

“Yeah… I went too far,” he said, which by most accounts would be an understatement. Among the Twitter comments this Internet troll posted to or about a female writer and activist were: “Rape her nice ass.” “I will find you.” “The police will do nothing.” The man, who agreed to be interviewed only under a…

New York, April 22, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports in the Egyptian media that authorities have accused Reuters of “spreading false news” in a report on the death of an Italian student. The press reports could not be verified and Reuters said it had not received notification of legal action.