Protecting journalists digitally

A journalist today is likely to be abused, threatened or targeted on social media for writing a story or sharing facts that some people don’t like. Just a fact.”

Chris Peck, Missouri Press Foundation

The job title is something I’d never heard of: Program Manager for Digital Safety Training and Resources.

Honestly, I wish it didn’t exist.

Not that this work of advising journalists on how to protect themselves against online attacks, threats and harassment isn’t needed.

Sadly, it is.

In surveys curated by Pen America, the 103-year-old organization that champions free expression around the world, online attacks on journalists in the United States have exploded in recent months. One telling statistic: one in three writers today now say they have voluntarily censored their own work as a result of online harassment.

In a classroom at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on the University of Missouri campus recently, a program manager for the Pen American Digital Safety Training and Resources program came to talk with Mizzou students about how to stay safe doing the work of a journalist in an increasingly toxic culture.

Kathy Kiely, Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies at the at the Missouri School of Journalism, felt her students need to learn more about how to protect themselves from online attacks. “Because the big tech platforms (Facebook, Tik Tok) aren’t doing it,” she said. “They have no financial or legal incentive to police their own territory. So we (journalists) are going to have to police them.”

That’s why beck Haberstroh, the Pen America program manager for Digital Safety Training and Resources, arrived in Missouri last month.

Listening to the presentation on keeping yourself safe in a nasty digital world, I was struck by how matter-of-fact the discussion unfolded.

There wasn’t much outrage among students or faculty. Nobody talked much about the vulgarity, the cruelty, the bullying nature of online harassment.

It’s just a fact of modern life and journalism.

A journalist today is likely to be abused, threatened or targeted on social media for writing a story or sharing facts that some people don’t like. Just a fact.

Those who write for a living might as well get to the business of putting up some defenses and drafting a safety plan.

Protecting yourself and your family from “doxing” is a big part of digital safety planning, explained Pen America’s Haberstoh.

Doxing, if it hasn’t happened to you, is defined as an online search for personal information about someone with intent to frighten, shame or intimidate that person by making private information public on social media.

Think publishing pictures of your children, or posting your address and cell phone along with an invitation to drive by your house honking the horn or calling anytime after midnight.

Often, being doxed leads to an orchestrated and extensive harassment campaign. It’s scary. Disconcerting. Journalists who have been targeted sometimes feel they are alone against a menacing world.

What to do? The Pen America online abuse and digital safety program offers these tips:

• Take a breath. In most cases, the harassment is just that, designed to aggravate and annoy. Try not to fall victim to those emotions. Ask a friend or trusted advisor to help you talk through the situation.
• Make sure you’re physically safe. Unfortunately, the world has its share of unstable people who might want to do more than just send a hateful message. If you feel physically unsafe, consider temporarily relocating to a hotel or friend’s house, and alert law enforcement.
• Tighten up your social media. You don’t have to share everything in your life. Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook all have “go private’’ settings.
• Save threatening or abusive posts. These could be valuable evidence against an abuser. Save them in a folder, preferably as a PDF which includes information about the sender.
• Lock your phone with a PIN. This way, not just anyone can call you and get through.

All of this is sound advice. Taking steps to shield yourself from online harassment should be part of a journalist’s toolbox these days.

Yet this reality raises a larger, troubling question. How did a swath of our country today somehow decide that trying to frighten people out of reporting news is a worthwhile endeavor?

Never mind that people benefit from knowing what’s going on in the world. Never mind that debate over ideas is a bedrock principle of a healthy democracy. Never mind that civility is a virtue in a modern society.

What a time to be a journalist.