To be a journalist is to doggedly pursue important information intended to inform and serve the public. Sometimes, that information might place an individual or organization in a negative light, threaten their reputation or livelihood, or otherwise create conflict as a result of its publication. Because of these factors, pursuing and exposing the truth comes with risks, and journalists are not always beloved by audiences and other actors. Unfortunately, journalists across the world face threats and intimidation while exercising the freedom of the press. And in the worst cases, journalists face physical, mental and emotional violence—both online and offline—as a result of doing their jobs. This trend of violence against journalists is especially acute in countries where freedom of the press is less protected than in the United States, but it remains a problem in the U.S. as well.
Notable recent examples of attacks against press freedom in the United States, as well as against individual journalists, include numerous cases of journalists being detained or arrested by police officers during the coverage of protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in May 2020. During coverage of the resulting civic demonstrations, a foam bullet left one photojournalist blind in the left eye, while other journalists were shoved to the ground and prevented from doing their jobs. In Minneapolis, police officers arrested a credentialed CNN reporter live on air while he was reporting.
A website called the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documents and records reports of press freedom violations over time, including cases of arrests, physical harm, denials of access to information, and the search or seizure of professional journalistic equipment. The site documented 193 attacks on members of the media in the first ten months of 2020. This was a significant increase from the past: There were just over 30 such attacks in each of the previous two years.
Many of these documented attacks took place while journalists were covering protests of political or social justice movements, a trend that spiked so much in 2020 that government officials in a number of European countries called on American law officials to better protect journalists and respect the freedom of the press. Because journalists are symbols of the freedom of the press in the United States—a right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution—the number of documented attacks on both American and foreign journalists on U.S. soil this year alarmed journalistic outlets and watchdog organizations, such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Both of those organizations have decried a rise in violence against journalists in recent years.
However, attacks against journalists are hardly limited to protests, or to police brutality. In 2020, journalists have also been attacked by Trump supporters, journalistic sources, and other citizens. More worrying is that such attacks have not always been publicly rejected by social and political elites, or even large segments of society.
It is important to note that the rate of attacks against journalists is currently on the rise in many places across the globe, and particularly during protests and demonstrations. Many of the incidents feature freelance and independent journalists, who are less protected by institutions and professional credentials than staff journalists employed by major mainstream outlets. The number of documented arrests of U.S. journalists during the course of their work has also spiked in recent years.
Research shows that violence against journalists is correlated to rhetorical attacks against journalists in elite discourse. Modern American journalistic history is marked both by a deep lack of public trust in journalism and by a partisan political attack against journalists, who are accused by political elites, including the U.S. President, as being the “enemy of the American people,” “fake news” and other insults.
For example, in May 2017, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, Greg Gianforte, bodyslammed a journalist covering his campaign, which sent that journalist to a hospital. Although Gianforte was later convicted of assault, his actions were publicly praised by then-President Donald Trump and celebrated in some corners of society. Moreover, Gianforte would go on to win two terms to the U.S. House of Representatives and become governor of Montana.
In 2019, Trump used the insult “fake news” on Twitter 273 times and called the press “the enemy of the people” 16 times. Trump’s administration also barred journalists from covering certain events and canceled the historically traditional daily White House press briefing. The same year, an edited montage video depicting President Trump shooting and stabbing journalists was played publicly at an event for his political supporters.
Scholars and advocates of press freedom worry that President Trump’s actions, and those of some of his political supporters, serve to vilify journalists and incite public attacks against them. A study from Pew Research backs up this perception, with findings that people who support Trump perceive journalists to be less ethical. Because the United States has long been viewed internationally as a bastion of press freedom, behavior and rhetoric like this also set a dangerous example for other countries. Reporters Without Borders' most recent World Press Freedom Index ranks the United States at number 45 of 180 countries.
Violence against journalists is even more prevalent and pernicious in some places outside of the United States, such as the Middle East and Latin America. It is estimated that more than 800 journalists around the world have been killed on the job during the last 10 years. (Such numbers likely underestimate the reality.) Additionally, global incidents of violence against journalists also include kidnapping, detention, and torture.
In recent years, the disappearance of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi has become a terrible symbol of the need to increase protections for journalists worldwide. The Washington Post writer reported critically about political corruption in the Middle East, and in October 2018, he was assassinated by Saudi governmental actors who wished to silence his voice.
The most frequent targets of violence are television broadcast journalists and freelance journalists. This is doubly true for journalists covering conflicts around the world. In particular, declining news budgets have resulted in more conflict journalism being performed by freelance reporters, who receive limited institutional assistance all the while needing to take greater risks in order to gather information (e.g., photographs) from the front lines of conflict and have their stories get picked up by national media.
Women in journalism are even more susceptible to violence than their male counterparts, particularly online. Research from the International Center for Journalists published in 2020 documented the variety of physical and psychological threats female journalists face online, which fall under the category of “gendered online violence.”
Gendered online violence includes acts like cyber-bullying and online harassment, targeted toxic attacks, copycat accounts and other forms of misrepresentation, threatened sexual violence, and violations of digital security and online privacy that can complicate these other threats and make female journalists especially vulnerable. These gendered online attacks occur on a variety of sites and platforms, including in online news comment streams and through social media interactions.
Although male journalists are also the targets of attacks like those described here, research shows that female journalists and journalists belonging to minority ethnic groups are much more likely to face online harassment. And when they do, the attacks are more personal. Newsrooms, in coordination with law enforcement, continue to develop best practices for preventing and reacting to this type of harassment, including creating clear standards for interactions allowed on their news websites.
All of this serves as a reminder to us that the practice of journalism is not only difficult but also dangerous.
Journalists across the world face physical, mental, and emotional violence—both online and offline—as a result of doing their jobs.
Violence against journalists is especially acute in countries where freedom of the press is less protected than in the United States, but it remains a problem in the U.S. as well.
Offline violence against journalists is correlated to rhetorical attacks against journalists in elite discourse. Because the United States has long been viewed internationally as a bastion of press freedom, the anti-journalist behavior and rhetoric of recent years has set a dangerous example for other countries.
Women in journalism are even more susceptible to violence than their male counterparts, particularly online.