Safety advice for female journalists in a changed media world
Summary of an article on the BBC News website, 19.02.11
BBC News publishes self-defence advice for women today in a feature about increased dangers faced by male and female journalists (and see yesterday’s WVoN story).
Washington correspondent Katie Connolly wrote the article a week after the assault on CBS reporter Lara Logan in Cairo.
The advice includes vomiting or defecating on yourself, carrying a rape alarm, keeping a spray can by your bed and not wearing ponytails or necklaces.
The tips come from Professor Judith Matloff of Columbia Journalism School in America. In 2007 Matloff published research on female journalists and sexual assault. She wrote that few tell employers:
“The shame runs so deep – and the fear of being pulled off an assignment, especially in a time of shrinking budgets, is so strong – that no one wants intimate violations to resound in a newsroom.”
BBC world news editor Jon Williams said women should not be stopped from reporting in hostile environments, but that risk assessments are needed. He told Connolly:
“Changing the gender of the person doesn’t eliminate risk, it just makes it different … The threat is there and real, how it manifests itself may be different for men and women, but it doesn’t eliminate the threat.”
Last year 44 journalists lost their lives and 145 were imprisoned.
Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists placed the attacks in the context of recent changes in news gathering. More journalism is now carried out by freelancers, bloggers and citizen journalists working without the backup of news organisations.
Simon remarked that: “Now, dissidents and terrorists alike can use chatrooms, websites and social media to communicate. They’re in control of their own message. Journalists have become dispensable.”