Abstract
Journalistic well-being is garnering increasing attention from scholars globally. Nevertheless, minimal research has explored how colleges and universities are teaching about such topics, especially as they pertain to hostility toward the press, which is on the rise. Utilizing a survey of journalism instructors at ACEJMC-accredited U.S.-based universities, this study explores the state of education on the topics of abuse and safety toward journalists. Data indicate that instructors rarely teach about hostility in the classroom, although most feel efficacious to do so. Moreover, findings indicate an instructor is more likely to teach about hostility toward the press the more they see it as an issue and have encountered it personally as a journalist—particularly women faculty. Implications for these findings are discussed for journalism schools and their curriculum.
A host of scholars have focused their attention on hostility toward individual journalists (see Deavours et al., 2022; Ivask & Lon, 2023; Waisbord, 2022b) and news media more broadly (see Carlson et al., 2021; Holton et al., 2023; Lewis et al., 2020; Post & Kepplinger, 2019) in recent years. This is especially so in the United States, where anti-media rhetoric was reinvigorated by former President Donald Trump and like-minded politicians (Waisbord, 2020). Community members often mimic anti-media rhetoric when interacting with journalists, calling them “fake news” and accusing them of being biased (Mesmer, 2022a). Journalists experience online hostility in the form of insults, threats, sexual harassment, and doxing (Posetti et al., 2021). Furthermore, women journalists and journalists of color experience more frequent hostility both online and offline (Chen et al., 2020; Ferrier, 2018; Gardiner, 2018; Mesmer, 2022b, 2023), making hostility a diversity, inclusion, and equity issue.
It is clear hostility is a challenge faced by today’s journalists, and it is becoming apparent that hostility also affects student journalists, who are experiencing sexual harassment, intimidation, and even retaliation from university faculty and administration as well as online harassment. However, when surveyed about the hostility they have faced, students reported receiving little or no support from journalism faculty (Heckman et al., 2022). Likewise, recent journalism graduates have expressed feeling unprepared for the hostility they have experienced since beginning their professional careers, stating hostility was not a topic discussed in their journalism classes (Mesmer, 2023). Given this disconnect, we sought to understand what factors lead journalism instructors to include or not include hostility within the journalism field as a topic within their classes, and if instructors feel confident discussing such content. To do so, we surveyed journalism instructors working at ACEJMC-accredited schools across the United States to assess their perceptions of the hostility journalists experience, if and how they talk about hostility in their courses, and their teacher efficacy surrounding classroom discussions about hostility. We found the majority of instructors never or rarely discuss hostility in their classes, and those who do are most likely to be women who had personally experienced hostility themselves when previously working in the profession. This prompts a series of pragmatic recommendations for journalism instructors and educational institutions for how to increase the level of attention given to this pressing topic within journalism education.
Hostility Toward the Press and Its Place as a Topic of Classroom Discussion
An unfortunate, but unavoidable, “feature” of journalism (Kuhnhenn, 2020), hostility has always been a challenge faced by journalists (Nerone, 1994). But in recent years, macro-level anti-press discourses seeking to de-legitimize journalism as a profession have trickled down to create more threatening environments for individual journalists, including within the United States (Carlson et al., 2021; Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019). Although certain cases stick out as extreme examples of this violence, such as the Capital Gazette shooting in Maryland in 2018 and the 2022 murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal journalist Jeff German by one of the political sources he was investigating, journalists are constantly inundated with less extreme—but still problematic and harmful—instances of hostility. Indeed, a global survey found that 88% of journalists believed their safety had become more at risk than in the decade prior (Clifford, 2015), and in a more recent survey of U.S. journalists, 29% said they had considered leaving the journalism profession because of the harassment they experienced (Miller, 2023).
Hostility exists on a spectrum ranging from microaggressions and one-off nasty comments directed at journalists, to sexual harassment and threats, and to physical violence and sexual assault. This can occur in online and offline forms (Posetti et al., 2021), reaching journalists in both professional and personal domains, making hostility impossible to escape (Ivask & Lon, 2023). It is a challenge journalists experience regardless of the topics they report on; however, scholars have recently found journalists enter the profession unprepared to deal with the hostility they face (Heckman et al., 2022; Mesmer, 2023). At the organizational level, newsroom managers and editors are often unable to offer meaningful support when reporters experience hostility and seek help (Claesson, 2022; Holton et al., 2023), and many lack useful policies for addressing hostility, especially when it takes the form of online harassment (Nelson, 2022). Although non-profit organizations such as PEN America have published extensive resources designed to help journalists navigate online harassment and groups such as the Radio Television Digital News Association have created safety field manuals, U.S. newsrooms themselves are yet to incorporate anti-harassment guidelines and practices in meaningful ways (although The New York Times altered its social media policy in 2022 so that reporters could opt-out of keeping a presence in those spaces as a way to provide relief from online harassment).
As a result, journalists have had to learn how to cope with hostility on their own, often turning to disengagement strategies (Bélair-Gagnon et al., 2022; Deavours et al., 2022) or changing their journalistic routines in an attempt to avoid hostility (Miller, 2023). In journalism, toughness and resilience (McCaffrey, 2019) have historically been hailed as industry standards, with abuse being seen as a “badge of honor” for many journalists (Miller, 2023). They are often told to have “thick skin” or to leave for profession (Chen et al., 2020). In a study looking at journalists who covered protests, Kocan and Miller (2022) noted that journalists who covered protests often face harassment and abuse—with mental health repercussions to follow. Nevertheless, news organizations offered minimal support after the trauma, and many left the industry (Kocan & Miller, 2022). With shrinking news staffs and budgets, journalists are continually asked to do more with less, including protecting themselves and responding to the abuse they face in person and online. This constant barrage can have a “chilling effect” (Posetti et al., 2021) as journalists may avoid reporting on certain topics that could elicit more hostility, alter story angles, and/or avoid direct contact with sources they know to be hostile. Furthermore, a “tough-it-out culture within the journalism profession as a whole” (Claesson, 2022, p. 10) leaves journalists hesitant to talk to their editors or supervisors when they encounter hostility for fear of seeming weak or unable to properly do their jobs (Mesmer, 2023).
Gender, Race, and Identity
While hostility, abuse, and violence have increased for journalists globally (Waisbord, 2022a), research has repeatedly shown the issues of abuse are worse for younger journalists, women journalists, and journalists of color (e.g., Everbach, 2018; Ferrier & Garud-Patkar, 2018; Markov & Đorđević, 2023; Posetti et al., 2021). In fact, a study examining U.S. print and broadcast journalists noted not only do women journalists experience more sexual harassment than men journalists, but they experience other forms of harassment more as well (Miller, 2023). Moreover, journalists who identify as LGBTQ or who have visible religious markers also face increased abuse (Waisbord, 2020).
Miller (2022) argues that in a theory of hostility toward the press, journalists exist at an intersection of oppression in which their very identity of being a journalist opens themes up to increased abuse. For journalists reporting on politicized topics, sources’ and audiences’ conservative, sexist, and/or racist beliefs can also contribute to the hostility journalists face (Mesmer, 2022b). Age is another factor intersecting with gender in problematic ways, with hostility being “amplified” for women presenting as young. Ultimately, journalists from historically marginalized backgrounds face abuse in a unique way worthy of exploring further.
Teaching About the Abuse
Individuals in many other professions deal with some form of hostility or abuse from co-workers, customers, clients, patients, or observers (Grandey et al., 2007), making the topic a relevant one in a variety of instructional contexts. For example, stand-alone organizational communication classes are taught on how to navigate conflict within the workplace, including bullying and other forms of incivility (see Tye-Williams et al., 2020). Faculty have grappled with how to teach students about complex topics such as sexual violence, leaning on narrative storytelling and case study scenarios to guide classroom conversations (Pegoda, 2021). In applied settings, student nurses have undergone intense patient and visitor aggression and de-escalation training as part of their education within teaching hospitals (Abozaid et al., 2022). Despite the realization that tackling sensitive subjects such as hostility, abuse and sexual violence in the classroom can be difficult for both students and instructors, the vast consensus from educational research is that “such topics should not be optional for students partaking on certain programmes, but rather that students should be assisted in dealing with uncomfortable material and provided with the tools and knowledge to manage reactions” (Scriver & Kennedy, 2016, p. 207).
Although research on how hostility is addressed within journalism higher education is nascent, there has been a recent push in journalism scholarship to understand how trauma literacy, a related topic, is taught in the classroom, with the goal of fostering more resilience among journalism students (see Ogunyemi & Trifonova Price, 2023b). In a global survey of 119 journalism instructors, Ogunyemi and Trifonova Price (2023a) found although instructors recognized the importance of trauma training—conceptualized as training to help journalists cope with trauma related to “sources of risk to journalists including developments in the political economy of the news; a weak or uneven rule of law; culturally motivated violence; and acute hazards” (p. 215)—those same instructors often failed to bring such content into the classroom because they lacked the proper knowledge and confidence to do so, as well as practical resources such as time and adequate teaching materials to support such content. Recognizing the overlap between trauma literacy and teaching about hostility and abuse in the journalism profession, we turn to the concept of teacher efficacy to better understand possible barriers to the inclusion of such content in the classroom.
Closely related to the concept of self-efficacy, or one’s belief in their ability to complete a task (Bandura, 1997), teacher efficacy is one’s belief that they have the ability to affect student performance and influence students’ learning (Guskey & Passaro, 1994). Importantly, efficacy relates to one’s self-perceived ability to competently complete a task and affect student learning, rather than their actual ability to do so as measured by a specific outcome variable. As individuals may under- or overestimate how well they perform a task or teach a subject, this can affect the choices they make in the classroom and their preparation for lectures and activities (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Factors influencing teacher efficacy are mastery experiences, including previous attempts at teaching a lesson or related personal experience with a topic; emotional and physiological arousal in teaching situations, involving the extent to which instructors are relaxed or nervous when talking about a subject; the number of vicarious experiences they have had watching others teach a topic or listening to others’ personal experiences regarding a subject; and verbal persuasion, including supportive feedback and encouragement about one’s teaching from others (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Research has shown teachers with higher levels of teacher efficacy are better able to adapt their classroom content and teaching strategies to meet the needs of diverse students (Thoonen et al., 2011; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2009). Furthermore, teachers who have received relevant professional development from their schools or other professional organizations about specialized topics have increased levels of teacher efficacy (Woodcock & Jones, 2020).
Research Questions
This exploratory research investigates the state of education at the collegiate level on abuse of journalists by answering the following research questions:
Method
Data collection took place in October 2022, after obtaining approval from the Saint Louis University Institutional Review Board. As there is no master list of journalism instructors working at colleges and universities in the United States, journalism instructors at ACEJMC-accredited journalism schools were recruited for this study, including 109 accredited journalism schools 1 and nine provisional programs. Faculty and instructor bios listed on each school’s website were searched, and we manually collected email addresses for those teaching journalism classes. This included full-time professors, adjunct staff, and graduate teaching assistants listed as the instructor of record for at least one journalism course. As information is not always available for adjunct and graduate teaching assistants, the directors of each journalism program were also contacted and asked to share the study information with those individuals who fit the inclusion criteria.
The online survey was distributed using Qualtrics. Targeted participants from accredited journalism programs were sent an initial recruitment message stating the survey would be open for 2 weeks, with two reminder emails. In total, 2,3942 journalism instructors were invited to participate in this survey, with a response rate of 21.66%. 3 After cleaning and screening the data, 411 of our 543 survey responses were usable. 4 (See Table 1 for complete demographic information.)
Demographics for Survey Participants (n = 411).
Percentages do not add up to 100% because of 17 to 19 missing survey values for demographic questions.
The survey asked about the following variables:
Perception of Hostility
To gauge instructors’ perception of the frequency and types of hostility experienced by journalists, a scale measuring the frequency of various forms of harassment was adapted from Miller (2023b). Rather than asking instructors how often they experienced each form of hostility listed in the 16-item scale, instructors were asked to imagine themselves as a journalist working in today’s newsroom and respond to the prompt: “how often do you think you would encounter the following acts of hostility?” on a 5-point Likert-type scale of (0) Would never happen to (4) Always. Participants were presented with the scale and prompt twice; once specifically for hostility in face-to-face or offline interactions, and again specifically for online hostility. Then participants were asked if, on a scale of (0) Never to (4) Always, they believed students in their classes and students working for their on-campus student news organizations faced hostility when reporting. In addition, participants were asked one open-ended question: “Do you think hostility is a key challenge journalists today face in their work? Please explain.”
Classroom Inclusion
To measure the extent to which instructors taught about hostility in journalism, a scale was adapted from Seely’s (2020) method of assessing trauma education. On a scale of (0) Never to (4) Always, participants were asked how often they did each of the following: Teach a course solely focused on hostility, harassment and related contemporary challenges in journalism; teach a lecture focused on the hostility journalists experience; include readings about hostility in journalism; include videos, documentaries, audio stories or podcasts about hostility in journalism; invite guest lecturers/speakers to talk about hostility in journalism; and share resources for dealing with hostility (e.g., Dart Center resources, SPJ toolboxes). Participants were also asked to indicate which journalism classes they included those materials in (e.g., news writing, feature writing, editing, sports reporting, media ethics).
Teacher Efficacy
Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale was adapted for this study. Since this project specifically focuses on instructional strategies, only those scale items were included. Items were adapted to focus on hostility in classroom content. For example, the item “How much can you do to adjust your lessons to the proper level for individual students?” became “How much can you do to adjust your lessons about hostility in journalism to the proper level for individual students?”
Demographics
Participants were asked to provide their job rank/title and the journalism courses they taught. For this manuscript, researchers use the term “instructor” to refer to anyone who teaches journalism courses at the collegiate level, but specific ranks such as lecturer and assistant professor are differentiated in the data and subsequent findings. Participants were also asked if they had previously worked as a journalist, and, if so, in what capacity and for how long. Finally, they were asked about their gender identity, race, and age.
Results
This survey yielded rich data about the presence of content related to hostility within the curriculum in higher education journalism courses. Perhaps as expected, nearly 90% (89.8%) of instructors surveyed said they have never taught a course solely focused on hostility, harassment, or related contemporary challenges in journalism. What’s more, roughly one-third (32.8%) said they never teach a lecture or module focused on the topic, while 39.2% say they “sometimes” do. This suggests that only one-quarter of journalism instructors somewhat routinely (“half the time,” “most of the time,” or “always”) teach a lesson on the subject. When asked how often they “share resources for dealing with hostility (e.g., Dart Center resources, SPJ toolboxes, etc.),” 30.4% said they “never” share resources with students. Conversely, one-third of instructors surveyed said they “sometimes” (32.7%) share resources, with the remaining 37% saying they do so somewhat routinely.
Impression of Hostility
In reference to social media, many instructors surveyed noted social media makes it easier for abusers to contact journalists. A 45-year-old woman instructor noted, “I believe the internet makes it easier for people to make threats without feeling as though there are consequences for their words or actions. I have had several former students and co-workers report many issues such as this questionnaire outlines.” This online element of abuse was pointed out by many respondents as a key challenge, acknowledging that not only do threats come through these channels, but women most often receive vitriol from these online platforms.
Many instructors also noted that political rhetoric was a key reason hostility has become a contemporary challenge for American journalists. As a 61-year-old male respondent noted, “The term ‘fake news’ has been used so much by politicians that many in the general public have come to believe it. Trust in journalism seems to be at an all-time low.” With low trust, they argue hostility has increased toward both the profession generally and the “messenger” specifically. With so many instructors seeing hostility as a “key issue” journalists face, many also asserted that they take student journalist’s safety into account as well. A 59-year-old man instructor noted, “At this university, we’ve had to either alter (sending multiple students rather than one, for instance) or completely ignore covering some events that previously were covered. We’ve had a student spat on and others called names as they report from election watch parties, even when they are only for local candidates. It is something we consider in our classroom teaching and ‘lab’ newsrooms.” In quantitative data, 75% of instructors surveyed said they “sometimes” believe students face hostility while reporting on stories for class. An additional 87% said they believe journalism students working for campus news organizations “sometimes” face hostility. As one instructor noted, “I wouldn’t say the hostility is (generally) exhibited ‘about half the time,’ but certainly sometimes—and even ‘sometimes’ is too much. Those who aspire to be journalists need to grapple with the reality that they will be targets of hostility at times.”
In the qualitative responses, the instructors who did not see hostility as a key issue tended to identify as men. To look closer at differences based on gender, an independent-samples t test comparing men and women journalism instructors’ beliefs about how often journalists face hostility in online settings found a significant difference between the two groups, t(367) = −5.88, p < .001. The mean belief in how frequent journalists face online hostility was higher for women (m = 18.30) compared with men (m = 12.59). Similarly, an independent samples t test comparing men and women journalism instructors’ beliefs about how often journalists face hostility in offline settings found a significant difference between the two groups, t(353) = −4.09, p < .001. Therefore, the mean belief in how frequently journalists face offline hostility was higher for women (m = 11.72) compared with men (m = 9.08). Thus, journalism instructors who identify as women are more likely than men to expect journalists to face hostility in the field in both online and offline spaces.
The differences are even larger when looking specifically at sexual harassment. An independent-samples t test comparing men and women journalism instructors’ beliefs about how often journalists face sexual harassment in both online and offline settings found a significant difference between the two groups, t(375) = −8.28, p < .001. The difference was quite large between groups with women notably more like to believe sexual harassment is a problem (m = 8.21) compared with men (m = 3.98).
Efficacy
Regression Model Predicting Efficacy in Teaching About Hostility (N = 411).
Note. Values are final standardized beta (b) coefficients, except explained variance (R2).
p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
To further explore experiences with hostility, a one-way analysis of variance was computed comparing the means of how well instructors believe they can teach about hostility in the classroom (teacher efficacy) and their personal experience with hostility as professional journalists. A significant difference was found among instructors, F(4, 367) = 4.47, p = .002. In a post hoc test, Tukey’s HSD showed that instructors who said they experienced hostility “quite often” felt efficacious in the classroom (m = 18.324) significantly more often than instructors who never experienced hostility (m = 13.865) or who experienced hostility “more than once” (m = 15.859). There was no statistically significant difference for instructors who experienced hostility only “once” (m = 16.818). This is likely due to the smaller sample size for those who only experienced harassment once (N = 11). This therefore supports findings from the aforementioned multiple linear regression suggesting that the more a journalism instructor experienced hostility personally as a professional journalist, the more efficacious they feel when teaching about hostility in journalism courses.
Inclusion of Hostility Material in Class
While the previous section asks how prepared journalism instructors feel to teach about hostility,
Regression Model Predicting Frequency of Teaching About Hostility (N = 411).
Note. Values are final standardized beta (b) coefficients, except explained variance (R2).
p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Specifically, a journalism instructor is more likely to teach about hostility in their courses the more they believe hostility is a problem for professional journalists and the more efficacy they possess around teaching about said hostility. As the previous section noted, teacher efficacy is highly related to one’s personal experience with hostility. Therefore, while personally experiencing harassment made them feel more capable of teaching about hostility, it is their belief about how severe the issue (combined with efficacy) that played the biggest role in whether they moved forward with including it in their courses. Therefore, it is not enough for journalism instructors to feel able to teach about hostility (which often comes from firsthand experience), but they must also see hostility as an increasing problem in the profession. This finding suggests that instructors who experienced harassment personally (and therefore feel more efficacy to teach it) as well as those who see it as a problem beyond their personal experience but one that is growing in the industry for other journalists, are those most likely to teach hostility in the classroom.
There is also a positive statistically significant relationship between how long it has been since a journalism instructor worked as a professional journalist and how much they teach about hostility in their courses. This likely occurs because of normalization, which is discussed in the following section.
Discussion
Not only do most instructors see hostility as a key challenge journalists face, but one in five journalism instructors surveyed said they experienced hostility “quite often” to “always” when they worked as professional journalists. Nevertheless, hostility as a key challenge does not necessarily translate to lessons in the classroom. In fact, 72% of instructors say they “never” or only “sometimes” include a lesson about hostility in their courses. What’s more, 32.8% never include readings about hostility in their courses, while 42.5% only do so sometimes.
The purpose of this research is not to assert that every university should have a class fully dedicated to this topic (which could scare students from pursuing journalism as a career), but that this key challenge—and how to face it—should be integrated into curriculum much like journalism ethics is considered in more than just ethics courses. On a 5-point Likert-type scale (0–4), respondents averaged a 2.3 on teacher efficacy, suggesting most feel moderately prepared to teach about abuse. However, journalism courses have yet to include the topic widely.
Research suggests this happens for several reasons. First, because the journalism curriculum at large has yet to change in a meaningful way around the topic of personal well-being. With changing technology, instructors are working to stay at the forefront of innovations. However, instruction has largely focused on how best to use these technologies at the expense of educating students about their drawbacks and potential as vehicles for abuse. Indeed, research has repeatedly shown that globally attacks against the press have increased physically and verbally (Carlson et al., 2021; Tandoc et al., 2023; Waisbord, 2022a).
Nevertheless, journalism education is slow to address these concerns. Many journalists are quick to assert that the press has always been under attack. However, with changes in technology and increases in populism globally, attacks are not only more pointed, but journalists are more accessible than ever before (Miller & Lewis, 2022). As one respondent noted, “Hostility has always been a challenge to journalists. It has become more intense and more common in the current social media-driven political and news environment.” Therefore, while newsrooms and journalism educators have worked to stay relevant as technology and business models change, they have done little to prepare journalists for the increasing abuse they face.
Herein lies the second reason, journalists have historically normalized abuse. From viewer criticism and attacks to physical abuse on the streets, journalists have “shrugged off” harassment and hostility as part of doing one’s job (Deavours et al., 2022; Finneman & Jenkins, 2018). While men and women differ in why they believe the abuse occurs (Miller, 2023a), both see it as an expected part of doing journalism. In fact, men journalists often see the abuse as a sign they are doing good journalism, because they upset someone by sharing truth (Miller, 2023a).
As a result, newsrooms and journalism educators alike see hostility largely as something personal that journalists must deal with, and less as part of the journalistic endeavor itself. Subsequently, little time is spent in the classroom discussing ways to protect oneself mentally and physically. Deavours et al. (2022) noted in a study that interviewed journalists about abuse, “overwhelmingly, participants believed individuals were responsible for their own psychological and physical protection, both in preventing and responding to harassment” (p. 13). The finding in this manuscript that education about hostility increases the longer someone is out of the industry makes sense in this light. As the hostility and harassment that was once normalized start to be seen as less normal the longer someone is out of the news industry, instructors begin to shift what they teach.
Conclusion
As this research shows, it is the instructors who experienced the abuse the most as professionals, who are most likely to teach about it in the classroom. Moreover, it is women instructors—who experienced the most hostility first had—who are most likely to teach about it. Furthermore, while most instructors feel moderately efficacious in their ability to teach about hostility in the classroom, few do so, with one-third saying they never lecture on the topic, and nearly 40% saying they only do sometimes. Ultimately, the more frequently an instructor believed harassment occurred, the more likely they were to teach about it in the classroom. Moreover, the longer a journalism instructor had been out of a professional journalism position, the more likely they were to teach about abuse in the classroom.
Primarily, instructors need to find dedicated space and time in their courses to present students with information about the realities of hostility and harassment that the press faces regularly. This might be in the form of a lecture or guest lecture with a current professional journalist, readings or videos, or case studies used to problem-solve and spark discussion on the topic. Moreover, instructors need to provide education on resources like the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, The Committee for the Protection of Journalists, and Trollbusters. As time progresses, courses dedicated to safety, well-being, and exploration of the climate of information should become required courses in line with media law and journalism ethics requirements.
Second, accrediting bodies such as ACEJMC or university assessment offices should begin to require such education. It cannot be the work of one or two faculty to move forward education on this valuable topic, but a larger shift in the norms of journalism education that calls for such information to be shared to better prepare students for the important work as the fourth estate. As scholars have noted (e.g., Mathews et al., 2023) journalists are leaving the profession at an alarming rate, and we must educate them in the hopes of strengthening their chances of helping to support the marketplace of ideas in a shaky democracy. In the short term, since we know instructors are lacking in this area, news organizations should make stronger efforts to onboard new staff members about such challenges and provide ongoing training and resources for current staff so they are prepared to handle hostility in the field.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
