Abstract
Since 2017, 518 journalists have been attacked while covering protests (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, 2021) which is one of the most dangerous places to be as a journalist in the United States (Sterne & Peters, 2017). Despite the volatile climate around journalists as they cover increasingly dangerous protests (Luqiu, 2020), there is minimal understanding as to the effect of these events on them (Talabi, et al., 2021). Furthermore, there is a gap in the hostility literature examining harassment that journalists face in the field. Through a survey of U.S. journalists, this study finds that covering protests causes journalists mental and emotional health concerns, which influences how they view their journalistic roles. Furthermore, the effects of positive and negative encounters at protests affected journalists personally, depending on who the perpetrator was (protestor or law enforcement)—influencing everything from PTSD and anxiety to intentions to leave journalism. The paper ultimately underscores the need for news organizations to make sure journalists not only are safe, but also feel safe, when reporting in the field.
Introduction
In August 2021, a video journalist was slapped, kicked, and sprayed with a chemical irritant as he covered anti-vaccine rallies in Los Angeles, California. That same month, reporter Danny Rivero was assaulted in Miami, Florida after taking a picture at an anti-mask protest. Days later, journalist Shane Burley was shot with an air rifle in Portland as left and right-wing protesters clashed. In an interview, Burley told the U.S. press freedom tracker, “Within a few minutes of being there, a couple of activist people came up behind me and they were shouting or something and then people started shooting what I think is paintballs.” Burley added, “I’m holding a bulletproof helmet, so I just put that in front of my face but I get hit five or six times” (2021). These incidents occurred at geographically and ideologically disparate protests, all resulting in journalists experiencing hostility.
In recent years, journalists in the U.S. have faced physical violence and safety concerns from both protesters and law enforcement (UNESCO, 2020). In fact, “journalists worldwide have been encountering increasing constraints and violence while covering various protests” (Luqiu, 2020, p. 11). In the U.S. the protests include movements and counter protests surrounding the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, former President Trump’s Inauguration, and Occupy ICE—to name a few. In many instances, journalists have faced not only physical and verbal assaults, but also arrests. For example, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez went viral online after he was arrested on live television while covering protests in Minneapolis, following the police killing of George Floyd. And Jimenez is not alone. According to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, 2020 saw more than 117 journalists arrested or detained in the U.S., up 1200% from the previous year. They note most of these arrests occurred as journalists worked to document nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
Responding to the uptick in protests globally, UNESCO published a special brief in 2020 on the safety of journalists covering protests. Their report found that “Hundreds of journalists around the world trying to cover protests have been harassed, beaten, intimidated, arrested, put under surveillance, abducted, and had their equipment damaged. Others have been held incommunicado, humiliated, choked and fired upon with non-lethal as well as live ammunition” (UNESCO, 2020, p. 3). This hostility is evolving as political leaders globally continue to use hostile rhetoric against the press, fueling an environment of hostility and intolerance that often results in physical attacks against journalists by citizens (UNESCO, 2020), especially as protests emerge from the global tilt toward populism (Posetti et al., 2021).
Despite the dangers of covering such important events, there is minimal understanding as to the effect of these events on journalists. Scholars have increasingly examined the way in which journalists cover protests—and the coverage they produce—but minimal research examines the way in which journalists are affected by their experiences at protests. Using a nationally representative survey of U.S. journalists working at print and broadcast news organizations, this research explores questions around journalists’ experiences covering protests, and the impact on them personally and professionally.
The U.S. Context
Protests are increasing globally with the rise of populism (Waisbord, 2020; Carlson et al., 2021) and with it, journalists continually face hostility (UNESCO, 2020). The U.S. as an example of a liberal democracy without an authoritarian regime is important to study as contemporary threats to the press appear to be growing in scope and intensity leading to what Carlsson and Pöyhtäri (2017) call an assault on journalism. While extreme violence is often associated with war zones, repressive regimes, and revolutions, mounting evidence has shown threats to the press continue to be pervasive in democratic countries as well—creating very real threats against even the “free” press (e.g. Chen et al., 2018; Löfgren Nilsson and Örnebring, 2016; Holton et al., 2021; Luqiu, 2020).
As such, the U.S. is an important context as the experiences journalists have with hostility are often taken for granted in countries deemed free (Miller, 2021a). This is especially pressing as protests are one of the most overt forms of free speech and assembly to fight against perceived injustices and hold those in power accountable. Moreover, while protests are so vital to a democracy that values free speech, they have also become dangerous events for journalists to cover—making it tricky for the press to disseminate information about these vital democratic events. Thus, hostility towards journalists at protests constitutes a democratic problem as it can curtail overall news coverage and make holding officials accountable more difficult (Luqiu, 2020). This manuscript utilizes Miller's (2021a) definition of harassment of journalists –“unwanted abusive behaviors” (p. 4) – to exclusively explore the mistreatment of journalists at protests (and not what occurs online or in the newsroom).
Protests: framing and journalists
In the U.S. protests often received substantial coverage from journalists who see them as an often-political news event with drama and conflict. Under U.S. journalism norms, news is what happens, and political disagreement over a new policy or injustice is difficult to cover until an event “happens” to make it coverable. For many citizens, this leads them to protests to gain the attention of news media and have their voices heard. In fact, scholars like McLeod (2020) and Kilgo and Harlow (2019) argue the very act by protesters to create a spectacle during protests is an attempt to—whether through disruption of traffic or even looting and vandalism—gain the attention of mass media. This has been particularly pointed in recent years as protesters have looked for ways to garner media coverage of their causes. For example, in the 1960s civil rights activists like Rosa Parks looked for opportunites to create a spectacle during a bus ride to gain media attention for their cause. And this protest tactic has continued. In 2018 in California protesters made national news when they walked onto and closed a major freeway the day after footage was released showing an officer fatally shooting an unarmed black man.
However, for decades journalists have come under fire for failing to adequately cover protests in a contextual way (e.g. McLeod, 2007; Kilgo and Harlow, 2019). Some scholars suggest press coverage falls into a ‘protest paradigm’ that “demonizes protesters and marginalizes their causes” (Harlow et al., 2020, p. 1590). This paradigm is characterized by episodic reporting, where protests are covered as disruptive events and not larger social movements (McLeod, 2020). As a result, coverage relies on damaging frames that cover protests as violent riots, confrontations between police and counter protestors, and even as disagreement between protesters and public opinion (McLeod, 2020).
Despite repeated studies outlining the shortfalls of journalistic coverage of protests, few studies examine journalists’ experiences covering protests. This is perhaps a shortfall considering McLeod’s (2007) argument that the protest paradigm is born from journalistic socialization and routinization. Jiménez-Martínez (2020) suggests “The views of journalists are an important contribution to debates about protest news coverage, given the scarcity of studies examining their accounts during these episodes” (p. 1–2). In fact, Jiménez-Martínez found in his 2020 study that journalists do not blindly follow routines and norms that dictate the vilification of demonstrators—counter to McLeod and Hertog (1999)’s findings.
Thusly, protests have increasingly become an event of concern for journalists who must address rising safety and harassment in the field (Luqiu, 2020). As a result, protests are a vital unit of inquiry in understanding both the experiences of journalists, and how harassment may affect them.
The individual journalist: role conceptions
While significant research has examined how journalists cover protests, little research has examined how experiences at protests—specifically hostile ones—may affect the journalist as an individual. Literature has shown harassment can affect journalists personally (Miller, 2021b), and professionally—but has not explored how it may impact how they view their journalistic roles. In the “American Journalist” studies by Weaver, Wilhoit, and colleagues—researchers assess changes to journalists’ perception of their professional roles. The most recent surveys examine 15 distinct mass media roles that constitute four possible functions of the press—the adversarial, interpretive, disseminator, and populist-mobilizer functions (Beam et al., 2006).
Meanwhile, McIntyre, Dahmen, and Abdenour (2018) suggest a fifth function be added —the contextualist function. The contextualist function is one in which an emphasis is placed on society’s well-being. This means, for example, alerting the public to threats or even opportunities (McIntyre et al., 2018). When examining print journalists, scholars found a strong adherence to the contextualist function. Similarly, the work of Abdenour et al. (2018) found broadcast journalists also strongly identify with the contextualist function. In fact, scholars found broadcast journalists were more likely than print journalists to say they participate in contextual reporting.
The underlying common thread in articles examining journalistic roles is that journalists’ conception of their roles provides insight into the work they do and content they produce. Tenenboim-Weinblatt (2014) notes that “professional values and conventions play an important role in journalists’ narratives of the factors that guided the coverage of the social protest, in particular their own practices” (p. 420). Nevertheless, research often does little to consider the nature and impact of the reporting process on the individual journalist, especially in a charged situation that can escalate quickly. Therefore, it is important to understand how protests may be affecting them at an individual professional level. Specifically, how can an individual event or experience like a protest, or the harassment that can come with it, alter journalists’ concepts of their professional roles, and possibly even their satisfaction in that role?
Theoretical framework: hostility toward the press
Populism's link to assembly and protest is clear as this political approach looks to ordinary people who may feel their personal concerns have been disregarded by elite groups. While hostility toward the press in the U.S. is not a new phenomenon, journalists—especially women journalists—have become increasingly regular targets of harassment as populism rises globally (Miller, 2021b, 2022; Posetti et al., 2021). Indeed, a theory of hostility toward the press asserts that harassment toward journalists occurs for three primary reasons “(1) political motivation, (2) accessibility to the press, and (3) identity of journalists” (Miller, 2021a, p. 10). Protests have all three of these elements.
Firstly, protests are inherently political events—motivated by a populist mindset that the average person can have their voice heard by assembling and speaking out. This populist belief led to what Miller (2021a) called the “demonization of journalists around the world,” and rhetoric of fake-news-name-calling and anti-press push back (p. 10). Secondly, journalists are highly accessible, and easily identifiable at protests, making it easy for harassers to intentionally target them. Lastly, Miller (2021a) notes that journalists from historically marginalized backgrounds can also face abuse specifically because of their gender, race, religion, etc. At protests, journalists are visible in a way that these features cannot be hidden, making this another possible motivation for abuse. As a result, recent years have seen an increased attention to the safety of journalists—especially at protests—in part because of the work of international press freedom organizations and UN bodies such as UNESCO.
For many, these findings are startling reminders that journalists are facing a pressing issue. For example, many scholars have noted that harassment of journalists has a chilling effect, even in countries considered to have a “free press” (e.g. Ferrier and Garud-Patkar, 2018; Waisbord, 2020). Consequences can also be psychological, from low self-esteem and confidence (Duggan, 2017), to burnout and intentions to quit reporting altogether, causing “anger, stress and anxiety” (Ferrier and Garud-Patkar, 2018, p. 325). Fear has also proven to be a serious effect of harassment (Löfgren Nilsson and Örnebring, 2016), along with other mental health concerns such as trauma and ensuing PTSD—especially in relation to covering protests (Morell, 2020). Luqiu (2020) notes that the impact of being harassed by both protesters and police is often physical, but more so psychological. This leaves journalists with the potential for short and long-term mental and physical health effects, such as unhealthy coping mechanisms, like binge watching television, overeating, or consuming alcohol (Holton et al., 2021). Despite this, many journalists lack training or preparation for how to stay safe while covering protests (Talabi et al., 2021).
However, literature lags in understanding the effects of specific interactions that occur in the field, especially among journalists who are increasingly visible at protests (Talabi et al., 2021). Outside of protests, substantial literature has looked at the experience and effect of harassment online (e.g. Chen et al., 2018; Waisbord, 2020; Lewis et al., 2020; Holton et al., 2021; Posetti et al., 2021), while few have looked at offline harassment (e.g. Löfgren Nilsson and Örnebring, 2016; Miller, 2021b). The emphasis on abuse limited to online harassment takes for granted the reality that abuse online bleeds into abuse offline, with 20% of women journalists in one study saying they had been attacked or abused in person in connection to the online harassment (Posetti et al., 2021).
Therefore, there is still much research to be done as scholars seek to better understand hostility toward the press. Miller (2021a) argues that “a theory of hostility toward the press must assert that harassment affects journalists in both general and specific ways depending highly on the form of harassment, and various systems of oppression experienced by the individual journalist” (p. 12). As such, it is vital scholars examine harassment that occurs in the field to better understand the work of journalists and the potential such encounters have, to affect them. In addition to looking at hostility from in-the-field, this paper looks at journalistic role conception for the first time as a potential outcome (dependent variable) of hostility. Not only is this outcome novel for understanding an effect of abuse, but scholars of role conception have rarely (if ever) examined the concept as an effect itself, and not a determining factor.
In this paper, “in-the-field” harassment is used to describe hostility or harassment that is experienced in-person, whether that is face-to-face, verbally heard, or physically felt. This does not include harassment that is based in the newsroom or work setting that involves coworkers or managers but focuses on external abusers. Protests, as a setting for analysis to study in-the-field harassment, are useful in several ways: (1) protests are a key element of democracy and free speech at play. The way they are covered, and the experiences journalists have covering them impact not only democracy, but also the availability of different voices in the marketplace of ideas. And (2) protests are a place in which U.S. journalists have most recently experienced harassment and hostility in increasingly volatile ways. This allowed for a way to analyze a specific event and form of in-the-field harassment as a base for future inquiry.
Research questions
This manuscript explores the following research questions using an online survey of journalists working in the U.S.:
Methods
A 23-min survey draft was sent to several TV and print journalists to obtain feedback on clarity or wording, flow, and to assess any missing scales, based on best practices for surveying journalists (Molyneux and Zamith, 2020). Participant journalists who completed the final survey were given the opportunity to “win” one of two donations in their name to the Committee to Protect Journalists, based on journalists’ often altruistic tendencies, while also working to avoid ethical conflicts of interest (Molyneux and Zamith, 2020). This non-profit organization defends journalists’ rights globally to safely report the news without fear of repercussions.
Survey
In the survey, journalists were asked the extent to which they agree with the 15 journalistic role conceptions from Willnat et al. (2017). The 15 roles constitute the four broad functions of journalism: the interpretive function, the adversarial function, the disseminator function, and the populist-mobilizer function (Willnat et al., 2017). As suggested by McIntyre et al. (2018), a fifth function, the contextualist function, was added to the survey by noting an additional 5 roles. On a 1–5 Likert-type scale, respondents were asked to choose if they 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree” with the 20 journalistic roles. The survey differentiated between role orientation and role performance—examining journalistic norms and values by asking what journalists actually do (as opposed to what they should do or want to do).
The types of effects from covering a protests based on a principal components analysis with varimax rotation.
Sample
The sample for the survey was constructed by randomly selecting half of all local TV news markets in the U.S. according to 2020 Neilsen ratings. Once markets (cities) were selected, the websites for all TV news stations and newspapers within that city were identified using the station index database on TVjobs.com and through Google searches. This technique was utilized for finding journalists working at both print and broadcast organizations to ensure comparisons were being made across journalists operating in the same geographical locations. Once organizations were identified, their websites and “about me” pages were searched to find email addresses (see e.g. McIntyre et al., 2018). Most websites provided emails for journalists, though some did not. Email collection was limited to journalists likely to spend some or all of their time in the field—such as reporters, anchors, news writers, photographers, digital producers, columnists, etc.—as they are the most likely to cover a protest in person. Emails were collected between January and March 2021.
In total, 3,674 journalists were invited to take the survey over email. A total of 339 journalists completed the survey in full, and 97 partially completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 11.8%, which is consistent with previous studies (e.g. Lewis et al., 2020), and a trend of decreasing response rates among U.S. journalists (Molyneux and Zamith, 2020). The respondents identified as about 44% women and 55% men, with three respondents identifying as non-binary, and one as other (bi-gender). The sample was 6.2% Black or African-American, 3% Asian or Asian American, 0.3% (n=1) Indigenous/Native American/ Alaska Native, 86.6% White, 0.6% Middle Eastern, and 3.3% other.” Additionally, 9% of the sample identified as Spanish, Hispanic or Latino/a. The sample was demographically consistent with comparable surveys (e.g. Lewis et al., 2020; Weaver et al., 2019), and adhered methodologically with Molyneux and Zamith’s (2020) recommendations for surveying journalists.
The sample also covered a variety of protests. Of the 92.9% of survey respondents who noted they had covered protests, 79% had covered BLM/Police Violence protests, 4.7% covered Dakota Access Pipeline protests, 25.4% covered protests related to the environment, 35.4% covered women’s rights protests, 29.2% covered Occupy ICE/Immigration protests, 41% covered protests around former President Donald Trump’s Inauguration/Policy issues, 36% covered protests around election results (predominantly the 2020 U.S. presidential election), 36.6% covered protests around safe schools/gun violence, and 28.9% covered protests marked “other.”
Dimension reduction
For the purposes of dimension reduction in understanding outcomes associated with covering protests, a principal components analysis with varimax rotation was utilized to refine types of effects. As evident in Table 1, four clear areas emerged in response to the question, “how much do you agree with the following statements as a direct effect of covering protests?”
Findings and discussion
Experiences covering protests
The percentage of journalists surveyed who experienced the below behaviors from law enforcement and/or protesters.
While protests can be full of tribulations and tumult, they are likewise encompassing of experiences where journalists may feel supported and protected. However, the issue arises for many journalists in the very need for “protection” and even “intervention” from protesters and law enforcement, with nearly half (49.5%) of journalists who covered protests saying they experienced feelings of fear, and another 46.8% saying they felt unsafe at protests.
Effects of protest coverage
Journalists are not infallible, and these experiences, both positive and negative, do not exist without effect. Scholarship has repeatedly shown that journalists are affected by both the features of their workplace (Beam, 2006), as well as the individual stories they cover (Seely, 2019). What is explored here are the effects specific events like protests hold for journalists—especially when those protests lead to negative experiences.
To further answer
Regression model predicting Mental Health and Emotions Effects (N = 276).
Values are final standardized beta (β) coefficients, except explained variance (R 2 ). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Regression model predicting Positive Effects (N = 279).
Values are final standardized beta (β) coefficients, except explained variance (R 2 ). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Regression model predicting Situation Alteration Effects (N = 277).
Values are final standardized beta (β) coefficients, except explained variance (R 2 ). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
When examining what factors influence situation alteration effects from covering protests, a significant regression equation was found (F (4,273) = 4.548, p = .001), with an R2 of 0.062. Much like mental and emotional health effects, situation alteration is linked to negative acts from both protesters and police. However, they differ as the relationship with negative acts by police is negative. Therefore, the more a journalist experiences negative acts from protesters, and the less they experience negative acts from police, the more likely they are to alter their situation. Situation alteration includes everything from requesting to no longer cover protests, to considering leaving journalism altogether. While this relationship may seem counterintuitive, the reason is likely in how journalists view the negative acts—the abuse—from the source. For many journalists, they view abuse from protesters as a result of being out in the field during highly charged protests in an era where media are continually vilified. In a qualitative response on the survey, one journalist noted: Some have been peaceful, others, very violent. A clear memory that sticks out is the BLM group produced a “protestor” dressed in armor who appeared to be armed with a long rifle. He stood inches from the Tennessee Highway Patrol staring them down. Personally, it was very unsettling and an intimidation tactic. I felt threatened. At BLM protests I have been cussed out, called inappropriate names because of my race, etc. My personal experience with [protests] has not been a positive one. All of these instances happened with “protestors.”
Journalists were also asked if they ever believed they were the intended target of anti-riot tactics used by police. In total, 94.6% of journalists said no. In this regard, while negative acts do occur from police, for example the repeated mentions by journalists of being tear-gassed, many do not believe they were directly targeted. Therefore, because they do not view these tactics as ones meant to harm them, they would not feel the need to alter their situations to prevent this, especially if they believe these tactics are being used to help disperse “unsettling” protesters. As a result, it is the pressing nature of the harassment at the hands of protesters that pushes many journalists to find ways to alter their situation so as to avoid further abuse at protests.
Regression model predicting Physical Injusry Effects (N = 280).
Values are final standardized beta (β) coefficients, except explained variance (R2). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Journalistic role conception and protest coverage
Regression model predicting adversarial function (N = 286).
Values are final standardized beta (β) coefficients, except explained variance (R2). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
However, significant regression equations were found when comparing the effects of harassment when covering protests with journalistic role conceptions. In total, five multiple linear regressions were calculated—one for each role conception.
These findings do not necessarily suggest that protests themselves are extraordinarily unique in the way they affect journalists. Rather, these findings illuminate the reality that journalists are not only personally affected by experiences in the field, but that they are indeed influenced professionally by these experiences as well, specifically when it affects a journalist’s mental health. As previously mentioned, nearly half (49.5%) of journalists who covered protests said they experienced feelings of fear, while another 46.8% said they have felt unsafe at protests. Moreover, nearly a quarter (22.4%) of journalists say their mental health has suffered, with 16.9% saying they now experience anxiety, and 8.1% saying they experience PTSD symptoms from covering protests.
However, what is the link between mental health and one’s likelihood of identifying with the populist mobilizer and adversarial functions? It is highly likely that the type of protest experiences that may create fear, feelings of being unsafe, and even anxiety/PTSD, would be protests that become volatile, charged, and even combative. These protests can become emotional and result in actions that can be both inspiring and inciting. Furthermore, journalists who are personally affected by harassment in mental and emotional ways, may be more apt to reflect on experiences and evaluate situations long after the experience has ended—potentially influencing their opinions and views around their place in the event because of empathy.
According to Willnat et al. (2017), the populist mobilizer function of the press motivates ordinary people to get involved in public discussions of important issues, sets the political agenda, and points people to possible solutions to society’s problems. Indeed, protests are an inherent form of populist mobilization in which individuals gather to be heard in instances in which they believe they are not. It is therefore not surprising that coverage of such events—and their ability to become heated fear-inducing displays—would affect the way journalists view their role. Feelings of fear or anxiety may have the potential in these situations to make journalists understand the gravity of the movements taking place and see their function as one giving voice to ordinary people who are eager to debate society’s problems.
The adversarial function of the press has similar ties to protest coverage. The adversarial function means being constantly skeptical of the actions of both businesses and public officials (i.e. those in power) (Willnat et al., 2017). Indeed, in most protest situations, there are the protestors—performing populist mobilization—and power figures. For example, in the BLM protests following the killing of George Floyd, BLM advocates mobilized on the streets to protest the actions of police and the public officials who give them power. In these situations of protests, the public is trying to hold police accountable, and it is therefore expected that the function would bleed into the role conception of journalists.
Conclusion
Journalists’ experience covering protests in the field is a complicated one—influenced by both positive and negative interactions with protesters and police, as well as the effects of those interactions. One of the most shocking findings of this research is the reality that nearly half of all journalists surveyed said they experienced feelings of fear and also felt unsafe while covering protests. Despite outside factors and studies pointing to the contrary (Shoemaker and Reese, 2013), journalists continue to uphold the belief that in many ways they are autonomous actors (Hallin and Mancini 2004). As Wahl-Jorgensen (2019) argues, “despite the long reign of the ideal of objective journalism, the expression and elicitation of emotion are in fact central to audience engagement, and that emotional labor is central to journalistic professional practices” (p. 37). As this research shows, journalists’ mental and emotional health can influence them on a professional level. Indeed, journalists who experienced fear, PTSD, or even anxiety—for example—after covering a protest are more likely to see the populist mobilizer and adversarial functions as core roles of the press.
This supports arguments made by Jiménez-Martínez (2020) that the protest paradigm has limitations. Indeed, it is not enough to argue that journalistic routines alone dictate the coverage they produce of protests as some have argued, rather we see that outside factors such as harassment in the field has repercussions on the journalist personally and their roles professionally. This is not to assert that harassment in the field has a direct repercussion on the way in which journalists cover protests, as that is outside the scope of this paper. Indeed, Hanitzsch and Vos (2017) argue poignantly that what journalists want to do and what they think they do are not the same as what they say they do and what they actually do. As a result, it cannot be determined in this study if an increased belief in the populist mobilizer and adversarial functions play out in journalists' coverage of such events, but it does illuminate that those experiences in the field do not occur in a vacuum—filling a gap in current literature. The personal effects of covering events that can become hostile and feel unsafe can influence journalists personally, and subsequently professionally as well. While scholars have repeatedly shown harassment of journalists has effects on them personally (e.g. Tandoc et al., 2021), this research illustrates those personal effects have professional implications.
Furthermore, this research highlights a key gap in the literature: that harassment in the field is not only a real and serious threat, but it is affecting journalists in pressing ways. With 1 in 10 journalists saying they considered leaving journalism as a direct result of covering protests, and 12.4% saying they sought mental health services after covering protests, organizations and scholars alike must begin to consider what this means for democracy if the most pressing and dangerous place to be as a journalist in the U.S. is also the place with some of the most important news for society (Sterne and Peters, 2017). Moreover, if in-the-field coverage is harming journalists’ mental health and pushing them to leave, what does that mean for the marketplace of ideas, especially if women are feeling the burden most. For example, about half the number of men considered leaving journalism as a direct result of covering protests (6.7%) as compared to women (13.5%). Alternatively, women seek mental health services at a much higher rate (16.7%) after covering a protest as compared to men (6.7%).
The findings also indicated that journalists noted how protesters and/or police would act as security for them as they worked, or even intervene on their behalf during an altercation. While this finding may be inspiring to some, the reliance on strangers to help one do their job safely is concerning at the very least and at most an egregious democratic problem. Journalists are not flies on the wall. Their very presence is noted. The need for protection at protests shows that even in countries with a democratically “free” press, there continues to be real concerns for the safety of journalists in the field.
Limitations
Despite strong adherence to recommendations from literature, this paper is not without limitations. While the survey was built of previous literature, especially that of Willnat et al. (2017), there is continued disagreement as to the nature of journalistic roles. What journalists want to do and what they think they do are not the same as what they say they do and what they actually do (Hanitzsch and Vos, 2017). As a result, this paper cannot make assertions as to the true impact of harassment at protests on the way journalists actually cover them. As such, future research should seek to conduct a content analysis in conjunction with an interview or survey of journalists to better understand directly how experiences at protests may impact the way journalists cover those protests. This could have notable effects for understanding the protest paradigm.
Moreover, while this research focuses on hostility at protests alone, more research looking at hostility outside of non-combat zones needs to be studied in countries with perceived free democracies. As the personal becomes political, especially around news beats about science, health, and education, hostility is not limited to the most overt topics of conflict like protests.
Implications for practitioners
Scholars like Waisbord (2020) call for “individual, institutional, and social” responses to the growing problem of hostility toward the press (p. 1031). Indeed, this research shows the grim reality that many journalists in the field relied at times on protection from protesters themselves (16.7%) as well as police (33%) as they worked to report. While harassment of journalists is not new, the past several years have seen protests rise in ranks as dangerous places for journalist to report (Luqiu, 2020). Nevertheless, newsrooms have been slow to adapt to this change, continuing to send journalists in the field to cover protests without security, and sometimes even by themselves.
For many news organizations, they continue to view harassment as a problem for journalists to handle themselves (Holton et al., 2021). Indeed, many war correspondents lack access to even basic counseling after reporting abroad (Feinstein, 2006), and that lack of access and training continues for journalists who cover protests (Talabi et al., 2021). However, the repercussions of abuse are having dire effects on journalists personally and professionally. And while so much literature has focused on the risks associated with online abuse, few have illustrated the pressing nature of harassment that occurs in the field, especially at emotionally charged events like protests. As a result, news organizations need to do more to ensure their journalists not only are safe when working in the field, but that they also feel safe. This means reporting stories from further away, providing security or creating reporting teams, and limiting news gathering when situations are not safe. While a live shot produced amongst a passionate crowd of protesters may make for great breaking news, it may also be breaking the journalist.
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) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Alabama (grant no. A21-0164-001).
