Women in media urged to tell truth about online harms

In brief

Women in media are being urged to help identify online harms and the issues they face at work by Daily Mirror publisher Reach and the non-profit company Women in Journalism.

The project, led by Reach’s online safety editor Dr Rebecca Whittington, invited women to complete a questionnaire. The answers are collected anonymously by default and respondents do not have to have experienced online harm to take part.
The survey closes on 10 February and results with recommendations will be published during the week of 8 March (International Women’s Day).

Whittington joined Reach in November 2021 as the publisher’s first online safety editor and warned that journalists face “endemic” online abuse.

Alison Phillips, WIJ chair and Mirror editor-in-chief, said: “We’ve all seen how devastating online abuse can be on a personal level. My worry is that it is becoming a very real barrier to women’s careers, or even taking talented women out of media entirely.

“We hope this survey can help give us some answers so we can move more quickly to begin to address it and give female journalists a fighting chance to succeed and promote themselves in an online world.”

Trust me, it’s personal