Journalists need more than words
It was just past 4:30 a.m. and I was staring at the words “rape your daughter” and “bloody vag.” It was August 2020 and an anonymous email had been sent to me by a listener of the talk radio station where I was the morning show host.
As a racialized woman with an opinion, I am more than used to hate mail and have developed a well-worn, calloused skin as a result. I have been called a “feminazi” and paki c--- more times than I can count, while messages telling me I should be raped and killed with intense graphic detail would find their way to my inbox regularly.
I wasn’t, however, used to emails that targeted my then 1-year-old daughter, let alone in such a vile, violent, and vivid manner. Weeks later, I submitted my resignation to the station.
Earlier this week, Canadian media companies signed a statement outlining their support for journalists on the receiving end of abuse. Presumably, the need to put out this statement was fuelled in part by People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier calling on his supporters to “play dirty” with journalists, though neither Bernier nor his party are explicitly mentioned.
Part of the statement reads, “We are united in supporting our journalists and newsrooms against those who seek to silence their stories and threaten their safety. Together, we will continue to advocate for industry-wide responses to end this behaviour.”
Putting out statements of solidarity might make the executive leadership team of these media companies feel like they have actually done something, but the truth is Canadian media has largely been wilfully blind to the breadth and depth of the harassment and abuse faced by female and BIPOC journalists.
And in the case of tabloid print and talk radio, Canadian media has arguably even contributed to the overall atmosphere that emboldens people to send off threatening and hateful messages to journalists by promoting misinformation.
From my own experience, I can tell you that if listeners hear from another show on your own station that the non-binding parliamentary motion to denounce Islamophobia, known as Motion 103, is “a blaspheme law, an Islamic blaspheme law, and that is Shariah” it leads to a demonstrable uptick in racist threats of violence against you when you point out the non-binding motion is nothing of the sort.
Any legacy media organization in this country could very easily implement policies that would help their journalists deal with harassment, as well as enforcing editorial and journalistic standards that would prevent misinformation from being disseminated by their outlets in the first place.
American outlet Defector Media has come up with what is arguably the gold standard in harassment policies. For journalists who find themselves on the receiving end of targeted harassment, the start-up media company offers paid time off, will provide legal help, as well as provide a proxy who can temporarily manage the targeted journalist’s social media accounts.
As journalist Charlie Warzel has pointed out in Nieman Lab, part of the reason why Defector Media has taken the approach it has is because its newsroom is led by “people who instinctively understand the internet,” which leads to better policies for their journalists since “… the organization’s leaders see harassment as an unfortunate and often difficult-to-avoid byproduct of reporters doing their job in a hostile environment.”
Democracy and journalism have a mutualistic symbiotic relationship, in that one cannot survive without the other. Diversity in media matters because it ultimately leads to a wider array of stories being told and news being covered. When women and BIPOC journalists leave journalism and media altogether, we’re all worse off for it.
We won’t ever be able to convince politicians like Bernier not to flirt with hateful rhetoric or use xenophobic populist anger to their political advantage. We can, however, make smarter editorial decisions, and implement policies that will help protect journalists from the worst of it.
We just need leaders in newsrooms who are willing to go beyond feel-good statements of solidarity.
Supriya Dwivedi is a GTA-based Liberal political commentator who works as senior counsel for Enterprise Canada. She is a freelance contributing columnist for