{"id":18795,"date":"2015-03-04T02:05:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T02:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/is-journalism-unsafe-for-female-journalists\/"},"modified":"2015-03-04T02:05:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T02:05:49","slug":"is-journalism-unsafe-for-female-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/is-journalism-unsafe-for-female-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Is journalism unsafe for female journalists?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dunja<\/figure>\n

Journalism has always been a relatively unsafe profession. <\/p>\n

Journalists travel to dangerous countries, expose ugly truths and often speak out against the powers that be. <\/p>\n

But why does the world target female journalists specifically? According to Dunja Mijatovic, representative on Freedom of the Media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), online abuse against female journalists is \u201ca global phenomenon growing at a very rapid pace.\u201d <\/p>\n

Several female journalists have spoken out about the attacks they have received, all of which were unwarranted. Some even reported receiving serious death threats. <\/p>\n

Jenny Alversjo, anchor for TV4 Sweden, says, \u201cWhen someone threatens to kill you . . . the world stops. The first real threat was horrifying. The person who wanted me dead said I had two weeks left to live. It\u2019s hard to describe the fear I felt.\u201d A female Turkish journalist, Amberin Zaman, notes, \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201dI received hundreds of tweets, using the most obscene language, threatening to kill me, threatening to rape me . . . it\u2019s like a public lynching.\u201d Unfortunately, these online attacks do not concern the content of articles or their quality. As Ms. Mijatovic said, they \u201cdegrade the journalist as a woman.\u201d The OSCE says that threats of sexual violence have become the norm for most female journalists. <\/p>\n

Others face \u201csevere sexual harassment and intimidation.\u201d According to Ms. Mijatovic, \u201cIn some countries like the UK, the US and in Scandinavia, the problem is acknowledged . . . in other countries [it] remains a non-issue.\u201d Female journalists have faced this kind of trial since the beginning. <\/p>\n

According to the American Journalism Review, \u201cFor decades women . . . [have faced] intimidation and harassment from male athletes, coaches and even colleagues.\u201d Women have always had to fight for their rights, like the right to vote, the right to not be considered as property, and even the right to their own bodies. <\/p>\n

Throughout history, women have been marginalized. For female journalists, the marginalization of women, their \u201cconventional\u201d role as housekeepers and subordinates has contributed to this culture of telling women to \u201cshut up and look pretty.\u201d <\/p>\n

All this has serious implications for freedom of speech. If female journalists are threatened, this might become another career field in which women are under-represented. If one group in society is prevented from expressing itself or telling the truth, that is oppression. This is not progress. As Ms. Mijatovic says, the abuse is unacceptable and is a \u201cdangerous new trend, which needs to be addressed now.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thankfully, the female journalists who have been threatened are unlikely to stop talking. Alversjo says, \u201cFirst you\u2019re scared, but soon the fear turns into anger. No one has the right do this to me. No one can keep me from doing my job.\u201d It seems like the battle for women in journalism still has a long way to go. <\/p>\n

Sources: {{bbc.com, ajr.org}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journalism has always been a relatively unsafe profession. Journalists travel to dangerous countries, expose ugly truths and often speak out against the powers that be. But why does the world target female journalists specifically? According to Dunja Mijatovic, representative on Freedom of the Media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000056386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000056386,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18795.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000056386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18795"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18795"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}