If you’ve been a journalist for just a few years, you’ve already seen tremendous change in our industry. Some of it is encouraging, including national organizations working with local newsrooms to strengthen local news ecosystems. Some of it, including all the ways people can show hate and abuse to journalists, is demoralizing. 

But here’s a thing I see happening: Local journalists are publicly responding to abuse. I’m stressing the local part because I’ve seen national journalists do this for years. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems newer in local news. Likely related – trust in local news is still higher than national, according to a May 2022 poll from Gallup and the Knight Foundation, but Pew Research found people are spending less time with local news. 

Here are three recent examples where local journalists spoke out:

• David Bernard is the chief meteorologist for WVUE in New Orleans. When he got an email with a homophobic slur last week, he shared it on Facebook and encouraged people to donate to The Trevor Project, a crisis hotline for LGBTQ youth. Bernard wrote on his Facebook page, “After 30 years I can stand and accept the criticism when I get it wrong. What I won’t accept are personal attacks about me.” 

• When a woman called in to complain that anchor Michelle Li from KSDK in St. Louis was being “very Asian,” Li shared the voicemail on Instagram. The support she got back, including through a $15,000 check from Ellen DeGeneres, led to the Very Asian Foundation. Now, that organization is working to “shine a light on Asian experiences through advocacy and celebration.”

• When Miami Herald executive editor Monica Richardson got a racist email last year, she wrote about it for the Herald. Richardson wrote: “I was raised humble, raised to turn the other cheek and be the bigger person, to move on and get over it. That’s a smart lesson and a smart way to move through life at times. This isn’t one of those times. As a Black woman, I refuse to oblige the various ways that some people seem to demand that I simply take what they give. To the contrary, hate can’t be solved with silence. The reality is that the silence is as loud as the injustice of racism itself.”

Have you responded publicly to personal attacks? Has your newsroom supported you? What was the response?

I know there are more than three examples of this. 

Whether you’ve dealt with this yet or not, here are a few resources on digital safety and online abuse: 

• Check out ONA’s Digital Safety Snacks series, which offers bite-sized ways to protect yourself online.

• The National Science Foundation has an expo this week, and it includes sessions on online harassment bystander intervention training, trauma-informed response to online harassment and a panel on the impact of online harassment and abuse in the media industry. Register here.

That’s it for me. Thanks for all you do,

Kristen