Seven years have passed since the first journalistic investigation into the Weinstein case in the United States sparked a wave of discussions, initiating the global #MeToo movement. This movement inspired the creation of new media outlets, policy changes within newsrooms, and the development of journalist networks. However, investigating women’s rights remains dangerous.
The RSF report offers 16 recommendations to support journalists covering women’s rights and gender-based violence, including criminalizing cyber-harassment and establishing editorial positions focused on gender issues. The influence of the #MeToo movement is evident: over 80% of the 113 journalists surveyed across 112 countries noted a significant increase in attention to women’s rights and gender-based violence since 2017. Despite this, journalists in this field still face cyber-harassment, physical attacks, and, in some countries, the risk of imprisonment or even death.
RSF calls on governments and media platforms to ensure the right to independent reporting on gender-based violence and women’s rights and to take measures to protect journalists from repression.
MUTUAL AID GROUPS AT A NATIONAL LEVEL
Journalists are not only joining investigative networks, but they are also creating local networks to drive editorial issues, train and support each other. Thanks to #MeToo spreading the word, these networks are being created particularly in the face of scandals involving harassment or sexist and sexual assaults within newsrooms.
“We need to get together to discuss our working conditions and reflect on the content we produce,” explains radio documentarian Julie Bianchin, a member of the Journalista collective, founded in 2021 in Frenchspeaking Switzerland. Some fifty women and non-binary journalists from a dozen newsrooms are affiliated to it. “Journalista was launched in the wake of the Darius Rochebin affair,” adds network member Alice Randegger, a journalist with the daily La Tribune de Genève. This affair was revealed by an investigation published in October 2020 in the daily Le Temps, which exposed accusations of sexual harassment against one of the star presenters of Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS). The Société Suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision (SSR), to which RTS belongs, led an internal investigation, and found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the former presenter, without denying the elements revealed by Le Temps’ investigation. “It can be difficult to encourage investigations into sexist and sexual violence when we see how difficult it is to tackle these subjects in our newsrooms,” lament the members of Journalista.
The same is true of journalists from the Japanese Women in Media network, created in 2021. “Reports on
social or political issues facing women and children are rarely given front-page treatment, and are not taken seriously,” notes this collective of around a hundred members. These dynamics play out in Japan’s media, where women account for just 20% of the staff at major broadcasters and newspapers. Almost none of them are in the managerial ranks of Japanese media. As this has “a profound impact on how stories are covered, and most crucially, whose voices are heard,” the association organizes training courses for women working in the media.
In Ukraine, the Women in Media network was created following a sexist remark made by former President Petro Poroshenko to a journalist. In February 2018, the head of state said “my darling” to a journalist at a press conference. “When the President said this phrase, it was directed not only to this journalist, but also to me and all women who work in media,” recalls Liza Kuzmenko, who was working for the independent Hromadske Radio at the time. On 8 March 2018, she launched the #ятобінедоргенька/ (“I’m not your darling”) campaign on social media, “to support the journalist and draw attention to the politicians.” A few months later, along with Victoria Yermolaeva, also a journalist at Hromadske Radio, she created Women in Media. “It all began with a small Facebook group, which now unites 1,500 women journalists, editors, producers, and other female, non-binary, and transgender media professionals from all regions of Ukraine,” shares Liza Kuzmenko. “We empower each other and fight against sexism in newsrooms and in content. Our goals are gender-sensitive journalism and more women in media in decision-making positions.
To confront the sexism, harassment and assaults that women journalists may have suffered in newsrooms, many professional women united in 2020 during Egypt’s #MeToo movement الناجيات نصدق”) We believe the survivors”). On social media and through the online blog حكايات دفتر”) History books”), they have collected and made public hundreds of unpublished, anonymous testimonies from journalists. In the same vein, in 2020, other professionals created the association entitled مصريات صحفيات”) Egyptian Women Journalists”) to call for reforms on the protection of women journalists in the media. They then suffered violent online intimidation campaigns. In Pakistan, The Women Journalists Association of Pakistan (WJAP) has been working since 2021 against the marginalisation of women journalists, and in 2024 published the report Unequal Newsrooms – A gender audit of Pakistani Media Organisations.