Hello, reporters! I have kind of a depressing one today (sorry).
I recently attended a talk on protecting against online harassment (as part of IRE’s interesting DBEI conference). The session stood out to me in a few different ways, including that speaker Jeff Larson pointed out that the definition of “secure” has its roots in feeling, not fact.
With that interesting tidbit aside, the session led me to this guide from PEN. PEN is not journalism-specific, but has produced resources that I’ve used a bit over the years, so they’re pretty reliable.
This particular guide (here is the depressing part) is how to differentiate between online content that is just annoying or is sincerely threatening. It’s a short questionnaire, really, with questions like “Do you know this person personally? Are they publishing specific, non-public facts about you?”
Like I said, kinda depressing, but it’s not a resource for reporters that I’ve come across before, so I thought it was worth sharing. So far I haven’t found a universal tool for then tracking, reporting or responding to the harassment, but I’m on the lookout. Stay safe, reporters!