This month, API is partnering with the International Women’s Media Foundation to share election safety tips from their Newsroom Safety Across America initiative. IWMF and the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press will walk you through tips for physical, digital and legal safety for journalists covering the U.S. elections.
As a journalist covering the 2024 elections, your physical safety is paramount. From protests to polling stations, the field can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. For this reason, the International Women’s Media Foundation is dedicating this newsletter installment to protecting your physical safety while working.
The reporting landscape for journalists has become increasingly hostile. The IWMF’s recent survey data reveals a troubling trend: 38% of 368 journalists surveyed reported being threatened with or experiencing physical violence while working as a journalist.* These aren’t just statistics; they’re a stark reality many of us face daily.
Through Newsroom Safety Across America, our national initiative providing wrap-around support to local journalists and newsrooms across the United States, we’ve met more than 500 journalists this year in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This program, launched in response to the increasing threats faced by journalists, provides essential training in physical, digital, legal and psychological safety. The NSAA curriculum was designed with our Next Gen Safety Trainers and other experts to cover holistic, identity-based safety. In this series, IWMF will share tips and lessons from these trainings that journalists can use as they plan their election coverage.
*As of June 2024, we surveyed journalists attending our trainings in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New York, Michigan and Nevada.
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Here are some resources we offered to help foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations in 2024.
We'll share some of the resources, tools and lessons learned from our training sessions and research help desk. We hope you can use these as you plan your continuing accountability coverage and start thinking about the next election on the horizon.
