The problem of online harassment of journalists is being tackled in a US university, funded with US$5 million to research and build social and technical resources to help deal with it.

Louisiana state university political communications professor Kathleen Searles and Rebekah Tromble – director of George Washington University’s institute for data, democracy and politics – will share the two-year project which has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

Searles (pictured) says online harassment particularly impacts women and people of colour. Nearly 70 per cent of women journalists have reported experiencing online abuse and harassment, she says. 

A significant number have altered their reporting as a result, and about a third have considered quitting the profession. 

The project will develop a system of care that merges social and technical resources for journalists experiencing online harassment. The aim will be to help women, indigenous people, people of colour and other historically oppressed groups to stay in the industry. 

“Right now, we very much have an information environment that’s hostile to journalists,” she says, “and women, LGBTQ communities, people who have disabilities and reporters of colour all experience this harm acutely.”

The first phase of the project launched last September with a US$750,000 grant to conduct research and development to stand-up a potential prototype for addressing online abuse and harassment.

With funding secured for the second phase, Searles’ team will focus on actually building the tool, a socio-technical system that ensures journalists who have experienced online violence receive trauma-informed support.