In a nationwide 2018 survey, 15.3 per cent of Flemish journalists indicated having experienced harassment or intimidation in their function as a journalist by political sources, advertisers, companies, media publishers, and citizens. These experiences were mostly about their gender (46.7% of said 15.3%), age (30.3%), ethnicity (5.7%), and sexual orientation (2.5%). Notably, female journalists reported having experienced this much more in respect to their gender than their male counterparts (67.2% vs. just 4.3%) (Van Leuven et al., 2019).
Most of the interviewed journalists said that they have followed (mandatory) trainings for how to respond to physical, verbal, and online abuse and aggression, with varying degrees of satisfaction in terms of use and purpose. However, some of the interviewees indicated that instances of abuse and aggression are rising as a part of their daily work. None of the interviewed journalists were able to mention specialised legal services at hand provided by their employers in the case of (online) harassment, indicating that knowledge on what to do and where to go is limited. In the same vein, no specific entities to address instances of gender-based harassment were reported.
No concrete examples or cases demonstrating the degree to which leading news media provide support could be given.
