The overall situation of journalists in the country is dangerous, and this represents a huge challenge to media professionals’ freedom of expression. According to a special report from the Index on censorship, the European Center for Press and Media Freedom, and the European Commission (2018), Italy is the country in Europe where journalists’ safety is most threatened, with 83 cases reported between 2014 and 2018, including online harassment, personal assaults, and most of all intimidation, often connected to reporting on mafia issues (see also Mapping Media Freedom, 2020). At present, about 20 journalists are living under round-the-clock police protection, as indicated by the 2020 World Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Borders, 2020). Although Italy scored two points higher in comparison with the previous year (41st position), attacks against journalists are still on the rise, particularly in Lazio and other Southern regions.
Women’s freedom of expression is also challenged by acts of violence against women and gender-based violence, particularly against women working in the media sector (see IFJ, 2017; and global surveys conducted by the IWMF & Troll-Busters, 2014, 2018). In Italy, according to the association Ossigeno per l’informazione [Oxygen for Information] (2019), 358 women journalists received threats, attacks, and suffered violence between 2014 and 2019. This figure represents 21 per cent of 1,706 professional journalists whose cases have been identified, which are nevertheless only a minor segment of a much larger phenomenon. However, a different study shows that in the first three months of 2019, the percentage of women journalists threatened had already escalated to 24 per cent, with 18 women threatened out of a total of 73 (Della Morte, 2019). Furthermore, the FNSI promoted the first quantitative study to assess the status of sexual violence and harassment of women journalists in the media sector (FNSI, 2019). The results indicate that 85 per cent of 1,132 female journalists surveyed experienced some form of sexual harassment or abuse during their professional careers, and 42.2 per cent experienced these abuses in 2019.
In terms of institutional responses and newsroom practices, according to the interviewed journalists, no specific protection mechanism has been adopted by newsrooms against online harassment or threats, apart from legal guardianship in the exercise of the journalistic profession. Also, there is widespread resistance in denouncing instances of harassment and abuse, including physical, psychological, and economic by individual women journalists. A journalist from Sky Tg24 commented on social media attacks: “There is no support policy in this sense. […]. If attacks happen, it is a matter that is independently managed by you with the platform”. On the same point, a journalist from la Repubblica said: “We have full legal coverage with respect to menaces, for example, or libel lawsuits. It is normal. No other kinds of protection are provided”. As far as la Repubblica and l’Espresso (Gedi Group) are concerned, many journalists, such as Federica Angeli, Salvo Palazzolo, Lirio Abate, Paolo Berizzi, and the most-known Roberto Saviano, received personal protection after being threatened by organised crime or extremist political movements. “Many police agents protect threatened colleagues”, adds the journalist from la Repubblica, “but we talk about threats other than stalking or the insult of keyboard lions”. In this regard, la Repubblica’s editor-in-chief speaks about the measures undertaken:
There is our solidarity with those who are victims of this type of action […], but then there is the support of the institutions, the support of the police when it becomes necessary. The management is committed to ensuring that our most exposed journalists are always protected.
In general, informal support from colleagues as well as, in more critical cases, the stances of the editorial board and the unions, are common.
In recent years, some leading news media have adopted specific provisions to address cases of gender-based discrimination and harassment. In 2017, the public service broadcaster RAI renewed its norms against harassment in the workplace, banning any verbal or physical sexual molestation that has “the purpose or in any case the effect of violating the dignity and freedom of the person who undergoes it and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive atmosphere” (RAI, 2017: 1). Likewise, the code of ethics of Mediaset and Gedi Group (owner of la Repubblica and l’Espresso), as well as the code of conduct of Comcast (Sky Italia), prohibit any form of harassment and gender discrimination to the person. In particular, these forbid “violence or sexual harassment” and any kind of discrimination “refer[ing] to personal and cultural diversity” (Gruppo Mediaset, 2019: 12), and through “the promotion and the respect of human rights” (Gedi Group, 2020: 5), also encouraging employees to denounce “without fear of retaliation” (Comcast, 2020: 11).
