A 2019 review of UK newsroom practices for protecting journalists from online abuse and harassment, covering broadcast, print organisations, and news agencies, found a range of established and developing policies. These included the implementation of detailed guidelines for journalists and editors in the event of harassment and procedures for the reporting of incidents to management. Some newsrooms employ voluntary trauma risk and mental health training, peer monitoring of abusive communications, and regular meetings between social media editors and news teams to monitor the effects of potential abuse. Newsrooms were also found to implement guidelines for social media use by employees, including preventative measures and privacy protection, blocking policies, and threat reporting mechanisms. Some news organisations also utilised social media teams who liaise with platforms in cases of sustained online harassment campaigns (Trionfi & Luque, 2019: 55–58). Freelance journalists, however, reported that they had little or no access to these support networks (Trionfi & Luque, 2019: 54). Journalists in England and Wales also have access to protections in law (different legal jurisdictions operate in Scotland and Northern Ireland, though similar legislation is in place there). The Malicious Communications Act 1988 specifies that it is an offense to send communication that is “indecent or grossly offensive, threatening or false, if the purpose of the communication is to cause distress or anxiety”. The Communications Act 2003 (127) outlines the criminal offense of sending messages through a public communications network that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character, or to send false information for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to another. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 prohibits actions amounting to harassment. There is some lack of clarity in these pieces of legislation and their application to journalism, such as the definition of “grossly offensive” messages in the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the inclusion of coordinated online “pile-on” behaviour under the definition of harassment (Feikert-Ahalt, 2019: 47–50). Other legislation, such as the Public Order Act 1986 and the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, are relevant to protections from malicious communication.
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