Killing the Messenger

A recent article in the Washington Post, “Online mobs are now coming for student journalists,” tells the story a young reporter at the University of Arizona who was targeted for abuse after publishing a critical profile of a fellow student’s TikTok posts.

The student journalist received thousands of hateful messages including death threats from fans of the TikTokker. They came in to her cellphone and were scary enough that she no longer feels safe walking across campus.

The article notes that harassment of student journalists across the country appears to have reached new levels in the age of social media. 

I’m sure this is probably true. But it is also the case that the best young journalists just starting out their careers on campus newspapers have always been vulnerable to threats and harassment. Well over 50 years ago now, my closest colleagues on the Michigan Daily were the targets of abuse after publishing an expose of the University of Michigan’s athletic department.

Their investigation led to the first-ever NCAA probe of the university’s practices, a major embarrassment at the time.

The point is that when journalists of any age do our jobs well we act as watchdogs on power, and we often are on the front line of exposing potential abuses of power, whether by institutions or individuals. This work often angers others and the consequences often include threats and harassment. You get used to it over the course of a career, but that doesn’t make it justifiable.

What happened to the reporter in Arizona is unacceptable. University officials should have spoken out forcefully against it much earlier than they did. Young journalists in particular need to be protected and encouraged to stay with the profession despite its risks and hazards.

But what happened in that case is not an exception but the rule — large elements of society continue to kill the messenger ( or at least threaten to kill her) when she is the bearer of bad news.

And bad news is mostly what journalists have to offer when we are doing our job well. In fact that is what’s protected under the concept known as Freedom of the Press.

NEWSLINKS:

• Online mobs are now coming for student journalists (WP)

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