Thread:

It goes without saying, no journalists should receive abuse for doing their job. I have questions, however.

What happens when journalistic reporting leads to real life abuse and harm of others, for example a young man waving a news paper in anger that his town is being turned into the Bronx and sometimes later get involved in a beating that leads to the death of a young black boy?

What happens when journalistic reporting lead a young woman to leave a country she grew up in, and for ‘reporting’ to continue even on her most trivial moves but leading to large scale abuse online?

What happens where reporting leads to vilification of whole communities that it’s Human Rights body releases a statement about how that community now feels like a target? How people are afraid to move freely for fear of abuse and attacks.

Who comes to the rescue of these people when journalists doing their work ends with others being abused, trolled, and harmed?

What happens when the self regulation body find some of these reporting as in public interest (whose? Can’t be in the interest of the vilified)

What happens when media and journalists have to self regulate in a multicultural society where whose interests is served can’t be answered through the mainstream lens alone?

Journalists should never be abuse, that we agree. What happens when they facilitate abuse? When click bait leads to hate bait? That is far more unclear. Journalists hold truth to power. It is also power. It can abuse, be misused, and harm.