Monitoring human rights violations against journalists

In February 2024, the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) hosted a research secondment focusing on discussiong how to develop monitoring of human rights violations directed at journalists. The secondment saw researchers from CFOM (Dr Diana Maynard from the GATE team, and Prof. Jackie Harrison and Dr. Gemma Horton from the School of Journalism, Media and Communication) come together with UNESCO and Free Press Unlimited to discuss the threats that journalists face and how these can be monitored in line with UN SDG16.10.1.

Following the research secondment, Dr Maynard has been awarded £35,000 to work on a collaborative project with UNESCO and Free Press Unlimited, entitled: “Influencing policy work on human rights violations against journalists”

The project focuses on monitoring and analysing non-lethal attacks on journalists in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 16.10.1, and aims to better understand 1) the scope and context of these violations, 2) how these can be systematically and reliably monitored, resulting in the creation of 3) a database; all of which will inform future policy on monitoring safety of journalists. 

The Sheffield and FPU teams are developing a risk barometer that employs machine learning to identify patterns and indicators, helping to understand the contextual factors that predict lethal and non-lethal violence against journalists. It emphasises the crucial role of Press Freedom and Advocacy organisations in reducing these risks, highlighting the need for a proactive, evidence-based approach to forecasting threats. This strategy aims to enable earlier interventions and stronger protections for journalists globally by identifying contextual risk factors that elevate threats, such as online harassment, legal intimidation, democratic backsliding, civil conflict, and physical violence. In the first stage, it aims to accurately detect patterns and hotspots using global event data from various resources, such as GDELT, which tracks real-time global events every 15 minutes, and will utilize additional resources to gain insights into emerging risks as they arise. Simultaneously, we are connecting contextual data to data on attacks towards journalists, to gain a deeper understanding of the causes of not only lethal but also non-lethal violence towards journalists. 

Preliminary findings have identified some basic patterns: online harassment often serves as a precursor to physical intimidation. Additionally, regions such as Gaza, Ukraine, and Mexico have been identified as high-risk areas due to factors including conflict, organised crime, and authoritarian policies. Furthermore, we find that political polarisation seems strongly correlated with the level of legal threats that journalists face. These important relationships will be further investigated by the collaborative team in the upcoming months.