From the moment Angela Chen appeared as an on-air reporter in Houston, viewers sent her messages on social media. Most had nothing to do with journalism. They were about her appearance.
One viewer obsessed about how she parted her hair. Another nitpicked over her black eyeliner. For most of her career, Chen, the only Asian American on-air reporter where she’s worked, was told she didn’t “fit in” at the anchor desk.
“Each one still hurts when you receive them, but you get over it quickly,” said Chen, who is now an anchor at KESQ in Palm Springs, California. “You have just to develop your own way of not letting it get to you or just laughing it off.”
Chen is among the 75% of journalists who have experienced online harassment, according to a 2022 Pew Research study. And nearly half of that harassment includes threats of physical harm.
Journalists who identify as women, people of color or LGBTQ tend to be affected the most, according to the International Women’s Media Foundation. While the harassers don’t necessarily fit a single profile (Chen said she received many harassing messages from older white women), the majority seem to be men who experience enjoyment from trying to discredit a reporter or take them down to their level, writes Nina Jankowicz in her book “How To Be a Woman Online.”
“It’s mostly men who want to take up the oxygen in the room, and they want to prove themselves before you and to the public,” Jankowicz, a counter-disinformation expert who has experienced social media harassment after appearing on TV, said in an interview. “They like to believe that they deserve the recognition that you have achieved in your life, and they believe that they can do that by replying to you on Twitter or another platform.”
While there’s no playbook for how journalists should deal with trolls, harassment or doxxing, here are some tips from journalists who’ve been through it.
Check your outlet’s social media harassment policy
When I worked as an editor for a women’s media outlet nearly a decade ago, men tracked me down on Facebook to message me insults, called me an “overeducated coastal elite” on a conservative message board and posted Twitter threads about how I was wrong about innocuous topics. Back then, my employer didn’t have a social media harassment policy and I was advised to report the offending messages to the social media platforms and wait it out.
“When you’re just starting in a newsroom or considering job offers, it’s important to ask them what their policies are regarding online harassment,” Jankowicz said. “And if they don’t have one, help them develop one, because in media it is an inevitability. It’s not an ‘if,’ it’s a ‘when.’”
These days, many media outlets have policies for these situations, with guidelines reporters need to follow. For instance, NBC News has an online harassment guide for employees and procedures in the event a journalist experiences doxxing or attacks. “We do encourage people to report that to their managers or talk through it and then take the next steps if need be,” said Nina Sen, NBC News director of news standards, who covers race, class and gender.
In 2021, Defector Media made headlines for enacting one of the most comprehensive online harassment policies. The worker-owned media outlet offers the anti-doxxing service DeleteMe, which removes personal data from the internet, and gives employees safety options, including assigning someone to temporarily take over their social media accounts when messages or replies get overwhelming, providing lodging if they feel unsafe at home and assisting with law enforcement if needed.
Defector staff writer Giri Nathan said when the staff came up with the policy, they considered two questions: “What kind of workplace would we like to design, and how would we make it as humane as humanly possible for the people working in it?” He has not experienced social media harassment personally but mentioned that several of his colleagues have, which helped shape the policy.
“We wanted to make sure that the burden wasn’t on the individual employee,” he said, “but rather on the collective to help our reporters weather those situations.”
Take some time away from social media
In late 2021, author and journalist Jennifer Chen wrote a personal essay for Today.com about one of her children coming out as nonbinary on the family’s holiday card.
For two weeks after the story was published (People magazine also picked up the story), Chen received a ton of messages from readers through social media and her personal website’s contact form. Some were supportive and offered her resources; others were hateful, saying Chen’s children should be taken from her and that her kids should only read the Bible.
“It got to the point where I couldn’t look at it all anymore, so I signed out of my social media,” Chen said. “I had my husband go in and block everybody who trolled me and I turned off the comments on the Instagram family photo that was used in the story.”
Some journalists delete or lock their accounts when experiencing online harassment. Many others remain on social media for work or connection. Psychotherapist and licensed mental health counselor Brianna Paruolo said it’s important to keep track of anxiety levels when you’re checking the apps and adjust accordingly. Ask yourself, “On a scale from 1 to 5, how am I feeling before opening an app or opening my email during my scroll session?” she said. “It’s bringing awareness, seeing if you were anxious before using the app, during or after.”
For Jankowicz, how journalists decide to distance themselves from social media during a deluge of attacks is up to the individual. “It’s an intensely personal thing,” she said. “And I think it depends a lot on the support structure you have at home to get you through that.”
Fight back — but only if you want to
Six months after her initial Today.com essay, Chen wrote a second one about taking her nonbinary — and now openly transgender — child to RuPaul’s DragCon. While she knew it might lead to more attacks, she thought it was more important to bring these stories to light for families in similar situations.
The second essay drew an even more intense response online, including tweets with crude, violent drawings of transgender children. But this time, Chen decided to fight back — for every harassing tweet she received, she pledged to donate $5 to the Trevor Project, an organization focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth. Soon, friends offered to match her donations. In the end, they donated nearly $500.
“I wasn’t going to be angry back at them or call them names,” Chen said. “I told them, ‘I’m going to donate each time they troll me.’ Some people stopped, but some people said, ‘Here’s another donation,’ and then because I’m Asian, they made a racist joke.”
Angela Chen, the news anchor, also publicly posts some of the insults and harassing messages she’s received to “show people how ridiculous some viewers can be and how people think they have the right to comment on your appearance.” She also replies directly to some messages. To the woman who sent the eyeliner message, Chen explained that makeup may look darker on her right eye because she has a birthmark there. In response, the woman apologized for her comments.
“Back when I started, you didn’t respond and just ignored it,” she said. “I don’t think that’s the most healthy thing to do. With responding, I’m always polite. You never want to sink to their level and, you know, hurl insults at each other. Most of the time they back down and they apologize.”
Jankowicz knows journalists who locked their accounts and others who didn’t. Again, what reporters decide to do is a personal choice, she said.
“I believe it is important to stand your digital ground, because if we lock our accounts, if we go quiet and delete our accounts, it’s letting the bad guys win, but it’s not for everyone,” she said. “It’s exhausting and I don’t wholeheartedly recommend it, but it can be edifying to respond in a strategic way.”
Protect yourself
Jankowicz’s book has an entire chapter on best practices to keep your data and social media profiles safe from trolls, including using two-factor authentication, a strong password manager and encrypted communications. She also advises anyone online to avoid sharing photos of their current location in real time, near their homes or of pets with visible personal information on their tags.
Jankowicz also recommends creating a “circle of solidarity” with fellow journalists — a group that understands what online abuse is like and who can help each other through the tough spots.
“Especially when you’re starting out, you should build your support network,” Paruolo said. “It’s colleagues, friends and people outside of the field, so you can reach out to them when you are feeling overwhelmed.”
At work, journalists can try to take precautions when it comes to certain assignments they know might be a lightning rod for controversy. For instance, Jennifer Chen has since turned down another assignment to write about her transgender child. “It’s not worth the money or the headache that’s involved. People are very, very cruel about it,” she said.
Sometimes reporters feel like they don’t have a choice when it comes to assignments — especially if it’s a breaking news story. But Jankowicz said journalists should always let their editor know about their concerns ahead of time.
“Say, ‘Hey, I’m happy to do this story. Just want to flag that I think the particular groups that I’m writing about might not take too kindly for this. Can I get a briefing with our ops team or security to make sure that everything is squared away, so that we don’t get taken by surprise?’” she said. “That’s a really important thing to do, and don’t be scared to ask for it.”
