Replacing a Culture of Silence with a Culture of Accountability: Why Safe Newsrooms Matter for Democracy

Violence is not the greatest challenge. Normalising violence is.

Nearly eight in ten women journalists in the region (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) have experienced some form of gender-based violence during their careers. The most troubling aspect of sexual and gender-based harassment in the media is not that it happens. The real problem is that it has become so commonplace that it is often dismissed as part of the job.

How many women journalists must remain silent before we acknowledge that the problem exists?

How many must change newsrooms, abandon the profession, or simply learn to tolerate harassment before we recognise that safety at work is not an individual concern but a fundamental professional standard?

For years, discussions about journalists’ safety have focused almost exclusively on physical attacks, political pressure, SLAPP lawsuits and online hate campaigns. All of these are serious threats to media freedom.

Yet another form of insecurity has received far less attention: the harassment and abuse that occur within media organisations themselves or in the course of everyday journalistic work.

To address this gap, the regional project »Women in the Media« has developed the Rulebook on Preventing Sexual and Other Forms of Harassment in Media Newsrooms—a practical framework designed to replace a culture of silence with a culture of accountability.

Rather than serving as another aspirational statement, the Rulebook provides concrete, operational guidance that media organisations in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina can incorporate directly into their internal regulations and workplace procedures.

It is intended not simply to condemn harassment, but to help prevent it, respond to it effectively, and build safer working environments for everyone in journalism.

Why Legislation Alone Is Not Enough

At first glance, one might reasonably ask whether another policy is really necessary.

After all, every country in the region already prohibits discrimination, sexual harassment, and workplace violence through national legislation. Many media organisations have also adopted codes of ethics, internal regulations, or workplace policies intended to safeguard employees’ dignity.

Yet the lived experiences of women journalists tell a very different story.

A regional research conducted in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina by Zavod Krog, Trade Union of Croatian Journalists,  Trade Union of Culture, Art and Media “Nezavisnost”, Mediacentar Sarajevo, and Slovenian Association of Journalists paints a stark picture. Almost 78% of women journalists reported having experienced some form of gender-based violence or harassment during their professional careers.

Even more striking is the fact that the overwhelming majority never reported what had happened. The reasons are remarkably consistent across countries, media sectors and newsroom cultures. Women journalists fear losing their jobs. They have little confidence that institutions will protect them. They worry about professional retaliation. Many believe that filing a complaint will change nothing.

Some fear that they—not the perpetrator—will become “the problem.”

These findings reveal an uncomfortable truth. The greatest obstacle is not the absence of legal protections. It is the failure to translate those protections into everyday practice. The testimonies collected through this research expose a wide gap between legal standards and the realities of newsroom life.

Laws clearly define prohibited conduct. What they rarely explain is what should happen the next morning when a journalist walks into an editor’s office and quietly says:

“I’ve been harassed.”

Who receives the complaint? Who guarantees confidentiality? Who protects the complainant from retaliation? How quickly should the employer respond? Who conducts the investigation? Who provides legal or psychological support?

These are precisely the questions that determine whether a reporting mechanism functions in practice—or exists only on paper. This is where the Rulebook makes a tangible difference.

It does not introduce new legal obligations. Instead, it transforms existing legal protections into clear institutional procedures that media organisations can implement immediately. In other words, it bridges the gap between law and practice.

When Harassment Becomes Part of the Job

This Rulebook was not developed in response to abstract legal theory. It emerged because hundreds of women journalists from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina shared stories they had carried in silence for years.

Nearly eight out of ten had experienced some form of gender-based violence or harassment during their careers. These figures are no longer simply statistics. They reveal a structural problem within the profession itself.

Violence is not the greatest challenge. Normalising violence is.

Perhaps the most disturbing finding of the research was not the prevalence of sexual harassment, threats or online abuse. Nor was it the scale of misogynistic attacks. What stood out most was something even more troubling: Many women no longer believe that reporting harassment serves any purpose.

“It’s better to stay silent than to create problems.”

This was not an isolated comment. It reflected an organisational culture that has gradually taken root across significant parts of the media sector.

When employees believe that reporting harassment may cost them their job, damage their professional reputation, or jeopardise future career opportunities, the problem extends far beyond the individual perpetrator. It becomes a systemic failure.

Because a system that does not protect those who experience violence inevitably protects those who commit it. One of the Rulebook’s greatest strengths is that it moves beyond broad principles and general commitments.

Instead, it answers the practical questions that employees face when harassment occurs.

• What should someone do after experiencing harassment?
• Where can they seek help safely?
• Who guarantees confidentiality?
• How are complainants protected?
• What happens immediately after a complaint is filed?
• How is retaliation prevented?

Rather than leaving these questions unanswered, the Rulebook establishes practical procedures that every newsroom can implement.

What the Rulebook Changes in Practice

The Rulebook is built around a simple principle: employees should never have to navigate harassment on their own.

To make that principle meaningful, it establishes clear procedures that every media organisation should have in place—from confidential reporting channels and independent confidential advisers to clearly defined timelines for handling complaints, interim protective measures, an appeals process, and an unequivocal prohibition of retaliation against anyone who reports harassment.

In doing so, the right to protection ceases to be an abstract legal entitlement and becomes a practical workplace mechanism that employees can rely on.

Just as importantly, the Rulebook addresses the very obstacles that have discouraged women journalists from reporting harassment for years.

1. Safe Reporting Begins with Trust

Research consistently shows that one of the main reasons journalists choose not to report harassment is a lack of confidence in the process itself. Employees often fear that their complaint will not remain confidential, that it will be handled by someone closely connected to management, or that reporting the incident will ultimately make their professional situation even worse.

The Rulebook tackles these concerns directly.

Every media organisation is required to appoint two independent confidential advisers responsible for handling workplace harassment cases. These advisers must receive specialised training, operate independently of managerial structures, and guarantee strict confidentiality throughout every stage of the procedure.

Their role extends beyond receiving complaints. They provide guidance, explain available options, ensure that the complainant understands every step of the process, and help create an environment in which employees feel safe enough to come forward.

By establishing secure, clearly defined, and confidential reporting channels, the Rulebook shifts the burden away from victims, who have too often been expected to bear it alone.

Trust is no longer treated as an aspiration. It becomes an institutional responsibility.

2. Protection Against Retaliation Is Essential

Reporting harassment should never become a professional risk. Yet this is precisely what many journalists expect. The fear of losing assignments, being excluded from editorial decisions, denied promotion, transferred to less desirable positions, or quietly marginalised has discouraged countless employees from speaking out.

The Rulebook recognises retaliation as one of the greatest barriers to reporting abuse. For that reason, it establishes explicit safeguards for both complainants and witnesses. Any direct or indirect retaliation—including demotion, reassignment, reduced pay or fees, denial of career advancement, intimidation, or any other adverse treatment linked to a complaint—is regarded as a serious breach of professional obligations and must be addressed accordingly.

This protection sends a clear message. Reporting harassment is a workplace right—not an act of disloyalty.

3. Prevention Requires Education, Not Assumptions

Harassment cannot be prevented simply by adopting policies. It requires continuous learning.

Many forms of inappropriate behaviour persist because employees fail to recognise them, while others continue because harmful attitudes have become normalised within organisational culture. For this reason, the Rulebook introduces mandatory, regular training for all employees, as well as additional education for managers and editors, who bear particular responsibility for maintaining safe workplaces.

Training should cover topics such as:

• recognising unacceptable behaviour;
• understanding consent and professional boundaries;
• identifying abuse of power;
• responding appropriately to complaints;
• and fostering respectful workplace communication.

The aim is not merely to increase awareness. It is to create a professional culture in which harassment is recognised early, addressed consistently, and prevented wherever possible.

The Rulebook also acknowledges that people who experience harassment often require more than procedural protection. Many need psychological support, legal advice, or practical assistance in navigating formal complaints. Accordingly, it encourages media organisations to establish comprehensive support mechanisms that help survivors recover without experiencing further isolation, shame, or institutional neglect.

4. Protection Does Not End at the Newsroom Door

One of the Rulebook’s most significant innovations is its recognition that many of the risks journalists face originate outside their own organisations. Harassment does not come exclusively from colleagues or managers.

Women journalists frequently encounter abuse from politicians, public officials, interviewees, sources, business representatives, members of the public, and anonymous online users. Journalism is unlike many other professions. Reporters spend much of their working lives outside the newsroom—in courtrooms, parliamentary buildings, hospitals, schools, protest sites, conflict zones, private homes, online spaces, and countless other environments where employers have traditionally assumed little responsibility.

The Rulebook challenges that assumption. It makes clear that an employer’s duty of care extends beyond the newsroom itself. Media organisations are expected to develop safety protocols for field reporting, document incidents occurring outside the workplace, respond to digital abuse, and provide practical support whenever employees become targets of threats or coordinated harassment campaigns.

This represents an important shift in understanding workplace safety. Protection is linked not to a physical location but to professional activity. Journalists deserve institutional support wherever their work takes them.

Responding to the Realities of the Digital Age

The media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. Only a few years ago, few internal workplace policies anticipated coordinated online harassment campaigns, doxxing, mass reporting of journalists’ social media accounts, manipulated images, or AI-generated deepfake content.

Today, these are no longer exceptional incidents. For many journalists—particularly women—they have become part of everyday professional life. The regional research shows that digital violence rarely remains confined to the online sphere. It affects mental health. It influences editorial decisions. It discourages investigative reporting. In many cases, it pushes journalists to leave their newsroom—or the profession altogether.

Recognising this reality, the Rulebook explicitly defines online harassment, misogynistic hate campaigns, doxxing, coordinated digital attacks, and the malicious use of artificial intelligence as forms of violence requiring an institutional response.

The message is unequivocal. Digital violence is not “less real” than harassment occurring face to face. Its consequences are equally serious. And employers have a responsibility to respond accordingly.

A Rulebook Is Only as Strong as the Culture That Supports It

Rulebooks do not change organisational culture. People do.

Some workplace rulebooks exist because legislation requires them. Others are created because too many people have remained silent for too long. This Rulebook belongs to the latter category.

That is why its success will depend not only on what it says, but on how seriously media organisations choose to implement it. Formally adopting the document may prove relatively straightforward. Changing what happens once newsroom doors close is a far greater challenge.

• Will an editor intervene after hearing a sexist joke?
• Will colleagues stand beside someone who reports harassment—or quietly distance themselves?
• Will management protect the employee, or the organisation’s reputation?
• Will confidential advisers act independently, or become another administrative formality?

No policy can answer these questions on its own. But it can establish the standard against which every organisation is measured. It can make clear what is acceptable and what is not. It can affirm that employees’ dignity is not a matter of managerial discretion but a fundamental professional value. And that may ultimately prove to be its greatest contribution.

From Reporting to Prevention

The Rulebook is not limited to procedures for reporting harassment. Its ambition is much broader.

It promotes prevention through regular training, clearly defined managerial responsibilities, continuous monitoring of implementation, and the gradual development of a workplace culture based on trust, respect, accountability, and professional integrity.

In other words, it provides a roadmap for how responsible media organisations should respond—not only after harassment occurs, but long before it does. This matters because prevention is always more effective than crisis management.

Organisations that invest in respectful workplace cultures are less likely to face harassment complaints in the first place. And when incidents do occur, they are far better equipped to respond fairly, transparently, and without causing further harm.

Why This Matters Beyond Individual Newsrooms

Although the Rulebook focuses on workplace safety, its significance extends well beyond individual media organisations. Its adoption has direct implications for three of the most important foundations of every democratic society.

1. Free Media Depend on Safe Journalists

Independent journalism cannot flourish in environments shaped by fear. Creating safe newsrooms is therefore not simply a matter of employee welfare. It is a prerequisite for media freedom itself.

Journalists who fear harassment, retaliation, or humiliation cannot be expected to investigate those in power with complete independence. Safety is not separate from editorial freedom. It is one of its essential conditions.

A journalist who feels protected is far more likely to pursue difficult stories, challenge powerful interests, and report without self-censorship. Ultimately, protecting journalists means protecting the public’s right to know.

2. Public Trust Depends on Professional Integrity

Citizens have a fundamental right to receive accurate, reliable, and independent information. That right depends upon the integrity of those who gather, verify, and publish it.

When media organisations tolerate harassment within their own workplaces, they undermine their credibility when reporting on injustice elsewhere. An industry that fails to protect its own employees inevitably weakens its moral authority to hold others accountable.

Professional ethics begin at home. Newsrooms cannot credibly advocate human rights, equality, and justice while neglecting those same principles internally. Creating safe workplaces therefore strengthens not only employees but journalism itself.

3. Attacks on Women Journalists Are Attacks on Democracy

Gender-based harassment directed at women journalists is never simply a personal matter. When women are targeted because of their reporting—through misogynistic abuse, sexualised threats, intimidation, or campaigns designed to silence them—the attack reaches far beyond the individual.

It becomes an attack on freedom of expression. It becomes an attack on democratic participation. It becomes an attack on the public’s right to information. Journalists perform one of democracy’s essential functions. They scrutinise power, expose wrongdoing, and hold public institutions accountable.

If those responsible for holding power to account are themselves intimidated, isolated, or abandoned, democratic institutions inevitably become weaker. Protecting women journalists is therefore not solely an issue of workplace equality. It is an issue of democratic resilience.

Changing the Culture of Journalism

Perhaps the greatest contribution of this Rulebook lies not in any single procedure or reporting mechanism. Its greatest contribution is the cultural shift it seeks to encourage.

For decades, sexual harassment in many newsrooms has too often been dismissed as an unfortunate but unavoidable aspect of professional life. Women were expected to adapt. To ignore inappropriate comments. To avoid certain colleagues. To remain silent for the sake of their careers.

The Rulebook rejects this logic entirely. Harassment is not “part of the job.” Silence is not professionalism.

And protecting institutional reputation can never take precedence over protecting people. These principles may appear self-evident.

Yet the research demonstrates that they have not always been reflected in everyday newsroom practice. Changing that reality requires more than legal compliance. It requires leadership. It requires accountability.

Above all, it requires organisations willing to recognise that creating safe workplaces is not an administrative obligation but a defining characteristic of responsible journalism.

Safe Newsrooms Create Free Media

The central message of both the Rulebook and the accompanying regional research is clear:

Safety in journalism cannot—and must not—be treated as an individual’s responsibility.

For far too long, sexual harassment has been framed as a “private issue,” a “personal misunderstanding,” or a conflict to be resolved quietly behind closed doors. Such narratives do not protect organisations. They protect perpetrators. And they leave those who experience harassment to shoulder the consequences alone.

Creating a safe and dignified working environment is not the responsibility of individual journalists. It is a shared responsibility that belongs to the entire media ecosystem. That responsibility begins with media owners, editors, and managers.

Leadership is demonstrated not through public statements but through everyday decisions.

Media organisations that genuinely value professional integrity must formally adopt rulebooks such as this one, implement them consistently, provide adequate resources for their enforcement, and respond decisively whenever standards are breached. Silence from leadership is never neutral. In practice, organisational inaction communicates that unacceptable behaviour will continue to be tolerated.

Trade unions and professional associations have an equally important role to play. They are uniquely positioned to monitor implementation, provide independent legal support, advocate for those who experience harassment, and ensure that individual cases do not disappear behind institutional silence. Their role extends beyond representing members. They help safeguard professional standards across the sector.

Public institutions and regulatory authorities also have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to strengthen accountability. Public funding for media, whether through project grants, state advertising, or other forms of financial support, should increasingly be linked to compliance with labour rights, ethical standards, and the existence of effective internal mechanisms for preventing and addressing workplace harassment.

Public resources should reinforce responsible journalism. They should never subsidise workplaces that fail to protect their employees.

The Quality of Journalism Depends on the Conditions in Which Journalists Work

This Rulebook is about far more than protecting individual media professionals. Ultimately, it is about protecting the quality of journalism itself. Journalists who work in an atmosphere of fear, humiliation, intimidation, or persistent insecurity cannot easily perform their role with full independence or professional confidence.

Fear changes decisions. It influences which stories are pursued. It shapes what questions are asked—and which remain unasked. Sometimes it leads talented journalists to leave their newsroom. Sometimes it drives them out of the profession altogether.

Whenever this happens, society loses far more than an individual career. Newsrooms lose experience. The profession loses talent. The public loses independent voices. And democracy loses part of its capacity to hold power to account.

When employees remain silent because they fear the consequences of speaking out, the damage extends well beyond the individual. It affects editorial independence. It weakens public trust. And it undermines journalism’s ability to fulfil its democratic purpose.

The Beginning of a Much Larger Change

For that reason, adopting this Rulebook should not be viewed as the conclusion of a process. It is only the beginning.

Its real success will never be measured simply by the number of media organisations that formally adopt it. Success will be measured by something much more meaningful.

By the number of newsrooms where employees, perhaps for the first time, feel confident that they are not alone. Where they know there is a system capable of protecting them. Where reporting harassment is understood not as an act of personal courage but as the exercise of a fundamental workplace right.

Policies matter. But cultures matter more.

Real change occurs when respectful behaviour becomes the norm rather than the exception. When bystanders choose to intervene instead of remaining silent. When editors lead by example. When managers understand that protecting people is inseparable from protecting journalism.

More Than an Internal Policy

In that sense, this document is far more than an internal workplace policy. The way it is received will reveal something much broader about the kind of media environment—and ultimately the kind of society—we aspire to build.

Do we see audiences merely as consumers in an increasingly competitive information market? Or do we believe journalism exists to strengthen informed public debate, encourage critical thinking, and serve the public interest?

The answer depends, in part, on how seriously we take the wellbeing of those who produce journalism. Only media organisations that uphold the highest professional and ethical standards can genuinely protect the public interest and preserve the democratic rights and freedoms upon which open societies depend.

Safe newsrooms are not simply better workplaces. They are one of the essential foundations of free, independent, and trustworthy journalism.

And without journalism that is free to work without fear, democracy itself becomes more fragile.

_____________________________________________________________________________

This article is based on the Rulebook on Preventing Sexual and Other Forms of Harassment in Media Newsrooms, developed within the regional project »Women in the Media« and was prepared as part of the project “Ending workplace harassment in the media industry in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina – Women in the Media” with the financial support of the European Union.

The original version of this article was published by Branka Dragović (Trade Union of Culture, Art and Media “Nezavisnost”) and is available here.