IWMF Election Safety Crash Course
This month, API is partnering with the International Women’s Media Foundation to share election safety tips from their Newsroom Safety Across America initiative. IWMF and the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press will walk you through tips for physical, digital and legal safety for journalists covering the U.S. elections.
As a journalist covering the 2024 elections, your physical safety is paramount. From protests to polling stations, the field can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous. For this reason, the International Women’s Media Foundation is dedicating this newsletter installment to protecting your physical safety while working.
The reporting landscape for journalists has become increasingly hostile. The IWMF’s recent survey data reveals a troubling trend: 38% of 368 journalists surveyed reported being threatened with or experiencing physical violence while working as a journalist.* These aren’t just statistics; they’re a stark reality many of us face daily.
Through Newsroom Safety Across America, our national initiative providing wrap-around support to local journalists and newsrooms across the United States, we’ve met more than 500 journalists this year in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This program, launched in response to the increasing threats faced by journalists, provides essential training in physical, digital, legal and psychological safety. The NSAA curriculum was designed with our Next Gen Safety Trainers and other experts to cover holistic, identity-based safety. In this series, IWMF will share tips and lessons from these trainings that journalists can use as they plan their election coverage.
*As of June 2024, we surveyed journalists attending our trainings in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New York, Michigan and Nevada.
The post IWMF Election Safety Crash Course appeared first on American Press Institute.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”