MEDIA BACKGROUNDER ON THE BRUSSELS DECLARATION - SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

MEDIA BACKGROUNDER ON THE
BRUSSELS DECLARATION
SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

THE INCREASING THREATS TO
JOURNALISTS’ SAFETY AND
MEDIA FREEDOM

Physical violence and online harassment against journalists, news
crews and media professionals are on the rise worldwide — and
this trend is accelerating in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

           Media freedom alerts to the Council of Europe’s Safety of
           Journalists Platform rose by almost 40% between 2019
           and 2020, with a record number of those alerts involving
           physical attacks, harassment or intimidation.1

Meanwhile, emergency laws and regulations enacted by
governments in response to the pandemic led to “arbitrary
interferences in the legitimate work of journalists and news
organisations,” resulting in “severe infringements of Convention
rights under Article 10” of the European Convention on Human
Rights.2 UNESCO also noted “increasing intolerance towards
reporting, fostered by a climate of endemic anti-press rhetoric,
including by political leaders....”3 This intolerance has been
especially exemplified by abuses and insults targeting journalists
covering COVID-related protests in Europe and the Black Lives
Matter protests in the U.S.
1
 Council of Europe, Wanted! Real action for media freedom in Europe, Annual Report by the partner
organisations to the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety
of Journalists, April 2021, p. 7
2
    Council of Europe, p. 6.
3
  UNESCO, Highlights from the 2020 UNESCO Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists
and the Danger of Impunity.

Fatal attacks against journalists are also no longer confined to
war-torn countries. In July 2021, Dutch investigative journalist
Peter R. de Vries died after being shot in central Amsterdam,
while Georgian cameraman Aleksandre Lashkarava was found
dead at his home after being severely beaten by anti-LGBTQ+
protesters during a Pride march in Tbilisi. Earlier in April, Greek
crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was killed by gunmen on
motorbikes near his home in Athens. These fatal attacks are part
of a wider trend.

           UNESCO found that 61% of all journalists killed worldwide
           in 2019 lost their lives in countries with no armed conflict,
           up from 50% in 2016.4

The Public Media Alliance noted that the shooting of Mr. De Vries
occurred in a context where “attacks on journalists are rising
in well-consolidated democracies across Europe – even those
who enjoy high levels of press freedom,” citing specific cases
of physical violence and legislative threats in countries like the
Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.5

4
    UNESCO.
5
    Public Media Alliance, Threats to Journalists on the Rise Across Europe, July 9, 2021.

Women and under-represented groups as targets
of attacks

Attacks on journalists disproportionately target women and
members of under-represented groups, as documented in a
series of reports conducted by UNESCO, the Council of Europe,
the International Women’s Media Foundation, Reporters Without
Borders and Amnesty International.

According to UNESCO, women are more likely to be subjected
to “intimidation, threats, and harassment of a sexual or sexist
nature, and also to particular forms of online attacks, such as
cyberstalking, doxxing and trolling.”6 In 2020, the organization
conducted a survey of 714 women journalists in 15 countries
and found that 73% of them had experienced online violence,
with 25% threatened with physical violence and 18% with
sexual violence.

6
    UNESCO.

Online attacks often translate into real-life abuses — 20%
           of women saying they were subjected to offline attacks and
           abuses in connection with violence they had experienced online.7

In March 2021, Reporters Without Borders noted in a new report
that being “a member of a minority constitutes an additional
risk for women journalists.” They reported that sexist and sexual
violence are often combined with other types of insults: racism,
lesbophobia or transphobia, and comments or insults based on
religion.8 Racialized women journalists are also more likely to
be targeted by online trolling, according to data compiled by
Amnesty International.

           Women of colour in the media or politics were 34% more
           likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or
           problematic tweets, and that number rises to 84% for
           Black women.9

7
 Julie Posetti and al., Online Violence Against Women Journalists: A Global Snapshot of Incidence and
Impacts, UNESCO, 2020.
8
    Reporters Without Borders, Sexism’s Toll on Journalism, March 2021, p. 20.
9
 Amnesty International, Troll Patrol Findings: Using Crowdsourcing, Data Science & Machine Learning
to Measure Violence and Abuse Against Women on Twitter, 2018.

Pluralism and democracy at stake

States responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that “led to
serious challenges to press freedom” and “restricted journalists’
ability to cover the public health situation freely.”10 These restrictions
were “implemented deliberately or out of neglect for the media’s
crucial role in times of crisis.”11 While lifting those restrictions
is critical, it won’t be enough to stop and reverse the current
decline in media freedom. Physical violence and online harassment
also have tremendous — although more insidious — impacts.

             After conducting a survey in 12 countries, Reporters
             Without Borders found that 48% of women journalists
             already resort to self-censorship to avoid exposing
             themselves to violence. Another 21% have resigned or are
             considering not renewing their contracts12.

 Council of Europe, Wanted! Real action for media freedom in Europe, Annual Report by the partner
10

organisations to the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety
of Journalists, April 2021, p. 9.
11
     Ibid., p. 6.
12
     Reporters Without Borders, p. 25.

Threats to journalists’ safety are eroding media freedom at an
escalating pace. The fact that women and members of under-
represented groups are more exposed to these threats also
limits the ability of news media to report diverse perspectives,
shrinking pluralism and weakening democracy.

OBJECTIVES OF THE
BRUSSELS DECLARATION

A collective course of action grounded in key
principles of public service media

The Brussels Declaration is a joint initiative of Canada’s national
public broadcaster, CBC/Radio-Canada, and Belgium’s French
and Flemish public broadcasters, RTBF and VRT. The Declaration
was officially presented to all participants of the Brussels Public
Broadcasters International (PBI) conference held online on
September 30, 2021. With the theme “A Choice for Democracy,”
the event highlighted the role of public media as “a cornerstone
of democracy and the rule of law.”

The objective of the Brussels Declaration was to express the
common concern of signatories regarding the increased threats
to journalists’ safety and media freedom. The Declaration also
provides a collective course of action to help alleviate the
problem. Five (5) key principles were established to guide the
signatories’ efforts:

 1. Enhancing the safety of journalists, crews and
    media professionals

 2. Standing up for the independence of public service media

3. Fostering an informed and civil democratic debate

 4. Supporting a strong news ecosystem with a diversity
    of sources

 5. Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion within our
    organizations and in the societies we serve

The Declaration outlines how public media organizations
could translate these principles into action. Signatories of
the Declaration are also expected to identify and share best
practices, with the goal of maximizing their impact.

Fostering global awareness, mobilization and action

Public broadcasters are only one part of the solution. Although
they can help mitigate some of the worst impacts of the crisis
afflicting democracies, they cannot act alone.

That’s why another objective of the Brussels Declaration is to
raise global awareness of the connection between journalists’
safety, media freedom and democracy. This includes speaking
out against elected officials and other actors who directly or
indirectly fuel distrust toward news media, attack journalists
and media professionals, or act in a way that undermines the
independence of public media.

The signatories hope to achieve that objective by fostering
global mobilization and triggering action from key stakeholders,
including multilateral organizations, NGOs, public officials, private
and community news media, and social media companies. The
goal is to rally more stakeholders around the principles of the
Brussels Declaration, which should be applied not only to public
media but to civil society as a whole.

USEFUL LINKS

• UNESCO reports:

   - Highlight from the 2020 UNESCO Director-General
     Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger
     of Impunity

   - Online Violence Against Women Journalists: A Global
     Snapshot of Incidence and Impacts

• Council of Europe resources:

   - Wanted! Real action for media freedom in Europe

   - Safety of Journalists Platform

• Reporters Without Borders report: Sexism’s Toll
  on Journalism

• Amnesty International report: Troll Patrol Findings

• International Women’s Media Foundation report:
  Attacks and Harassment: The Impact on Female Journalists
  and Their Reporting

• Guardian/Bellingcat report: Attacks on journalists surge in
  US protests

• Statements by the Global Task Force for public media:

   - The increasing threats to journalists’ safety

   - Attacks on public media are an attack on democracy

   - Mandate and other statements

• Public Media Alliance:

   - Threats to Journalists on the Rise Across Europe

   - Global Call Out: Information as a Public Good

• PBI Brussels 2021