In defence of our journalists

Over the last few months Bristol24/7 journalists and readers who have submitted opinion pieces on our site have been abused and harassed across online channels and on the streets of Bristol to a level that no-one should have to endure and that we cannot ignore.

Effectively recruiting from diverse communities is a challenge for a lot of media outlets, however Bristol24/7 has made significant progress in the last few years. We now have a diverse core editorial team. 50 per cent of our staff writers are people of colour and we have representation from people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Our work experience programme and Community Reporter initiative continues to open up opportunities to those who would not otherwise have them in local media.

Some of the Community Reporters Bristol24/7 has employed since launching the programme in 2020

We also provide opportunities for people from all demographics and perspectives to submit opinion pieces on our site.  These features often contain divisive opinions and are regularly the ones we receive most criticism for, even though our editorial team has no influence on the content and often won’t share the views of the authors.

We’re proud to be able to give a platform for these voices but I’m increasingly aware of the stress our journalists and other writers are under and feel that the abuse they have received is stifling their authentic voices.

Previously we have tended to avoid responding to the bigots and bullies who post vile comments, usually from behind the anonymity of their online personas, on the assumption that to do so would be giving oxygen to the opinions that would otherwise exist in small echo chambers and spread them to a much wider audience.

I now believe that our silence has meant that we have sometimes let our journalists down.

With so many independent magazines, newspapers and websites being forced to shut down over the last decade, we are blessed with more than one independent media outlet in Bristol. As well as Bristol24/7 we are lucky to also have The Bristol Cable for example. I believe it’s vital to a healthy city to have independent media to both celebrate the city and challenge those in positions of authority. And it is healthy for that coverage to be challenged and debated.

However, I believe that some recent criticism has been unjustified and is symptomatic of insidious online bullying that threatens to silence new voices and perspectives that need to be heard.

A report from Reporters Without Borders found that women journalists are affected the most by cyberharassment with two thirds of women journalists saying they have been the victims of harassment. The consequences are often dramatic with many of the cyberharassment victims saying they had ended up censoring themselves in response to online abuse.

We have also seen and deleted abhorrent racist comments on social media and have seen that Seun Matiluko, as our only Black journalist, has received a disproportionate level of online criticism and abuse.

Bristol24/7, like anyone else should be open to scrutiny and criticism but we need to take a stand against the personal and abusive content that is clearly designed to cause harm to our journalists.

The reality is that our very small and overstretched team is unable to moderate comments across all of our social media channels so we are asking our readers to help bring to our attention anything that you believe to be deliberately harmful to our staff or others.

We will not tolerate abuse of our journalists and will be taking every step to delete personal or abusive messages on our channels, block users and, where necessary, report abuse to the police.

We know that we have much to learn as an organisation. Having a more diverse editorial team is only just the start. One of the ways we will be continuing to challenge that is our current plan to carry out listening exercises with minority groups in Bristol to better understand their needs and their perspectives of our approach and journalism.

We now understand that we also need to do more to defend our journalists, so they can express themselves with confidence and report the truth as they see it.

Ben Wright is Bristol24/7’s Managing Director

Main Photo- Bristol24/7