In North Macedonia, women journalists are often targeted by sexualized online violence, defamation campaigns, and coordinated (digital) harassment, especially when reporting on power and corruption, gender equality and human rights issues at large. These attacks often involve sexual threats, doxxing, trolling, and even physical threats, aiming to silence women’s voices and undermine press freedom.
Institutional responses remain inadequate to address this issue. So far, apart from online stalking, there is no official protocol addressing digital violence. While there are some when it comes to offline violence, their implementation remains challenging, newsroom policies are inconsistent, legal remedies are slow or ineffective, and psychological and digital safety support is largely absent. The upcoming 2025 local elections heighten the urgency of this problem, particularly for women covering politics and public institutions.
Moreover, women journalists often face structural discrimination in their workplaces—ranging from contract terminations during pregnancy to being passed over for editorial roles. Such violations are underreported and normalized, especially in politically affiliated or poorly regulated media outlets.
At the local level, working conditions are more difficult: local journalists face political and economic pressures, precarious contracts, dependence on local centers of power, and limited access to information. In small communities, where everyone knows each other, female journalists face increasing challenges when reporting on local corruption, abuse of public resources, or lack of political transparency — ranging from indirect discouragement to informal threats and smear campaigns.
Therefore, the goal of this research is to focus specifically on the experiences of local journalists — their working conditions and challenges, personal strategies, protection mechanisms, and editorial policies — as well as the crucial role of local journalism and correspondent networks in promoting democratic transparency, community resilience, and public trust in (investigative) journalism.
Considering that existing research on gender and media most often focuses on women journalists as primary respondents, we decided to apply a comparative approach that also includes male journalists, in order to highlight existing gender differences. The intersection between gender, corruption, and media freedom — which lies at the core of this project — serves as a foundation for further research and advocacy aimed at policy change to protect women, particularly women working in (local) media.
Objectives:
- To document the experiences, challenges, and strategies of local journalists in the context of reporting on corruption, abuse of power, and human rights, and to examine gender differences.
- To raise awareness among the public, the media sector, and decision-makers about the democratic consequences of silencing women in (local) journalism.
- To encourage dialogue among researchers, editors, civil society organizations, trade unions, and institutions about legal and regulatory mechanisms.
- To strengthen solidarity within the journalistic community and increase youth participation through interactive workshops led by key experts in the field.