Our goal is to learn more about how newsrooms handle claims of sexual misconduct in an attempt to demonstrate that, as an industry, we are both able and willing to answer the same hard questions we demand of other industries. We wanted reporters to tell us how well they understood their employers’ formal policies. Were they given a paper or electronic copy of a sexual harassment policy upon hire? Were they required to attend sexual harassment training? If they wanted to file a complaint of abuse, would they know how to do so? We wanted newsrooms, similarly, to tell us about their formal policies. CJR staff members disseminated the staff and freelancer surveys on social media, on our website, in journalism-related online forums and groups, through email listservs, and among our own friends and formers colleagues. We sent the management survey to 149 news organizations by email.
But in three weeks, we heard back from not a single one of the 149 newsrooms we contacted to participate.
Now, were I a member of the Main Stream Media, I'd stop there, however there is more to the story.....it goes on......"Since we first distributed the surveys on November 13, we’ve heard back from 310 staff and freelance journalists working in the United States and abroad. The vast majority of them, 81 percent, self-identified as female. Sixteen percent of survey respondents identified as male, and just under 2 percent identified as third-gender or non-binary, while others self-described in a number of ways, including as transgender.
Read the article here.