In her six years in journalism, Fatima Syed estimates she has received about 150 hate messages. Sly messages arrive in her email inbox or reply to her social media posts. In emails she has shown to CTV News, Syed is called a variation of the N-word and referred to as a “Nazi c**t.” She was threatened with rape and told she would have to be brought to her knees and “shot, Afghan style”. Syed, a climate reporter for the online publication The Narwhal, says hate mail often follows reports she does about ethnic and immigrant communities. But the messages rarely address the issues raised in the articles he writes. “They tend to be personal attacks. They attack the color of my skin, my background, my identity or my relationship with countries I’ve lived in and my relationship with the communities I come from,” says Syed, who is a Muslim Pakistani-Canadian. “They don’t want you to exist on the platform you have.” What Syed has experienced is part of a disturbing trend of attacks against media workers that, according to the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), has reached a “fever.” CAJ says there was an increase in online abuse and hate directed at journalists during the Freedom Parade in Ottawa. Now that the protests have died down, CAJ says the attacks have turned into a coordinated online campaign targeting women journalists, especially those of color. Syed, who is also a CAJ board member, says the perpetrators are using encrypted emails, adding that the messages are becoming increasingly threatening. “I am appalled that someone sent six of my female colleagues an email saying that their faces are on a wall and that they are coming for them in some capacity.” In a statement earlier this month, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino called online hate, intimidation and harassment of women, racist and indigenous journalists “blatantly unacceptable”. “This worrying trend represents a threat not only to the safety of the individuals involved, but also to the independence of the media, which is a pillar of our democracy,” he said. Mendicino said he had met with representatives from the CAJ to discuss what support the federal government could provide. The minister also said there are plans to meet with both Toronto and Ottawa police to discuss their response to reporters’ concerns. “It is increasingly apparent that online abuse of journalists, particularly women, is a worrying issue for the media and the rest of our society. The personal toll that such threats and hatred take is profound and can cause lasting damage to one of our key democratic institutions,” he added.
A COORDINATED CAMPAIGN OF HATE
“This is an organized campaign to threaten and intimidate journalists into silence and undermine press freedom in Canada,” says CAJ President Brent Jolly. According to the union, women make up more than 52 percent of the nation’s media workers, while visible minorities account for about 25 percent of newsroom staff. In recent days, dozens of female reporters writing for online publications and working for broadcasters have reported racist and misogynistic messages. Most of the messages come from anonymous accounts, but some, including Jeremy MacKenzie, the de facto leader of Diagalon, a far-right separatist movement, openly post their rants against female reporters on YouTube and the Telegram messaging app. Some journalists are fighting back by sharing the racist and sexist messages on Twitter to raise public awareness. Others have reported the abuse to the police only to have their complaints dropped or to be told by investigators that the perpetrators are unlikely to be found. Jolie says the police need to start doing their jobs. “We are looking into the relative impunity with which these individuals can spew this hate speech. No active effort has been made to enforce any law,” he said.
A HALF PICTURE
In an open letter addressed to the federal ministers of justice, public safety, heritage and women and gender, along with the RCMP commissioner and Ontario’s attorney general, the union calls for concerted action to protect journalists. The CAJ wants a streamlined hate reporting process that recognizes patterns of abuse and for whistleblowers to receive regular updates on investigations. Part of the problem can be attributed to insufficient data. Toronto police report there were 257 hate incidents in 2021, a 22 percent increase from the previous year. Ottawa police report a 6 per cent increase in reported hate incidents in the first six months of this year. Of the 164 cases recorded by OPS between January 1 and June 30, 129 incidents were deemed criminal in nature. The statistics break down complaints by ethnicity and religion, but not by gender, nor by occupation. Steph Wechsler, managing editor of J-Source, an online publication for the journalism industry in Canada, says the lukewarm police response to journalist complaints could be attributed to an “incomplete picture” of the danger journalists face. Wechsler is in the process of creating an open data source that allows reporters to enter the type of threat they receive as well as track their race, gender and professional status. In addition to analyzing police response, Wechsler also hopes the data will reveal which journalists are being attacked, whether they are full-time staff or freelancers, and what employers can do to improve security measures. “What is the impact on tribal women on women in particular and what is being done or not being done to keep everyone safe? The solutions are long overdue here for a problem that is particularly fueled by white supremacy and online radicalization and its deep roots in this country,” Wechsler said.
WHEN THE INTERNET OVERFLOWS HATE
There is a fear among journalists that online threats will turn into physical violence. It’s happened again. In 2018, five employees of The Capital Gazette in Maryland were killed in a mass shooting at the newspaper’s office. ABC News reported that the shooter, Jarrod Ramos, began threatening reporters at The Capital after the newspaper reported on a stalking charge linked to Ramos. Former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says Canadians shouldn’t think what’s happening in the United States can’t happen here. “There was a tendency in the past to think that the US is different from us, but we see the same thing here. It is alarming and Canadians should not be naive. I say this as someone who was on the receiving end.” In her six years as an MP, McKenna says she has received thousands of sexist, hateful messages. In 2019, the online misogyny McKenna faced spilled over into real life. The “C” word was spray-painted on the window of her campaign office in downtown Ottawa. He says the police investigated this incident as a case of gender-based hate, but no one was ever arrested. In fact, McKenna says that despite filing dozens of police complaints, not one investigation has resulted in charges. McKenna says the hostility directed at journalists online is worse than she has experienced. He says it takes a concerted effort by law enforcement, politicians and social media companies to stamp out hateful behavior. He says the police should investigate these threats, while social media companies should remove those who support their hateful and abusive posts. Many reporters who have been subjected to rampant online vitriol cover Canadian politics. McKenna, a trained lawyer, says the focus shouldn’t be on drafting new laws that take too long. When it comes to security, McKenna says immediate results are necessary and calls on politicians to sign up to a code of conduct “It would also be unacceptable for some politicians to launch personal attacks against other MPs and journalists because they rile up their base and people think it’s okay to take pictures online. We’ve seen a lot of cases in both Canada and the US where it goes offline.” As for Syed, the online hate forced her to change her behavior. He doesn’t comment on social media as much as he used to and is careful about what he says online and off. She was scared and went home with “eyes in the back of her head,” but refuses to let fear silence her. “That’s a feeling I always put aside because journalism is more important. The impact of journalism and the accountability and public service it provides are very important to me.” Syed remains steadfast in her commitment to reporting on marginalized ethnic communities – she now relies on politicians and the police to keep her safe in her essential role in a democracy. Watch the full report tonight on CTV National News.
