How is it like for women journalists in Russia?
”The underpaid media industry in Russia is mostly made up of women journalists. A lot of top managers, editors in chief and reporters are women – perhaps TV is the exception. Unfortunately, this is not translating into safer work environments where problems of harassment are less prevalent”, a study by WAN-IFRA and ANRI-Media shows.
The study is part of a larger multi-region study WAN-IFRA Women in News (WIN) has conducted with City, University of London.
22% of Russian media professionals have experienced either verbal or physical sexual harassment. This mainly affects women – more than 1 in 4 reported experiencing sexual harassment. A fellow employee was the most common perpetrator at 37%, the study shows.
”Another distinctive feature of Russian media business – and business in general – is a lack of formal procedures, guidebooks and protocols on addressing sexual harassment.”
EXECUTIVES
The study says the vast majority of executives did not believe sexual harassment is a problem. Fifteen out of 16 of those interviewed by ANRI-Media said they did not believe sexual harassment to be an issue in the media industry, while recognising that it is an issue generally in Russia, the report says.
”Of those who experienced sexual harassment, only 26% reported it to management, with action being taken just over half the time. These low reporting rates were cited to be due to fear – fear of retaliation, loss of employment, being negatively labelled or other negative impacts on their job.”
REPORTING MECHANISM
17.1% of those who had been harassed said they did not report their experience because their organisation did not have a reporting mechanism.
“This lack of process is also reflected by the 14 of 16 executives who said they did not know if their organisations had a sexual harassment policy in place.”
The study surveyed 176 media professionals and interviewed 16 executives in Russia in 2021.
”The reality is that the underpaid media industry in Russia is mostly made up of women. A lot of top managers, editors in chief and reporters are women – perhaps TV is the exception. Unfortunately, this is not translating into safer work environments where problems of harassment are less prevalent. Another distinctive feature of Russian media business – and business in general – is a lack of formal procedures, guidebooks and protocols on addressing sexual harassment.
VERBAL AND PHYSICAL
Of those who reported experiencing harassment, 31% experienced verbal and 14% experienced physical.
For men, 12% of participants indicated they had experienced verbal sexual harassment at least once at work, while none had experienced physical sexual harassment.
For women, 35% of participants responded they had experienced verbal sexual harassment at least once— 12.3% five times or more, and 16.2% stated they’d experienced physical sexual harassment at least once. Of the five gender non-conforming participants, four said they had experienced verbal sexual harassment, and two had experienced physical sexual harassment
On average, only 25.5% of cases were reported to the participant’s respective media news organisation. Of those reported cases, news organisations took action 62% of the time. The top reasons listed for not reporting were no known reporting mechanism available (17.1%), not thinking it was a big deal (15.3%), not knowing how to report (13.7%), and being afraid reporting would negatively impact the participant’s job (13.3%).
COLLEAGUES AND NEWS SOURCES
The most common source of sexual harassment was a fellow employee (37.5%), followed by news source (19.6%), direct supervisor (18.1%), higher management (16.1%), and other (8.7%).
The highest frequency of verbal sexual harassment occurred in TV, 55.1%, followed by radio 40%, print 36%, online 33.2%, and other 22%. The highest frequency of physical sexual harassment occurred in TV, 26.9%, print, 17.7%, radio, 17.8%, online, 13.3%, and other 11%.
When asked to provide suggestions for eliminating sexual harassment in the news industry, news executives focused on the importance of communication in creating a comfortable atmosphere. Most believe this exists in their workplace, so they believe sexual harassment isn’t a significant issue.
Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.
Our mission is to provide top and unbiased information for all professionals and to make sure that women get their fair share of voice in the news and in the spotlight!
We produce original content, news articles, a curated calendar of industry events and a database of women IT, Media and Advertising associations.
