The online safety of women journalists goes beyond gender equality and press freedom, directly impacting the quality of our democracies and the public’s right to diverse sources of news. This simple truth unfolds in A Dark Place through first-hand experiences shared by leading women journalists targeted with online violence and experts in the fields of human rights, gender and media freedom from Serbia, Spain, the UK, Finland, the US., Turkey and Russia.

Produced by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, in cooperation with the International Press Institute (IPI), and filmed and directed by IPI Head of Digital Communications Javier Luque, A Dark Place premiered in Vienna on Dec. 10, 2018, on International Humans Rights Day.

Media or screening requests

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Project Officer Julia Haas: [email protected]

Film Director and IPI Head of Digital Communications Javier Luque: [email protected]

JAVIER LUQUE

Film Director

HARLEM DÉSIR

OSCE RFoM, Executive Producer

JENNIFER ADAMS

Production Manager

MILICA MILETIC

Production Coordinator

Pepa BuenoBroadcast JournalistSpain

Pepa Bueno

Anchor of the leading morning news radio show in Spain.

Arzu GeybullayevaFreelance JournalistAzerbaijan

Arzu Geybullayeva

Columnist, blogger, and journalist for several international media news outlets.

Banu GüvenBroadcast JournalistTurkey

Banu Güven

A former leading TV news anchor in Turkey and now a freelancer for international media.

Laura KuenssbergBroadcast JournalistUnited Kingdom

Laura Kuenssberg

The first woman to be appointed BBC political editor.

Evdokia MoskvinaDocumentary FilmmakerRussia

Evdokia Moskvina

Filmed a documentary on life after the war in Syria.

Ana PastorBroadcast JournalistSpain

Ana Pastor

One of Spain’s leading TV journalists.

Linda PelkonenBroadcast JournalistFinland

Linda Pelkonen

Her case against online harassers set a precedent in Finnish courts.

Mònica TerribasBroadcast JournalistSpain

Mònica Terribas

A leading journalist in Catalonia, she faced smears and attacks for her reporting.

Marija VučićInvestigative JournalistSerbia

Marija Vučić

She and her investigative journalist colleagues at KRIK endure constant online attacks.

On September 20, 2018, the International Press Institute (IPI) premiered a short documentary film on the online harassment of female journalists in Spain as part of the conference “Feminism, Media and Equality” in Madrid. The event was hosted by the Platform for the Defence of Free Expression (PDLI), a Spanish free-expression group and a close partner of IPI, and the Madrid city government.

The IPI documentary was filmed during an April 2018 week-long visit to Spain as part of its Ontheline project, which aims to identify best newsroom practices for preventing and better responding to online harassment of journalists, and as part of the #SOFJO campaign, led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which seeks to combat online harassment against female journalists in particular. The documentary features several high-profile Spanish female journalists on their experiences with online harassment.

Since 2014, the International Press Institute (IPI) has been systematically researching online harassment as a new form of silencing critical, independent media. Our work has unveiled patterns of online attacks, analysed the emotional and professional impact on journalists, and collected best practices for newsrooms to address the phenomenon.

Explore IPI’s work on online harassment