Date: Thursday, 22 January 2026 UTC 11:00
Speakers:
Dr. Julie Posetti, Professor of Journalism, City St George’s University of London
Shada Islam, Journalist and Global Affairs Analyst, Brussels
Maja Sever, President, European Federation of Journalists
Mimma Caligaris, Executive Board Member, National Federation of the Italian Press
Nadia Azhgikhina, Journalist, Member FJA Steering Committee
Moderator: Aidan White, President, Ethical Journalism Network and FJA Advisor
Read the full transcript ► /webinar-transcript-women-in-the-firing-line
Background
For six years, the Fetisov Journalism Awards has been in the vanguard of actions to promote the world’s finest journalism. Our winners tell hard truths about the world around us, they hold powerful people and institutions to account, and they speak out for people and communities who are the victims of injustice.
But these stories often come at a price. People within the media industry, and particularly women, face undue pressure from people who wish to silence media.
This pressure may be physical or psychological; acts of violence, or intimidating threats and abuse, all with a single aim – to stifle truth-telling journalism.
In this age of technological change, these threats have been growing. In particular, there is a dangerous trend towards targeting of women journalists. Studies show how online vitriol directed at women themselves, and not just their journalism, has become a global phenomenon, putting women journalists at risk around the world.
Increasing gender-based threats and online abuse have forced some women to leave social media or, in some extreme cases, to quit journalism altogether. Key surveys and reports from Europe, Africa and globally confirm how women journalists receive more online abuse and trolling attacks, than their male colleagues. These attacks, characterised by sexual harassment and explicit threats of violence, reflect entrenched gender inequality and harmful social norms.
This FJA webinar examines the roots of this crisis and points towards possible solutions. Our panel of leading journalists, academics, and rights campaigners provide expert testimony, personal experience and evidence that reveals why this problem requires urgent action both within and outside the industry.
This debate illustrates why forging a viable future for journalism requires that there is an environment in which women can work safely, in which gender rights are respected, and in which there is zero tolerance of online abuse.
Join this discussion to learn what is being done, and what more must be done to support women journalists. Do we need viable legal recourse for specific aggravated threats online? What internal systems can be put in place to protect women in media? How do we create viable support mechanisms? What other actions are needed to raise awareness and create an environment that will keep the trolls out of journalism?
Panel
Dr Julie Posetti is a multi award-winning internationally published Australian-British journalist and academic. She is Director of the Information Integrity Initiative, a project of TheNerve - the digital forensics lab established by the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist Maria Ressa. Posetti is also Professor of Journalism and Chair of the Centre for Journalism and Democracy at City St George's, University of London. Additionally, she serves on the board of the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM). Prof. Posetti has led several major UN-commissioned studies in the fields of disinformation, freedom of expression, gender, and the safety of journalists. She was the lead researcher and lead author of The Chilling reports (UNESCO: 2021-2022), the OSCE’s Guidelines for Monitoring Online Violence Against Female Journalists (2023), and The Tipping Point: The Chilling Escalation of Online Violence Against Women in the Public Sphere (UN Women: 2025). She was also co-editor of Journalism, Fake News and Disinformation (UNESCO: 2018) and Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation While Respecting Freedom of Expression (UNESCO-ITU: 2020). A member of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Future Council for Information Integrity, Prof. Posetti also sits on the Advisory Board of the Global Partnership for Action on Online Gender Based Abuse. And, she is a Research Associate with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford where she previously led the Journalism Innovation Project. Prior to joining TheNerve, Prof. Posetti was Global Director of Research at ICFJ. Her journalism has been published by The Guardian, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, the BBC, the ABC, and the Sydney Morning Herald, among others.
Maja Sever is the President of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). With almost three decades of experience, Sever built her career in the Croatian public television HRT, where she hosted the programme “Hrvatska uživo” for 13 years. Since 2019, she has led the Union of Croatian Journalists (SNH) and in recent years he has received numerous awards including Journalist of the Year.
Shada Islam is a distinguished Brussels-based journalist and specialist commentator on global affairs. She has a global reputation as a leading commentator, analyst and writer, as well as a fresh and original thought-leader on European domestic and foreign policy agendas. She has written and researched issues related to Muslim bias in media and has been a leading advocate of ethical standards and professionalism in journalism. She is also a Solvay Fellow at the Vrije University Brussel (VUB).
Mimma Caligaris is an Executive Board Member, National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), acting national vice president of the Italian Sports Press Union (USSI). Member of the GenDeg of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and of the Gender Council of the International Federation (IFJ). She is part of the team at the STEP Observatory – Research and Information, at ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome, which analyses media narratives on gender-based violence. Former president of the Equal Opportunities Commission of the National Federation of the Italian Press, she has been working for years on equality, gender pay gap, discrimination, harassment, hate speech, physical and verbal violence, and how information on these issues is reported. Author of several books on sports topics.
Nadia Azhgikhina is a Russian journalist and activist as former executive director of PEN in Moscow. From 2013 to 2019, she was vice-president of the European Federation of Journalists and jointly-founded, in 1992, the Association of Russian Women Journalists. She has been a members of the Gender Council of the International Federation of Journalists. She writes regularly for The Nation and is also a member of the Steering Committee of the FJA. She is a graduate in journalism from Moscow State University where she was awarded a PhD in 1990.