Media guidelines and workshops

Over the past decade, we have been working closely with the media on reporting domestic abuse, developing our media guidelines and workshops to talk through and discuss in 2020. During this time, we have seen greater awareness of domestic abuse, the complexities of it and the sensitivities that surround reporting of survivors’ experiences, or tragically, the stories of victims who have been killed by an abuser.

Not only has awareness of domestic abuse improved, but with the rapid growth of social media and the fast-paced nature of online news, more and more readers have begun calling out bad practice when they see it, often flagging the articles they see as problematic to us. The ability to provide immediate feedback means that journalists are held to increasingly high standards when it comes to ensuring that survivors are heard, their needs are met and their stories are told in a way that is accurate, respectful and empowering to those who might be affected by the issues raised in the articles.

We developed our media guidelines in collaboration with journalists, editors and survivors, and the document is updated on a regular basis to reflect new statistics and feedback from the workshops, making the guidelines as practically useful as possible. These guidelines aim to provide reporters with knowledge that may not have been covered in their training previously, with the goal of encouraging sensitive and accurate reporting. We have delivered training to numerous outlets, including national and regional media, and across press and broadcast.

We are now proud to be working with the School of Journalism at Sheffield University to bring our insight into the MA Journalism course.