The modern newsroom no longer ends at the office door; for the contemporary journalist, the frontline is often found within the glowing screen of a smartphone. But for women journalists across East and Southern Africa, this digital frontier has become a site of relentless psychological warfare. Every morning, thousands of women reporters log into their social media accounts not just to track breaking news or engage with their audience, but to face a calculated barrage of vitriol. From sexually explicit threats and derogatory body-shaming to sophisticated, coordinated character assassinations, the digital landscape is being weaponized to drive women out of the public square.
This phenomenon, increasingly categorized as technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), is not a peripheral issue of “internet trolls.” It is a systemic threat to press freedom and democratic discourse. According to a landmark global study conducted by UNESCO, the scale of this crisis is staggering: 73 per cent of women journalists—nearly three out of every four—have experienced some form of online violence. Even more chilling is the finding that one in four women reporters has received threats of physical harm, including death threats. In the context of East and Southern Africa, these figures represent a daily gauntlet that determines how, and if, women can continue to tell the stories that matter.
For Kgomotso Modise, a prominent South African journalist who specializes in the high-stakes world of criminal justice and court reporting for Eyewitness News (EWN), the abuse is an “occupational hazard” that carries a distinct, gendered sting. Modise has spent years navigating the complexities of the South African legal system, but she finds that the most aggressive opposition doesn’t come from the courtroom, but from the comment sections.
“The insults are very sexual,” Modise observes, highlighting a crucial distinction between professional critique and gendered harassment. When her male colleagues express strong opinions or report on controversial topics, they might be called “uninformed” or “stupid.” However, when Modise does the same, the attacks immediately pivot to her womanhood. “My male colleagues who express similar views would never face the same slurs. For me, it’s always: ‘Oh, she’s sleeping with the investigations officer.’ Any opinion I share is sexualized.”
This pattern of abuse reached a fever pitch during her coverage of the Senzo Meyiwa trial, a high-profile murder case involving a beloved South African soccer star that has captivated and polarized the nation for years. In such a charged atmosphere, Modise and her female peers became targets for the public’s displaced anger. Rather than debating the merits of the evidence or the accuracy of the reporting, detractors launched attacks on their physical appearance and made degrading insinuations about their private lives. This tactic is a hallmark of digital violence: it seeks to delegitimize a woman’s professional authority by reducing her to a sexual object or a target of ridicule.
The danger of digital violence is its ability to leap from the screen into a journalist’s private sanctuary. Modise recalls a terrifying escalation that occurred after she reported on the sensitive topic of extrajudicial killings. In a move designed to shatter her sense of security, an anonymous user “doxed” her—retrieving private childhood photographs from her personal Facebook account and reposting them alongside explicit threats of sexual violence. Crucially, the harasser also targeted her underage niece.
“That, for me, just went too far,” Modise says. “It wasn’t just an attack on my views—it was a violation involving children.” This incident underscores the predatory nature of online harassment; it is rarely about the news itself and almost always about exerting power and control through fear. When a journalist’s family is brought into the line of fire, the psychological toll becomes an unbearable weight.
This weight is what Cecilia Maundu, a Kenyan journalist and the creator of the *Digital Dada* podcast, seeks to address. Maundu has dedicated her platform to exploring the intersection of gender, media, and digital security. Through her interviews with women across the continent, she has documented a disturbing trend of “silencing by a thousand cuts.”
“When journalists self-censor, society loses,” Maundu warns. “Freedom of information is jeopardized.” The data from her podcast is a somber reflection of the UNESCO findings. Every single journalist Maundu has interviewed has faced online abuse. The consequences are tangible: some women have sought intensive therapy to deal with the trauma of coordinated trolling, while others have made the heartbreaking decision to deactivate their social media presence entirely. In the digital age, deactivating one’s account is often equivalent to professional suicide, as it cuts a journalist off from their sources, their audience, and the very platforms required to promote their work.
The impact on mental health is a silent epidemic within the industry. The constant state of “hyper-vigilance”—the need to constantly scan for threats or brace for the next wave of insults—leads to burnout and chronic stress. Maundu notes that the attacks frequently extend to the victims’ husbands and children, creating a ripple effect of trauma that can destabilize a journalist’s entire support system.
At the heart of this violence lies a foundation of entrenched misogyny and harmful social norms. Modise points out that even “compliments” can be a form of subtle marginalization. The phrase “beauty with brains,” she argues, reveals a deep-seated bias—the underlying assumption that a woman cannot be both physically attractive and intellectually formidable. This binary view of women in the media ensures that they are judged by a different, often contradictory, set of rules than their male counterparts.
The solution to this crisis requires more than just “thicker skin” from women journalists; it demands institutional accountability and systemic change. For too long, newsrooms treated online harassment as a personal problem for the individual to manage. However, there are signs of a shifting tide. Modise credits her newsroom at Eyewitness News for beginning to take these threats seriously, providing psychological support and implementing safety protocols, such as pairing women with male colleagues for assignments in high-risk environments.
Furthermore, the African media landscape is beginning to organize at a policy level. In 2023, the African Women in Media Conference in Kigali resulted in a landmark declaration. Media organizations and partners across the continent committed to a unified front against the escalating violence targeting women in the industry. This declaration covers a broad spectrum of abuse, from physical violence and femicide to the more insidious “soft” violence of surveillance, intimidation, and digital smear campaigns.
However, Modise and Maundu both agree that the private sector and law enforcement must step up. “We need stronger collaboration with law enforcement and cyber experts to unmask perpetrators,” Modise asserts. “Once people face consequences, the message will be clear.” As long as digital platforms allow for total anonymity and law enforcement agencies remain under-equipped to handle cyber-crimes, the perpetrators will continue to act with a sense of impunity.
The fight against digital violence is also being championed by global entities like UN Women, particularly through the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.” Running from November 25 to December 10, the campaign under the #NoExcuse theme emphasizes that digital spaces must be reclaimed as areas of empowerment, not minefields of abuse. The goal is to move the conversation beyond awareness and toward concrete action—urging social media companies to improve moderation, governments to pass protective legislation, and society to reject the normalization of online vitriol.
Despite the scars and the constant threat of the next “mention,” women like Kgomotso Modise refuse to be silenced. Her resilience is fueled by the very mission that brought her to journalism in the first place: the duty to inform the public and hold power to account.
“My love for informing and educating outweighs the hate,” Modise says. “When someone says, ‘Thank you for sharing this’—that keeps me going.”
The stakes could not be higher. If digital violence succeeds in driving women journalists out of the profession, the resulting “gendered censorship” will leave the world with a distorted, incomplete version of the truth. Protecting women in the media is not a matter of special treatment; it is a fundamental requirement for a free, fair, and democratic society. Ensuring that the next generation of African women can report the news without fearing for their safety—or the safety of their families—is a battle for the soul of the digital age.
