It does become personal: lessons from a news organisation’s #metoo campaign

Abstract

This paper reports on a #metoo campaign by a mainstream news organisation. The campaign generated a high number of disclosures from survivors and was notable for its adoption of a survivor-led approach, in its efforts to minimise potential harm to survivors. It offers lessons for reporting on #metoo issues, including the best practice for dealing with survivors, campaign management and ultimately the implications for shifting editorial news values. Journalists demonstrated a heightened awareness of source subjectivity and were able to reconcile this with traditional journalistic norms.