Media workers across the world are facing unprecedented levels of retaliation for speaking out for Palestinian liberation. Reports from the U.S., Europe, and beyond highlight a disturbing trend of censorship and punishment aimed at those who dare to confront Israel’s occupation of Palestine. In response, the Freelance Solidarity Project, the digital media division of the National Writers Union, created a report documenting the retaliation workers in the media industry have faced since Oct. 7. The report, titled “Red Lines: Retaliation in the media industry during the war on Gaza,” was released on May 6 after World Press Freedom Day and recorded 44 cases of retaliation affecting more than 100 media professionals between Oct. 7, 2023, and Feb. 1 in North America and Europe. The report centered on media workers of Middle Eastern or North African descent and those identifying as Muslim.

“We’re a worker organization, and we respond to the needs of workers … That was one of the needs that was becoming clear in the first couple months,” said Olivia Schwob, the co-chair of NWU’s Freelance Solidarity Project and a member-organizer who worked closely on the report. “We set out to collect reports to be able to connect people with resources that might provide support.”

In their initial research, organizers realized the issue of repression was more widespread than a simple survey could capture. They expanded their reporting efforts to include interviews with sources beyond the U.S. 

“The initial impulse was the sense that nobody was documenting it, and it was an important trend that needed to be documented, at least for posterity,” Schwob said. 

Their research encompassed international cases, although the majority of reported incidents originated in the U.S. The organization notably opted not to include cases from conflict zones like Gaza, recognizing the vast disparity in the severity of repression faced by journalists in such areas.

“It’s important, though, that we do understand them as parts of the same system,” said Schwob. “And one of the effects of both types of repression is that the coverage that media consumers get of the war is severely limited and curtailed.”

While the data set ends on Feb. 1, prior to the most recent wave of repression of journalists on college campuses covering encampments, Schwob said she hopes there can be a second report to account for this more recent wave. However, the report is made by volunteer researchers and is not funded.

“Part of what we are hoping the report can do is start a wider conversation and get institutions with more resources to pay attention to this issue and do their own version of this research,” Schwob said. “I think it would be really valuable for an institution with more resources and with the sort of expertise used in that kind of research to take a look at this issue. We’re kind of trying to sound the alarm more than anything else.”

The report found that workers of color, particularly Muslim and Arab media professionals, faced disproportionate impact. Instances where journalists faced repercussions for advocating for journalistic integrity highlighted systemic biases within newsrooms.

In one instance, at the Los Angeles Times, a group of 38 workers signed a letter protesting the targeting and killing of journalists in Gaza and were told they could not cover anything related to the war after they signed the letter. Of those workers, more than 25 were workers of color. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has outwardly claimed to be committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Additionally, the report highlights the impacts on freelance workers, a significant factor considering that more than 30% of journalists are freelancers. 

“All of this is happening against a background of mass layoffs and media organizations collapsing, so there’s this sense that we’re all freelancers-in-waiting to a degree, and if you are a freelancer, you have much less protection,” Schwob said. “In the sense of not having the solidarity of your co-workers, not having a union, and also it’s a lot easier for an employer to pass off retaliation as declining to continue working with you.”

Unions have proven to be a saving grace for many media workers in stopping retaliation from occurring. Hearst Magazines’ union was successful in pushing back against a social media policy that the company was trying to push, which would have limited what they were allowed to say on social media to only things that were consistent with the company’s stated positions. 

“It’s a really poorly defined standard,” Schwob said. “The union was basically able to rally the union membership to refuse that policy and are now pursuing an unfair labor practice charge against the company.”

Going forward, Schwob hopes media consumers take these power imbalances seriously and reconsider the ill defined standards of objectivity. 

“I hope people take these restrictions seriously and fight for some sort of real structural protections against retaliation and for real structures for democratic input into the definition of these standards that then can be so powerful in ending someone’s career,” Schwob said. “I think it really is up to us as workers to do that. I don’t think that we can expect our bosses and our managers to do that out of the goodness of their hearts. Throughout history, any time a change has needed to be made, it has required collective action on the part of those who most need it to happen. I think we’re in one of those moments right now.”