A third of UK journalists say they altered reporting over safety fears
NEW: UK journalists are self-censoring stories about Trump and the right over safety fears Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised in newsrooms. The abuse now means some journalists are changing what they write about… Grim findings: www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...
Helen Barrett24Less urgent, perhaps, but it's noticeable how UK arts and culture journalists have curbed criticism of Trump's vanity projects and interventions in the arts, presumably so they can continue travelling freely to the US.
Andrew Heenan 💚15Then they don't deserve to be called journalists. Journalism is writing what someone doesn't want you to.
dbottinick.bsky.social6They chose the wrong profession then. If they can’t do their jobs and they need to leave.
Then by definition they're not journalists, they're propagandists.
Leg bye🏏4Are we absolutely sure it's not the press/media owners who're putting the pressure on journos? They do that for everything else they write about, politics, climate, sport, health...why "grim" when it's a widespread phenomenon that no-one durst speak about??
Ray Oday - I live where my real name would have me disappeared3Threats are wrong but go with the turf. Be a Sir Donald McCullin and take a bullet in your Nikon and live to tell about it. McCullin did not let the near-miss end his career. He went on to cover almost every major global conflict over the following decades. Sir Donald is now in nineties.
Mark Chadbourn393This is how the Far Right controls the narrative. Threats and intimidation.
Alan Jagolinzer10"These actors identify, agitate, and entrench tribal communities. Once they have entrenched people into belief systems and communications echo chambers, they…further radicalize them, to fund and deploy fear and intimidation campaigns that degrade opposition power." youtu.be/kHav1fzAUz0?...
Grant White9Again, this is why I kept getting pissed off at all the "We just sit back and let the inherent goodness of Britain save us from a handful of chancers!" This is a sick, compromised country and privileged entitlement of the middle class has only sabotaged taking action to turn the tide.
Samuel Spade2ameriKKKa doesn't support the freedom of speech
arthurforest2ça c’est la cancel culture
Dr Tony Kainth2I want to know how many of them still use X. How many of them continue to feed the very machine that makes them less safe?
randy r. potts2related: Elon Musk, the owner of the platform most UK journost and govt officials post on, openly calling for assasinations of anyone who disagrees with his fascist program: bsky.app/profile/sund...
This is grim and a direct consequence of decades on mainstreaming of far-right politics and euphemisation of the threat they pose Calling it "rightwing" here is exactly what has gone wrong for example 1/ www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...
Aurelien Mondon84These politics have been a threat to democracy and many communities for a long time now and they have too often been covered as "legitimate concerns", their popularity exaggerated and blamed on "polarisation" as opposed to the resurgence of fascism 1/
🦋Tristra🦋7They have never had an issue putting out their transphobic garbage. To compare far-right movements to trans people fundamentally undermines their point.
🏳️⚧️Contested Issue🏳️⚧️3How the fuck do these wankers think trans people feel after they've spent the last decade deliberately stoking prejudice against us? They wouldn't last five fucking minutes as a trans person in he culture of hate they created. Scum, the lot of them.
Tristan Grayford386UK journalism *created* transphobia as a font of far-right hatred almost entirely unaided. They sowed the sparks and fanned the flames to create the inferno. To now back off because they feel their own safety is at risk from the fire? I'm genuinely furious at the moral bankruptcy involved.
🦋Tristra🦋25Who is censoring things? www.them.us/story/the-gu...
Bianca Michelle Parker9Sorry but what do they mean journalists are self-censoring on trans issues, they're publishing hundreds of venomous articles a day about us. What does it look like when they're not self-censoring
Trans Moleman, Street Estrogen Junkie2"Feel bad about us facing consequences for our own actions that we largely made up!"
A third of UK journalists have changed how or what they report over fears for safety, study finds
Maddie (delicious, nutritious)46This article does a fair job of disguising that the abuse in question is largely from masked men at fascist rallies and supporters of far-right culture war issues. Which raises some questions about the neutrality of the press that they'll even try to both-sides a story on people threatening them.
Sarah Viktoria 🇬🇧🏳️⚧️⚧️🦗28"Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised amid ‘a narrowing of the public conversation’" Who narrowed the public conversation? WHO NARROWED THE PUBLIC CONVERSATION?
Sarah Viktoria 🇬🇧🏳️⚧️⚧️🦗23This is mirror propaganda. Lumping trans people fighting for their existence against UK media propaganda and harassment from top level government, with right wing thuggery. A new low for the Guardian. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusat...
รℓσαɳε ℓყรɓεƭɦ 🏳️🌈23there are no journalists in the uk.
Tax-A-Billion16Journalists have put the safety of minority groups in fear of their safety for decades without looking at the mirror once.
James Endicott14Which side of "trans issues" are dangerous to journalists? I have a sneaking suspicion those surveyed are more afraid of being insulted on this particular issue than they are of being sued by a transphobe.
Phil McDuff298They mention the right wing here and tack "trans issues" on at the end, non-specifically. But what kind of trans issues, Guardian? The latest speech suppressing event regarding this in the UK was JK Rowling going to war with amnesty international. Is that what you mean?
Alasdair Mackenzie177It’s striking that this (shocking) piece focuses mainly on intimidation from the far right, but the solutions offered, such as they are, aren’t “we must resist the far right as a profound threat to democracy“ but “people should be nicer“ and (inevitably) “we should do something about social media”
Phil McDuff33So, read these two articles next to each other. Does it not make sense that these things would feed into each other? That these would be part of a systemic issue? That this culture in British journalism is not just a problem for the public but also for the people who work in it?
Rob Mullins26I have said this before but at this stage I've now heard from several UK based academics about the culture of intimidation against people who speak out in favour of trans rights.
Sylvia24Reporters, churnalists, but definitely not journalists Is this why no ‘reporters’ bothered to cover the massive trans rights march yesterday, as a major news story? It isn’t about safety, journalists have never let unsafe conditions stop them. It’s about who dictates the narrative
Professor Amanda Sturgill19If you enjoy knowing what's going on, this should concern you.
The great and powerful hat16"No one tells us what to write"
Lilith Ferreyra-Carroll9Well well well. If it isn't the consequences of their own actions
Holly Brigstocke8The shy Tories at the Guardian are only lumping Trump and trans people in the same box and ramping up journalists especially women as being "too scared" to do a journalism. Honest mistake or another deceit like their sly buffing of a movie with transphobic undertones yesterday?
Bieke Machiels 🔻7Zelfcensuur en normalisering van wat abnormaal is. Ook dat maakt deel uit van fascisering
This is deeply disturbing and, obviously, not limited to the UK or to the media. Right-wing social (media) terror, amplified and justified by the far right and their enablers, is a structural problem for liberal democracy. It should be a political priority and addressed structurally.
Cas Mudde18I agree that the use of euphemisms like “right-wing” (and “populism”) are a core part of the problem, although I do believe that “right-wing” is accurate in this context, as the mainstream right is increasingly using similar tactics of political and social pressure as the far right (see CDU or VVD).
Michael Kaplan 1it's also possible (read: likely) that they're using claims of fear to justify the soft coverage they prefer to do anyway.
Do 'journalists' actually think we swallow this shit, or do they just not care? 'The UK has allowed the US to launch "defensive" operations from British bases hosting American personnel and aircraft, while refusing to cooperate in offensive operations against Iran.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Ruth16Yep. How can we have launched ‘defensive’ operations against someone who hasn’t attacked us.
Mark 🏴3about time US bases were kicked out of the UK completely
AudibleSilence1Streeting would piss his pants in terror if he wasn't protected by bodyguards, the police & the armed forces.
Hierophant Shelley B Woke - Living Saint of Purity🏳️⚧️🖤💜🤍 💛34There are no "defensive" operations on the other side of the fucking world!
𝓕𝓲𝓻𝓮𝔂 𝓣𝓸𝓹𝓪𝔃9They get paid well enough not to care.
AudibleSilence2Iran hasn't attacked the US or England, so the attacks launched from British airbases are NOT 'defensive'. They are Aggressive, Offensive & illegal Acts of War against Iran.
