Why I co-authored a report on journalist safety with the Global Cyber Alliance

Contributing to the Global Cyber Alliance's work on protecting the online safety of journalists in Africa came out of a simple, uncomfortable observation: the threats journalists on this continent face moved online years before most of our safety training caught up.

Young reporters, especially those building an audience on social platforms the way I have, are exposed in ways a traditional newsroom safety briefing never anticipated. Doxxing, coordinated harassment, targeted misinformation about you personally, these are now part of the job description whether anyone prepared you for them or not.

Writing that contribution meant being honest about mistakes I had made myself early on: oversharing details that made me easy to locate, underestimating how quickly a coordinated pile-on can escalate, assuming good faith from people who had none.

The goal was not to scare young journalists away from digital platforms. It was the opposite: to make sure the next generation of African reporters could use these tools with their eyes open, instead of learning the hard lessons the way I did.

Safety is not separate from the reporting. If a journalist cannot work without fear, the reporting suffers first.