02 Informed


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In late April we published the findings from the first year of our Journalists’ Safety Tracker to mark Workers’ Memorial Day. As detailed in Kathryn Torney’s


Safety is the common thread running through this edition of NUJ Informed – whether it’s the essential work of our health and safety reps, our campaigning to stop state violence against journalists, or members taking industrial action over poor pay and unreasonable workloads.


feature on page 8, our report shows that journalists in the UK and Ireland are increasingly targeted with shocking abuse and harassment that inhibits their ability to do their job. The majority of submissions contained an element of online harassment, while women journalists have been especially targeted with violent or graphic abuse (see page 10 for a summary of the Ethics Council’s webinar on violence against women). The need to protect journalists and


press freedom has been thrust into the spotlight again after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage shared a photographers’ NUJ Press Card on social media – an action criticised by the union. The union also received reports of journalists in Northern Ireland facing intimidation and abuse from masked men while covering anti-immigration riots, and is supporting some of those affected. I presented our Safety Tracker report


to the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists, urging greater action to address abuse from employers, government, the police, and social media companies. Later the same day I shared the report with Lisa Nandy, Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) secretary of state. In addition to concerns over journalists’ safety, our parliamentary group raised numerous issues with the culture secretary during a 45-minute meeting - including recent redundancies at Reach and the erosion of the local media landscape; cuts at the BBC and members’ Charter Renewal demands; and key calls from our News Recovery Plan, such as urgent regulation and fair remuneration amid the deployment of AI plus a windfall tax on tech giants to pay for the preservation of the industry. The culture secretary agreed on the importance of transparent labelling for AI-generated journalism and said


she would discuss a tech tax with the Treasury. She also committed to meet reps at Reach, agreed that there should be no further political appointees to the BBC board and described worker representation – one of our key demands – as “non-negotiable”. Our campaign to fight BBC cuts and secure proper funding and real independence through Charter Renewal continues to be a major focus of the union’s work. In April, the NUJ sounded alarm as the BBC announced plans to cut around 1,800-2,000 jobs as part of a 10% reduction to its total costs by the end of 2028-29. The first wave of redundancies could lead to 550 roles being lost across its news, nations, and content teams, which would have a devastating impact for workers and viewers. We have been campaigning and lobbying for urgent government intervention to stop this from going ahead. Since March I have put members’ concerns directly to DCMS and the BBC during a range of roundtables and meetings, including with the BBC Chair, the outgoing Director General, and most recently his replacement Matt Brittin.


I also joined Behrang Tajdin, BBC


World Service rep and NEC member, at a parliamentary meeting to highlight the heightened strain on BBC Persian Service journalists following the war on Iran and violent crackdown on protesters earlier in the year.


One of our motions at the International


Federation of Journalists’ (IFJ) Centenary Congress in Paris urged coordinated international advocacy to stop the persecution of Iranian journalists working in the UK and Iran. As outlined on page 12, our delegation contributed immensely to the Congress and I was grateful to receive support from colleagues and sister unions in being elected to the IFJ’s Executive Council. I would also like to pay tribute to the


hard work and contributions of NUJ delegates at recent TUC, STUC and TUC Cymru conferences, which are summarised on pages 6 and 7.


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