Threats and harassment of Swedish journalists, 10 years on: Coping processes and coping strategies

Based on an in-depth interview study of a strategic sample of Swedish journalists ( n = 20), this article analyzes the coping processes and coping strategies of these journalists when faced with threats and harassment. The paper also presents data on new forms of harassment against a backdrop of developments over the past decade. The analysis uses Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) theory of stress and coping in combination with Latack, Kinicki & Prussia’s (1995) integrative process model for coping. The coping process is analyzed as beginning with an appraisal phase, then a set of intervening factors (coping goals, coping resources and coping efficacy) before applying one or more coping strategies (which we have divided into problem-focused, emotion-focused, meaning-focused, and future-focused strategies), followed by the creation of (positive and negative) feedback loops. We find a common pattern of engaging in emotion-focused and meaning-focused coping in the first instance, shifting to problem-focused and future-focused coping when the earlier attempts do not work. We further find that the investigative journalists in our sample are more used to harassment and therefore utilize available coping resources better and use a wider range of coping strategies than other interviewees. Implications of our findings are discussed in the concluding section.