“I Always Watched Eyewitness News Just to See Your Beautiful Smile”: Ethical Implications of U.S. Women TV Anchors’ Personal Branding on Social Media

Abstract

Women television journalists have long faced criticism and harassment regarding their appearance. The normalization of social media engagement in newsrooms, where journalists are expected to interact with their audience, creates new challenges for women journalists by providing forums for public judgment that was once a private matter. Research suggests that receiving harassing or abusive comments from audience members online can cause harm to the health, wellbeing, and careers of women television journalists. The public goods that are generated through such interaction are opaque at best. This essay focuses on three intersecting areas of concern pertaining to this issue: (1) The tension between journalistic standards and the requirements to engage in personal branding through social media; (2) The practice of requiring journalists to take their personal branding online, which exposes women journalists, in particular, to potentially harmful statements; and (3) The perpetuation of gender-based stereotypes and inequalities in television journalism, which we argue constitutes a social harm. We discuss these issues with reference to the existing empirical literature and an illustrative qualitative analysis of audience comments left on women news anchors’ Facebook pages. We also offer recommendations for news organizations, grounded in their duties to their workforces.