A UK government study has found that nearly half of surveyed British journalists say safety concerns have made them less willing to report on certain stories, and about a third have changed what or how they cover as a direct result. The research was conducted by a firm called Alma Economics, paid for by government ministers, and based on a survey of 531 journalists plus 55 in-depth interviews. That makes it one of the most detailed studies of journalist safety ever done in the UK. The findings were reported by The Guardian on July 26, 2026.

The topics most often linked to safety risks were rightwing anti-immigration protests, the Trump administration (including coverage of protests against ICE, which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and trans issues. Anti-immigration protests were the most commonly cited source of concern, causing both physical risks for journalists attending the marches and backlash after their reporting was published. In Northern Ireland, journalists told the National Union of Journalists — the UK's main professional body for journalists — that masked men had intimidated them while they were covering anti-immigration riots.

Female journalists reported harassment tied to their gender, including explicit threats, inappropriate messages, and online comments about their appearance. The study also found that many newsrooms treated growing abuse as just part of the job in a divided political climate, with journalists expected to be "thick-skinned."

Across the survey and the interviews, journalists widely felt that abuse linked to their reporting has gotten worse, especially online. Because the study combined a large survey with detailed personal interviews, it captures both how common the problem is and what it actually feels like for the people going through it.

The findings match similar research from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), which found rising political division, falling public trust in the media, and growing physical and psychological risks for journalists in the US. The overlap between the UK government study and the IWMF's work suggests these pressures are not limited to one country. Both point to the same underlying causes: political division shrinking the space for journalism, declining trust making people more hostile toward reporters, and online platforms spreading targeted abuse quickly and widely.

The broader context here is about democracy itself. When a third of journalists hold back from certain stories — changing either their methods or their topics — the real loss is not their comfort but the public's access to information. Coverage of anti-immigration protests, immigration enforcement, and trans issues is exactly the kind of reporting where people need independent observers to know what is happening. If those observers are scared away, fewer facts make it into the public record.

The newsroom culture finding is especially worth pausing on. Treating abuse as something journalists just have to endure shifts responsibility for safety onto individual reporters instead of onto the organisations that send them into difficult situations. This raises a question for editors and media owners: what responsibility do they have to protect staff on assignments where harassment or intimidation is likely, and how do they meet that responsibility without interfering in what journalists report? The study does not answer these questions, but the information it provides makes them hard for any newsroom leader to avoid.

The fact that the study was paid for by government ministers, rather than by a media union or campaign group, gives it more weight in policy debates. Research backed by the government into press safety is taken more seriously than reports that media organisations produce about themselves. Whether the findings lead to new laws or rules — on online safety, on protecting journalists at protests, or on newsroom safety standards — will depend on whether politicians want to act, something the study alone cannot ensure.

What the Alma Economics investigation establishes is a solid starting point with clear evidence: safety concerns are measurably changing what journalists report in the UK, the effects vary by topic and gender, and newsrooms have so far mostly treated the abuse as normal rather than trying to reduce it. The IWMF's matching findings from the US suggest the pattern crosses the Atlantic. For politicians, press regulators, and newsroom leaders, the question is no longer whether the problem exists — the data answers that — but whether current protections for journalists are strong enough for what they actually face.