Journalism Safety: Legal Protections, Physical Safety and Political Threats.
A Ratiu Forum webinar with Kit Gillet and Emilia Șercan.
The work that journalists do is very important, investigating ground-breaking and sometimes controversial news pieces. Emilia Șercan, who is well known for her investigations into plagiarism involving the PhD theses of various politicians and public officials, recently uncovered that the threats to her life she was receiving were from members of the Romanian police force. This story is, unfortunately, all too common. Political figures or social organisations seeking to intimidate journalists or hinder their freedom of speech.
In this 60-minute webinar, experienced international news correspondents Kit Gillet and Emilia Șercan will discuss how best to ensure your personal safety as a journalist, what rights you have and how to understand your legal protections from political threats. In conversation with participants, they will discuss routes to ensure safety and freedom of work, along with advice for young career journalists.

journalism webinar
This event will be held on Zoom and is in English.
Places are limited to a maximum of 20 people and are offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
To register your place please email us: office@ratiuforum.com
Panellists
Emilia Șercan

Emilia Șercan is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Science; Department of Journalism, within the University of Bucharest and investigative journalist with 24 years of experience. In 2015 Șercan published her doctoral thesis, The cult of secrecy. The Censorship Mechanisms in the Communist Press, Polirom Publishing House, and in 2017 she published the book Doctorates Factory: or How to Destroy a Nation’s Fundamentals, Humanitas Publishing House.
She earned several scholarships, both as professor and journalist: scholar of the State Department of the United States of America, Study of the U.S. Institutes for Scholars (SUSI) at Ohio University (2016); doctoral scholar of the French State at the University Standhal Grenoble 3, France (2012 – 2013); Erasmus scholar, professor mobility week in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture, Panteion University, Athens, Greece (2017); Erasmus scholar, professor mobility week in the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (2014); Freedom House Fellow in the United States of America (2004).
As an investigative journalist, she exposed tens of plagiarism cases in doctoral thesis of Romanian top politicians or public figures and published more than 4.000 of journalistic investigations, interviews, analysis, editorials and news. She won several academic and professional prizes: Journalist of the Year (2016), the Prize for Freedom of Expression (2016), “Ion Rațiu” Prize for Journalism (2016), Professor of the Year (2017), the Prize “Nicolae Iorga” of the Romanian Society of Historical Sciences, European Network for Academic Integrity Award (ENAI) (2019), the Social Dialogue Group Award (2020), the 2020 award of the Association Initiative for European Democratic Culture and the International Anti-Corruption Day reward from U.S. Embassy in Romania (2020).
Kit Gillet

Kit Gillet is a British freelance journalist based in Bucharest, Romania, reporting on the Balkans and further afield. A former features writer for the South China Morning Post, Kit’s work now appears regularly in the international press, including for The New York Times, The Guardian and The Economist. Kit is also the central and eastern Europe correspondent for Sifted.eu, a Financial Times-backed platform focused on European startups and innovators, as well as a contributing editor at The Banker.