Jon laurence (left) speaking at Mediastrong on 2 July 2025

"It’s better to have a smoke alarm than to put out a fire," says Jon Laurence, supervising executive producer at AJ at Mediastrong Symposium last week (2 July 2025)

He was talking about doxxing, when the information that journalists put out on their public channels is used to intimidate them and/or silence their reporting.

Laurence manages a team of 35 staffers across three continents as they pump out daily content to social media feeds and accounts.

He has seen firsthand the doxxing attempts in the immediate aftermath of critical reporting, whether that's from government bot farms, vigilante extremists, or anonymous trolls.

Doxxing doesn’t just affect the journalists - it can also concern partners and close family members.

"It’s all about risk vs reward," Laurence says. "You don’t want personal information out there that’s high risk - and that’s not important to you."

It goes without saying that major threats to security should be escalated to relevant in-house teams and senior managers. But there are some proactive steps and personal measures that can be taken........

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