Monitor correspondents have often shared anecdotes about behind-the-scenes experiences with readers. Some are humorous: A pronunciation error recently resulted in sitting down with the wrong (and puzzled) source. Others surface the emotional and physical challenges of reporting events like Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

But when I attended the International Press Institute’s annual gathering of international news editors Monday, a darker and growing side of reporting came up: harassment. The Committee to Protect Journalists lays out some of the heaviest tolls, including murder with impunity, and the 262 correspondents imprisoned globally in 2017. But there are less visible developments. Reasonable reporters have been manhandled out of political rallies, aggressively challenged at national borders, and targeted online with sexualized threats. An attitude creeps in: If journalists are under attack, isn’t it really their fault? Don’t they all have an agenda anyway?

Most journalists are motivated to inform, accurately. If they are gradually silenced or young people decide the profession’s costs outweigh benefits, what happens? In Burundi, critical coverage of a referendum Thursday on whether the president can govern indefinitely is disappearing as publications are shut down and journalists jailed. In Hungary, a national opposition daily is the most recent casualty of an increasingly authoritarian atmosphere. In the United States, legitimate work is dismissed as “fake,” giving members of a democracy a pass on shouldering a key responsibility: being informed.

The many news outlets that produce such work take complaints seriously and are trying to be more transparent about how they work. It's worth thinking about how to engage with them on that journey.

Now to our five stories, including a global report on the impact of the US's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and how Ohio is trying to help businesses and potential employees overcome obstacles posed by opioid use.