A regional publisher is to recruit a dedicated online safety editor in a UK first.

Reach plc has announced the creation of the role, which will be dedicated to supporting employees receiving abuse or harassment as a result of their job.

The successful candidate will lead discussions with social media platforms, resolve individual cases and campaign for action to improve the problem of online abuse.

They will also implement the publisher’s online abuse guidelines and support employees, but also lead efforts to prevent further abuse.

The role’s creation comes after an internal survey answered by more than 550 Reach employees.

Group editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley commented: “Online abuse has become endemic in our industry.

“It can severely impact the mental health of our journalists and at times even threatens their physical safety.

“While we have always had a system in place to support and protect our colleagues, we felt that with online abuse only increasing across the industry we needed to dedicate a role to tackle it head-on.

“We will not allow our journalism to be silenced or our colleagues to live in fear.”