An editor has revealed a reader threatened to kill her cat while another tried to blackmail her over a non-existent affair.

Kimberley Barber, Newsquest’s regional editor for Hampshire, has opened up about the attacks she and her journalists are currently facing – and called for action to stamp it out.

Kimberley, pictured, says she has recently been faced with physical threats and verbal abuse, revealing some of the worst examples in an editorial for the Hampshire Chronicle.

She spoke out after sitting on a panel organised by the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ Journalism Skills Academy looking at the issue of abuse.

In her editorial, Kimberley wrote: “This week alone I’ve received emails at 4am, dealt with a complaint that referred to our journalists as ‘snowflakes’, responded to another that started with ‘I do not wish to tell you how to run your paper but…’ and had to ban at least one person from the online section of one of my sites for singling out a specific reporter.

“This is a mild week. Other weeks I have spent hours being shouted at on the phone, threatened physically (one person even told me they were going to kill my cat), people have attempted to blackmail me, and another particularly unpleasant character told me that if I ran the story about him he would tell everyone, including my partner, that I was having an affair – complete with an implied threat of doctoring photos that he would use as ‘evidence’.

“Attacks against journalists, particularly online, have increased in recent years. I have spoken before about the need to crack down on how people operate online, and the need to educate people about what is and isn’t acceptable.

“It’s about time that we all worked out some boundaries.”

She also referenced her fellow panel member and Newsquest colleague Sophie Perry, a reporter at the Oxford Mail, who has had to take breaks from social media after receiving homophobic abuse.

Kimberley wrote: “She’s had to step away from the thing that she uses every day as part of her job in order to keep her sanity.

“Other people on the panel referred to social media as ‘riding straight into a live battlefield’.

“Online abuse and harassment are increasingly challenging issues for journalists across the industry.”