The purpose of this study is to investigate how opinion-forming journalists in Västerbotten experience threats and hate and if these things vary depending on if the affected journalist is a woman or a man. This study also aims to examine how these threats and the hate affect the opinion-forming journalists in both an emotional and a professional way. To strengthen the analysis this study is based on four theoretical frameworks. Strömbäcks theories support analyzes about self-censorship and the opinion-forming journalists' importance for democracy. Butler's theories about hate-speech describe how hate-speech can be expressed and affect the receiver. Lazarus and Folkman contribute with a psychological perspective with coping strategies, how they cope with the threats and hate. The theories from Hanitzsch presents various perspectives about the journalistic cultures and supports analysis connected to the journalistic role. The method used to gather the material was qualitative interviews with six opinion-forming journalists in Västerbotten. For the analysis meaning condensation was used. The result presents a total of ten themes, sorted in three chapters based on the issues. The result and analysis indicates that threats and hate is common for opinion-forming journalists in Västerbotten to be exposed by. At the same time, a majority of the participating opinion-forming journalists state that they feel spared. Furthermore, it is very common for the opinion-forming journalist who receives threats or hate to be affected emotionally, mainly with negative emotions such as fear, sadness and discomfort. The biggest professional effect that threats and hate can lead to is self-censorship. Finally, this study can show that there are differences in threats and hate between female and male opinion-forming journalists in Västerbotten. The biggest difference is that women receive more threats and hatred based on sexism and containing sexual allusions.