Threats a fact of newsroom life
Shootings take animosity to a whole new level
A chill went up the spine of most editors and many working journalists this week after news a gunman shot up a newsroom near Washington, D.C., killing five journalists.
To call the shooter disgruntled is probably an understatement, but even in America, where mass shootings are now almost commonplace, this one was different than most.
It wasn’t a random guy walking into a church or a theatre or a school. It wasn’t an angry employee who felt he’d been done wrong, or a customer who perceived some kind of injustice.
This guy was upset with the Capital Gazette for doing its job — covering the news — in this case apparently writing that the shooter had been given a 90-day sentence for harassing an old high school classmate.
Every news organization in the world does stories like this, and there are few editors indeed who have not had threats levelled against them and their staff members, some alarming enough that we call police. Working reporters get the same kind of threats with regularity.
Such threats are always treated with the utmost seriousness. They are more common than we are comfortable with, and increasingly so in a social media world where nastiness reaches new levels daily.
The shooter in this case had already sued the newspaper unsuccessfully for allegedly defaming him by reporting his guilty plea in the harassment case. He simply could not demonstrate how he was defamed, and the newspaper, again, was just doing its job.
But many people do not understand the role — or obligation — of news organizations. They believe journalists are out to get them. They do not know how much we discuss the rights of the individual versus the rights of society, the needs of the many versus the needs of the one.
The obligation is to cover events without favour, and the requirement is that we publish everything we feel is in the public interest. It is never painless.
This is not just what our customers demand, it is what society expects. And (sorry for the preaching) it is what democracy depends upon.
It is not the first time a newsroom has been attacked, and there seem to be few places around the world that are safe from this kind of tragedy. Some locations got picked by chance, others more carefully considered, but I am grateful this doesn’t happen more at news organizations — and many must wonder if it is likely to increase.
After all, animosity toward journalists is growing at a time of increasing political polarization, and not helped by the fact some today are more likely to believe journalists “are the enemy of the people,” to quote U.S. President Donald Trump, who has unleashed a renewed wave of resentment against the media.
The only hopeful spot was at the centre of Thursday’s tragedy, where the shell-shocked staff at the Capital Gazette wept, prayed, mourned, recovered and then quickly got back to work reporting the news — and preparing the next day’s edition.