» More newspaper angst,

Business bumps are one thing; shooting in Md. is another.

We had a staff meeting Thursday afternoon here at your local newspaper. Nothing earth-shaking. American-Statesman Editor Debbie Hiott welcomed some great new hires and bright young interns. There was talk about recent journalism prizes won by staffers.

And we heard about progress toward upcoming changes, resulting from the new ownership, in how our print and online products will look. We also were told we need to hold the line on expenses while, like all newspapers, we work on pumping up revenue.

All in all, nothing really out of what’s become the ordinary in our business. Just the ongoing challenge of newspapering in America in 2018 in a changed media landscape and with an elected leader who brands us as the enemy.

We’re up to the challenge. We can live with it.

The meeting ended. We returned to our keyboards. Then, we saw the news from Annapolis.

“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” Capital Gazette reporter Phil Davis tweeted.

Police say a man with a longstanding and unreasonable grudge against that unique city’s newspaper escalated twisted animus into murderous action.

I didn’t know any of the people who were killed. But I know people like them. I like people like them. Heck, I am people like them.

Our nation’s journalism community — already feeling pressure cooked to a near-boiling point by a president who senses political gain by debasing it — reacted with a “there but for the grace of God” mentality.

Newspapers, the ones worth that honorable name, are part of their communities. The closer a community feels to the paper the better.

Many years ago, one of the most important stories I’ve worked on in my career began when a local man looking for answers about a nephew’s death walked into a small-town paper and walked directly into that small-town paper’s top editor’s office.

We’ve lost the ability for that kind of transaction. Because of the reality of our times, you’re not getting in to see anyone in our newsroom without getting through security.

But email and phone calls get through unscreened. And much of it is good. I told you recently about the death of Jetty Sutton, a longtime reader who had become email pen-pals with me (and, it turns out, others here at the paper) who was a delight to hear from, even if it was with a complaint.

I appreciate feedback from readers who disagree with me. The goal, folks, is not to try to tell you what to think, but what to think about.

Much of the feedback I get, even from folks who disagree with me, is reasonable and even-tempered. Much. But not all. “Kenny,” began a recent email from a reader who identifies himself by his first name and a self-description as “A real Texan.” (Somehow, I didn’t hear the “Kenny” as sounding like it did when my late mom called me that.)

“You need to take a laxative!” he told me. “Your bull—— is building to a crescendo!”

The email was in reaction to a recent column in which I noted, without expressing any views about his politics, that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke is a helluva stump speaker.

“You have exposed your weakness as a so-called journalist and member of the mainstream media, a failing institution which the public holds in utter contempt!” the Real Texan told me, missing the point, as some do, that I’m an opinion journalist, paid by my employer to share my opinions and observations.

“Next time you hear Beta Boy, wear an extra absorbent pair of Depends!” the Real Texan told me. “You apparently need them!”

No death threat. No promise of violence. Just a reader reacting with words and marks of exclamation. Conceptually, that’s great. In fact, it’s the whole purpose of the exercise.

But the tone. There’s always been some of that out there, but now — with a president doing his daily darnedest to normalize what should never be normal — is worse than it’s ever been.

When details of the Annapolis horror emerged Thursday, Editor Hiott said in a tweet: “Elements of this guy’s m.o. will be hauntingly familiar to most of us who have worked in newsrooms and dealt with angry people over the years. You just never think ... . ” Now we do. We are not the enemy of the people. But, in unprecedented ways, journalists are feeling the animus of some of the people. Words, even heated ones, are fine. But guns ... .

We must all be concerned about how one can lead to the other.