Reporters can be targets for abuse

Ask a reporter or editor today about feedback they receive, and they’ll tell you that much of tends to be vitriolic and at times downright abusive.

As the readers’ rep, I can tell you that my personal experience has been that the ugliness has increased in the past four years.

I don’t think readers realize the hostility directed at reporters and editors. After this column explained in August 2019 that the U-T dropped the conservative-leaning comic “Mallard Fillmore” because the creator made an anti-semitic reference, I was flooded with so many emails that I lost count. Most were insulting and many of those were personal attacks.

When I related this to some readers, it surprised them.

On Tuesday a production error occurred that resulted in a puzzle page being duplicated. Several items did not appear in that day’s paper. It was no small error. Many readers look forward to those features every day. But did the mistake deserve this?: “You morons printed the contents of page C7 also on page C8,” emailed a reader.

U-T reporter Andrea Lopez-villafaña recalled a typo that appeared in one of her of stories. The word “lose” was misspelled “loose.”

“I got a really long email from a person who was upset. I definitely should have caught it, but it was small enough that I missed it and so did my editor . ... The reader went on to say that I was incompetent and that I should not have graduated from San Diego State University.”

On an another occasion she received an email from someone who was upset she did not include him in a story on the funeral of a well-known bishop. The man didn’t speak at the service but had apparently known the bishop for a long time. “He called me irresponsible, lazy and unfair,” Villafaña said.

These affronts are mild compared to other emails and calls. Although news service stories about presidential politics attract the occasional “fake news” insults, the subjects that bring the most abuse are immigration and race.

One U-T reporter described some attacks as very personal. She said one person said he hoped an undocumented immigrant would rape her or a family member. She has been called names that cannot be printed here, even with dashes. She actually once received a credible death threat.

Lisa Deaderick, who writes a social justice column that runs Sunday, has received vicious emails.

“I’ve mostly received personal insults that I’m ‘stupid’ or don’t deserve to be in my position, along with the same tired stereotypes about Black people being ‘thugs,’ ‘fatherless,’ that we need to focus on ‘Blackon-black crime’ (when all crime generally occurs intra-communally, but no one emails me to decry White-on-white crime), etc.”

Reporter Andrew Dyer received vile emails after writing a story about the Facebook group Defend East County, which had become peppered with posts on conspiracy theories, racism and violence against Black Lives Matter marchers.

One of the organizers called Dyer the name of a type of criminal whose act is so repugnant that I won’t use it here in association with Dyer’s name. The person posted it, though, on the group’s Facebook page.

“The beat I cover generally generates hateful feedback pretty consistently,” said U-T immigration reporter Kate Morrissey. “Any story that talks about an immigrant as a full human being is likely to get at least some pushback from a handful of readers. The wider the reach that a story has, for example if it goes viral, the more comments I’m likely to receive.”

Morrissey said one that stands out was from a reader hoping immigrants would kill her and her family.

Matthew T. Hall, the U-T’S editorial and opinion director and president of the national Society of Professional Journalists, acknowledges the tenor in reader feedback has changed in recent years. “It’s nastier now.”

He said journalists and society should not stand for it.

Despite the foul emails, comments and calls, journalists will forge ahead.

“I don’t think we should let hate silence the truth,” Morrissey said. “I am very careful in my reporting and work hard to be both accurate and fair. While I take feedback seriously and continuously work to improve myself, I do my best to disregard messages based in hate. My job is a public service, and I don’t think a few loud trolls should be the reason that service stops existing.”