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COLUMN: When news media outlets are targeted

The murder of one journalist, anywhere in the world, affects us all
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Under different circumstances, could it have happened here?

That was my first thought last Thursday when I learned of the five people shot and killed at an American daily newspaper.

The attack, at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, resulted in the deaths of four journalists and one sales assistant. Two others were injured but have since been released from hospital.

The five killed in the shooting were:

• Gerald Fischman, 61, editorial page editor

• Rob Hiaasen, 59, editor and columnist

• John McNamara, 56, editor and sports writer

• Wendi Winters, 65, community corespondent who headed special publications

• Rebecca Smith, 34, sales assistant

These people, like me, worked in news media. Their roles, whether as journalists or sales people, involved delivering accurate, reliable news to their readers.

It’s the same role all of us have at the Summerland Review or at any other news outlet. We work to cover the news affecting our readers and our communities. The stories we cover may differ, but the goals remain the same.

When I learned of the shootings in Maryland, I was saddened, but not surprised.

Two days earlier, Milo Yiannopoulos, an extreme right-wing British writer, speaker and political commentator, had told a reporter with the Observer, “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning down journalists on sight.”

And in recent years, U.S. President Donald Trump has often called the news media “the enemy of the people,” and has referred to coverage he does not like as “fake news.”

Comments such as the ones made by Trump and Yiannopoulos are deeply concerning. However, the shooting in Maryland appears to have other origins.

Jarrod Warren Ramos, 38, charged with five counts of first-degree murder in this incident, has held a grudge against the Capital Gazette for years — long before Trump’s repeated “fake news” rhetoric.

In 2012, Ramos filed a defamation suit against the paper. This suit, stemming from an article published in 2011, was thrown out of court as groundless.

In 2013, the managing editor of the newspaper contacted the police because of Ramos’s increasingly angry social media messages directed at the paper and its staff.

And last Thursday, threats were replaced with deadly actions.

Those of us who work in news media know people do not always like what we say.

We welcome letters to the editor and other comments taking issue with our coverage, provided the remarks are civil and do not degenerate into character attacks, insults or threats.

But sometimes the tone becomes more hostile.

I remember one reader I knew, early in my career, who would repeatedly ask me, “Are you making up the news or reporting it?”

At the time, I wasn’t sure if this was meant as a joke or as a mild insult. Later, I realized this man had a hot temper. Was his statement a veiled threat?

Others have accused me of publishing “fake news” in this paper because a news story was not what they wanted to see.

One reader cancelled his subscription because of an item he did not like. He then said he wanted to buy the newspaper where I worked so he could fire me.

On at least two other occasions, people have come to the office so angry I wondered if they were about to assault me.

So far, I have had a safe career and the angriest comments have not gone beyond harsh words. So far.

But angry words, if not reigned in, can eventually erupt into violent actions.

The attack at the Capital Gazette in Maryland happened far from me, in another country and at another news outlet.

Under different circumstances, could it have happened here?

John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.



John Arendt

About the Author: John Arendt

John Arendt has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years. He has a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Journalism degree from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.
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