The attack on staff at Maryland’s Capital Gazette newspaper that left five people dead last Thursday shocked everybody, to be sure.
Yet the terrible assault that took the lives of three editors and two sales people especially impacted those that work in media.
It’s an unsettling and hard-to-put-aside question: What’s to stop it from happening here?
Essentially the answer is: Absolutely nothing.
The suspected killer in the Maryland slaughter was known to have a grudge against the newspaper.
He unsuccessfully sued for defamation in 2012, and made threats against The Capital on social media.
Now, generally speaking, Canada is one of the safest places in the world to be a journalist.
However the job – regardless of a community’s size – is not without trepidation.
Your hometown paper is significantly comprised of local events coverage, fundraisers, features and cheque presentation photos.
That said, we do publish investigative stories and hard news. And that’s a little…hard for some.
We also, occasionally, opine with an edge.
Even in Princeton, British Columbia, the newspaper is threatened by disgruntled people, on the phone, online and sometimes in person.
The Spotlight has open files with the RCMP concerning threats of a serious nature.
We have a protocol for dealing with unruly or profane customers at the front counter, and it has been necessary to call police under some circumstances.
A few of the problems we experience are related to Princeton’s jagged political landscape.
Most arise out of court reporting.
(The man suspected in the Capital Gazette killings was aggrieved over a court story.)
It is not uncommon for a defendant here to make the “You’re-gonna-get-what’s-coming-to-you” kind of promise, after his or her name appears in the paper.
Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine times out of 10,000, when someone threatens a newspaper it is a flaccid gesture; something intended to bully, intimidate, coerce, or just to blow off steam.
Recently we received a phone call from a reader, extremely angry with numerous stories that have appeared in the paper, who said he has someone “watching us” and reporting back to him. He advised us to “watch our step.”
Not gonna lie – that makes a person feel slightly creepy.
However, no one has affected what we report or how we report it, and that is not changing.
These things happen at newspapers everywhere, all the time. The Spotlight is not special in this regard. Fair to say the industry has suffered from an increase in hostility of late - a combination of out-of-control social media and an out-of-control United States president who regularly labels the fake news, left wing media as an enemy of the people.
The majority of Princeton residents and Spotlight readers are mild mannered and easy to get on with. A lot of them, actually, are certified sweethearts.
The troublemakers are likely just that – individuals causing trouble for its own sake, without any intention of doing physical harm.
Still.
That’s most probably what they thought at The Capital Gazette.
- The Similkameen Spotlight