A year after the Capital Gazette shooting, local journalists remain vulnerable 

Active shooter drills. Body guards. Ramped up security. Trauma support. Amid existential threats to the economic sustainability of local news media, outlets around the country are having to budget for heightened security for their newsroom and staff following the murder of four journalists and a sales representative at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis one year ago.

A year after the worst attack on American media in a single day, the tally of violent attacks and deadly threats against the media sends chills through journalists, prompting some to self-censor and others to refrain from telling people their profession.

This attack was a reminder of how vulnerable local journalists are in the United States, which ranked alongside Mexico as the fourth deadliest country for journalists in 2018 because of the Capital Gazette shooting.

Local journalists face heightened risk not only in the U.S. but around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, representing 88 percent of journalists killed since we began keeping records. Last year a gunman shot up a community radio station in Wisconsin, pipe bombs were sent to CNN studios in New York, a man crashed his truck into a Fox-affiliate station in Texas, and newspaper carriers in Idaho were shot at while delivering the morning Lewiston Tribune. Earlier this month a broadcast journalist was threatened at gunpoint while following up on a story.

Add to this the endemic online harassment and threats that are part of their quotidian routine, and perhaps it’s not surprising that some journalists have told me they refrain from telling people their profession, opting for the more innocuous term “writer.”

The deadly rampage and string of violent attacks has scarred a profession that is regularly denigrated as the “enemy of the people” and pilloried as “fake news” by the president.  According to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 11 percent of President Trump’s tweets since he took office insulted, criticized or disparaged journalists or the media as a whole. With the election season ramping up, the president and all political figures must moderate their rhetoric and refrain from stoking hatred against reporters who are simply doing their jobs and helping ensure an informed citizenry.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which documents press freedom violations in the United States, has already reported 17 physical attacks against journalists so far this year, two of which took place at Trump reelection rallies.

“After the Capital Gazette shooting we had a real feeling that we were just as vulnerable,” a managing editor with a metropolitan daily in the Midwest told me. “The stuff we are seeing in the Trump administration is definitely trickling down to the local level.” — A sentiment I’ve heard echoed by journalists in Illinois, Arizona, Texas, and around the country. 

When journalists face threats, they don’t usually have the luxury to step back because their work requires them to be in the public eye, pounding the pavement and asking questions. Yet even against this backdrop many journalists persist. A mere five hours after the attack at the Capital Gazette, their editorial team bravely published a story about the deadly attack on their colleagues. “Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper tomorrow,” they said in a tweet.

Putting out a paper means not only reporting, editing, and publishing the paper, but ensuring the newsroom and its journalists are able to do so safely. But as local journalism continues to face a steady economic decline, and with fewer reporters in newsrooms, one of the barriers to staying safe is lack of resources and support. Bullet proof glass, panic bullets, cameras and security doors, training, all cost money at a time of shrinking budgets and the rise of local news deserts.

We cannot let the work of those killed in the Capital Gazette be in vain.

Reporters around the country continue to publish day in and day out, asking the hard questions and telling important stories. We need them.

It is critically important that leaders at all levels in the U.S. support our First Amendment rights and decry attacks when they happen. Local journalists are the lifeblood of communities, and we cannot afford to lose their voices.

Courtney C. Radsch is Director of Advocacy at the Committee to Protect Journalists.