Today, an intern for the Capital Gazette of Annapolis sent out a tweet pleading for help while an active shooter gunned down the window and people in the newsroom. According to the Associated Press, five people were killed, two were injured from debris.“This was a targeted attack on The Capital Gazette,” the Maryland Police Department reported
Shortly after the first reports of the attack this afternoon, reporters from The Capital Gazette tweeted about the incident:
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/amesscapgaz/status/1012406073704239105
Anthony Messenger/Intern
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/PhilDavis_CG/status/1012422058972676097
https://twitter.com/PhilDavis_CG/status/1012421008597364742
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/PhilDavis_CG/status/1012421862402527232
Phil Davis/Staff Writer, Cops and Courts
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/joshuamckerrow/status/1012421677932834818
Joshua McKerrow/Photojournalist
Other journalists and newsrooms were tweeting their thoughts as well:
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/jaysunsilver/status/1012428883923173377
Jason Silverstein/Digital Editor, Oxygen
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/emilyopilo/status/1012422634703900672
Emily Yopilo/Allentown City Reporter, The Morning Call
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/Kyle_Feldscher/status/1012460830229659648
Kyle Felscher/Breaking News Editor, CNN Politics
Screenshot via Twitter
https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1012431947207970816
Jeff Jarvis/Professor, The City University of New York
This attack comes days after President Trump made a statement during a campaign rally for South Carolina Governor, where he criticized the media, calling them “the enemy of the people, I call them.” Provocative conservative, Milo Yiannopoulos recently told the Observer via text message that he “can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists.” But attack on the freedom of the press isn’t new.
In recent years, journalism has become a dangerous profession. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since 2000, there have been five journalists killed in the United States.
Since the beginning of 2018, 29 journalists have been killed across the world. These are people who have dedicated their lives to report, bring awareness and share news.
We report the stories that allow the public to develop their own opinions and thoughts. We work as educators to inform the public. When we are attacked, we defend ourselves with the words we write.
We are journalists. Most of us aren’t trained to defend our newsrooms as if they were war zones. We shouldn’t have to. No one deserves to be shot while they are pursuing their passion.
We have seen these shootings before—school, workplace, mass. However they’re labeled, we cover them daily. And while we always feel empathy for those who are affected by what we have to cover, this time it feels somehow even more personal.
Every journalist worldwide is a colleague. We all stand united as people around the world, and this country, call for us to be beheaded, lynched, murdered—just for doing our jobs. Us student journalists train on campus, knowing the world we are walking into.
It could have been us. Everyone on this staff is scattered across the country as an intern this summer. It could have been our friends and colleagues in the j-school. We could have been that intern. We are lucky we are not.
In 1786 Thomas Jefferson said to James Currie, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” We are the watchdogs, we are the fourth estate, and we stand strong. Perhaps the most symbolic action of this is the Capital Gazette working to publish a newspaper for tomorrow morning.
The Nevada Sagebrush sends our condolences to those affected by the Capital Gazette shooting.
The Nevada Sagebrush editorial board can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.