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Tag: Capital Gazette

Speaking for the silent

Written by SUN contributor on . Posted in Editorial, Opinion.

Lately it seems that a challenge is issued every few days against the media. Someone is always trying to silence our voices, the voices that our country’s Constitution is supposed to protect. Challenges come from all sides, from tariffs imposed by the federal government on newsprint that feel designed to put our newspapers out of business to fake news propagated by our President and now shootings in newsrooms. This week, five voices, the voices of our brother and sister journalists at the Capital Gazette, were silenced forever in a horrifying attack on their newsroom. Their loss is unbelievable and the respect I feel for the remaining staff for not skipping a beat, not bowing to fear and releasing a new issue less than 24 hours after the shooting, is immeasurable. Five people were killed simply for doing their jobs, which is terrifying. I will always remember June 28 as the day when doing my job gave me pause. For the first time I really thought about the potential personal consequences of simply doing my job. The concern became not just telling the truth in the stories I submit for print but what someone might do to me or my co-workers because of it. Thankfully, we live in a relatively safe area and our community is very supportive of the work we do. However, the thought always will be in the back of my mind now, a voice whispering “what if?” when I write a story. If there’s anything to take from this tragedy it’s that we cannot bow to fear. We cannot allow anyone to take away our rights, to silence our voices. The burden on the press to be a voice for the truth is now more important, more of a privilege and a burden for all of us who call ourselves journalists because now we must speak for those whose voices have been taken from them. – Kristin Swain

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Slaying the messenger

Part of the job

Journalism at its finest

Slaying the messenger

Written by Tom Vaught on . Posted in Editorial, Opinion.

For as many years as we have had a free press, journalists have been protected by an unwritten code that essentially says, “Don’t slay the messenger.”

That code was broken yesterday when a gunman who had a beef with a newspaper in Annapolis, Md. allegedly opened fire on the newsroom, slaughtering five unarmed employees. As he pulled the trigger, he reportedly said something about “false news,” a favorite chant of a president that takes on the truth on a regular basis. Whether his comments added to the animosity against the press remains to be seen.

If you were around during Watergate, you will recall Bernstein and Woodward didn’t take a stand against President Richard Nixon, they only reported the truth, and many people who worked at the White House spilled the beans to the reporters because they were disgusted at what they saw.

This gunman allegedly had a personal disagreement with the Capital Gazette and now five people are dead. It’s not the fault of the system or of a president who disagrees with the press, but it looks like we reporters should be a little more cautious as we do our job.

But we will do our job despite the shooting. I promise you that.

– Tom Vaught, reporter since 1971

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Speaking for the silent

Part of the job

Journalism at its finest

Part of the job

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in First Place, Special Sections.

A long, long time ago at a newspaper not so far away, two Tampa Tribune reporters did their job and wrote some stories.

One was about Cuban exiles holding an election in the U.S. for a provisional government cabinet to take over the Cuban government from then-president Fidel Castro, another was about Castro arguably having a legal claim to a park in Ybor City, and a series was about a USF professor who was raising money on the side for Islamic terrorists.

First Place

Commentary Writing

2019

They resulted in death threats to myself, fellow reporter Michael Fechter and the staff of the Tribune and sister television station WFLA.

My story’s threats eventually died down. Michael’s, not so much.

Media General added tight security measures to the brand new fortress we all moved into, including card readers with photo IDs at the entrance, security guards to verify IDs and cameras in every conceivable place – reporters, being naturally curious, spent extra time in the bathrooms trying to figure out where they were.

The atmosphere was not one of safety, but of fear and imprisonment.

It was a feeling reminiscent of the first time I went through the brand new metal detector at the Daytona Beach courthouse; the first time I interviewed a witness in jail and heard several prison doors slamming behind me, Get Smart-style; the first time I flew on a plane and had to be searched; the first and only time I was detained at an airport in Havana in a chain link cage topped with barbed wire and guarded by a soldier holding an M-16.

Stay in this business long enough, and eventually, you will think, or know, that someone is following you. You eventually will say to yourself, or to your editor, “This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us,” like Thomas Marquardt, the Annapolis, Md. Capital Gazette’s former editor and publisher, said to an attorney representing the paper in a defamation lawsuit filed in 2012 by Jarrod W. Ramos, the man who eventually did.

But you continue to do your job.

The front page of the Capital Gazette the day after five of its staff members were murdered is an amazing testimony to the newsroom’s professionalism and commitment to journalism, to the First Amendment and to their colleagues.

Someone in mourning had to put the names of their murdered friends in alphabetical order for the lead of the story. Someone in shock had to start finding and loading stories on the website that the victims had written, as a tribute. Someone with nerves of steel had to actually interview the suspected killer’s aunt.

In journalism class at Manatee High School in Bradenton, Fla., Miss Bullock did not tell us that could happen. I did not tell my University of Tampa journalism class either. Maybe it’s time to start.

But it’s not so much that journalism is a dangerous business, it’s that life is a dangerous business.

Nightclubs, schools, marathons, newsrooms – it doesn’t matter where you are, the threat is there, and fortresses and guns and surveillance cameras and security guards will not always be able to stop a mass murderer.

Remember what they said after Sept. 11 – we must not let it stop us from living our lives and doing our jobs, or they win.

Everyone on the Capital did their job.

In doing ours, we stand with you.

– Cindy Lane

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Speaking for the silent

Slaying the messenger

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