HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — Like hundreds of other newsrooms across the U.S., journalists at The Holland Sentinel stopped working at 2:33 p.m. Thursday, July 5, 2018, for silent reflection honoring the five slain journalists of the Capital Gazette: editor Rob Hiaasen, 59; writer Wendi Winters, 65; editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, 61; sportswriter John McNamara, 56; and sales assistant Rebecca Smith, 34.
Suggested by the Capital Gazette‘s parent company and promoted by The Baltimore Sun as well as the American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Media Editors, the notion of pausing quickly gained traction.
“Journalism is, like, a tight community, even though none us knew the people in Maryland, ” said Sentinel reporter Sydney Smith, who writes about municipal issues. “But I feel like they go through what we go through every single day. It’s a kinship we have.”
Police arrested Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, MD; he’s been charged with five counts of murder in the Capital Gazette killings. Ramos sued the paper after a 2011 story detailing a court case in which he was charged with misdemeanor stalking. Ramos later sued for defamation and lost. The writer of that story and his editor had long since taken jobs elsewhere.
The Sentinel’s editor, Sarah Leach, said her own newsroom increased security over the last year.
“Hopefully it never happens here,” Leach told the people in the newsroom before Thursday’s observance. “And we’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe.”
As has been noted by many news outlets, it’s a fact of journalism that sometimes people get very angry about certain stories.
“Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired, but we also have a responsibility to let people know what’s going on in the community,” said Audra Gamble, the Sentinel’s police, fire and court reporter. “And to be threatend and blamed for that when you’re doing your job?”
“It gives a whole new meaning to ‘kill the messenger,’” Leach said.
“Right,” said Gamble, who persuaded coworkers to get active-shooter response training.
Brian Vernellis, the paper’s digital director, is looking at his responsibilities in a different light. He manages the paper’s digital voice and presence.
“I’m the one that has to go through comments on stories,” he said. “We had to ban a gentleman the other day.”
Vernellis said he sometimes shakes his head “at the lack of common decency” on the part of some commenters, and an “us-versus-them” attitude that he used to dismiss as troll-like behavior.
“Now, in light of what happened in Maryland,” he said. “I have to be a little bit more aware that, just because somebody says it, there could be an action to go with that as well.”
That hasn’t shifted his support for the First Amendment — the right of free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution — he said, just made him pointedly aware of an edict by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
At 2:33 p.m Thursday in in the Sentinel’s newsroom, the clicking of keyboards stopped and phones rang, unanswered. The sound of voices from the first-floor sales, classified and subscription offices floated up to the reporters’ second-floor cubicles, where they sat or stood, in silence, heads bowed, some dabbing tears from their eyes. A few minutes later, they were back to work.
