Death threats. Racist taunts. Vows of violence. Inside the increasingly personal attacks targeting Canadian female journalists.
The most recent incident occurred last week at the National Press Club in Ottawa.
According to the Ottawa Police Service, someone left an anonymous note on the receptionist’s desk at the National Press Club on July 29, saying: “You have the nerve to ask the questions in the media? The same Canadian media that won’t let us have a female prime minister?”
According to the Ottawa Police Service, an officer responded to the call and reviewed security camera footage and determined that it was “unlikely that the security firm at the National Press Club could have prevented this incident from happening.”
The police said they had no further details at the time of publication, but that the department received information on Monday and is investigating.
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At the time of publication, the Ottawa Police Service said they had no details on the incident. They were not able to confirm whether the incident was related to the ongoing investigation into the death threat received by a female reporter, but said they were working “to gather additional information as we progress in our investigation.”
The media is at high risk for hate and violence that the police and our democracy cannot protect us from every day. It can be hard to talk about hate in Canada, but every day we hear stories about the intolerance and discrimination that too many Canadians in the past and still face. This case provides us with a small and rare glimpse of how we are all still at risk, and it’s something that makes me feel very helpless and frustrated.
— Sarah McLaughlin, Canadian Press correspondent
The incident is not the first time in recent days that the press has been targeted by someone who may have been attempting to incite violence toward female journalists in Canada.
In mid-June, members of the Ku Klux Klan – a racist, white supremacist group based in the United States – threatened to harm the female reporter, who had written about her reporting in Montreal.
In December 2012, a man threatened to shoot and kill a female reporter for an American news website for doing her job, The New Zealand Herald said.
The New York Times first reported last week about the threat in Ottawa, saying the newspaper was told the case involved multiple threats. It’s still not clear what, exactly, is under investigation, but the threat is at least the latest