It Is Wrong to Call For the Murder of Journalists

I can't believe I have to say this, but no one has a leg to stand who has called for violence toward reporters, including Jesse Singal and me, who cover pediatric gender medicine with circumspection.

These are among the myriad deranged and violent statements that people have made with regard to reporter Jesse Singal after he joined the ascendant social media site Bluesky.

I cannot believe I have to say this, but:

It is wrong to call for the murder of journalists.

Just as it is wrong to call for, celebrate or rationalize the murder of CEOs, it deplorable, reprehensible and a sign of woeful moral decay for anyone to employ similarly twisted, antisocial rhetoric with regards to people whose job it is to report on uncomfortable and inconvenient truths. (Note: All murder is bad; but this essay concerns targeted assassinations of or threats of violence toward public figures.)

As the nation has sat transfixed by the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the ultimate arrest of his alleged assailant, Baltimore-born valedictorian, Ivy League grad and real-estate scion Luigi Mangione, populist online mobs have celebrated the slaying as comeuppance for the insurance industry’s suppos…