Blogger Christopher Fountain retaliated against a New York newspaper, which recently published the addresses of local gun owners, by publishing the addresses and phone numbers of the newspaper’s staff.
The Journal News published the names and addresses of legal gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties. The paper has been criticized for allegedly putting people in danger.
On Monday, Fountain began publishing the names, addresses and contact information of the newspaper’s publisher and editor, and staff members who worked on the gun owners’ map. Readers came up with information for other staff members, and Fountain listed those employees as well.
The blogger explained why he did it, speaking on CNN Thursday. “Somehow, [The Journal News was] conflating legal gun owners with some crazed, tormented devil up in Newtown and putting the two together,” he alleged. “And I was offended by that and I wondered how they’d like it if their addresses were published.”
Journal News publisher Janet Hanson has defended the newspaper’s gun map, saying that the information was “important” in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.
Fountain disagreed on Thursday, and argued that she could have published the number of gun permits in the counties instead. “But the fact that they put the addresses — I’ve received emails from abused women who were under protective order and in hiding, and they’re terribly afraid that now their names and addresses are all over the Internet and accessible through that map,” he said.
(Source: Huffington Post)
One Response
If someone were to drive onto a sidewalk and kill a dozen people, would this idiotic newspaper publish the names of all vehicle owners with traffic violations?