This journalism stuff isn’t all the time easy, especially when folk on the web determine to barnstorm you over misconceptions and online bigotry. It definitely doesn’t help when the richest man on Earth repeats those bullshit assumptions for his gaggle of rabid fans. One journalist found herself on this position, but she’s not letting Elon Musk or his hungry, hate-filled followers on X decelerate her vital work.
Poynter, a publication that follows the media, has the story of what happened to Las Vegas Review-Journal crime reporter Sabrina Schnur after she reported on the death of retired police chief Andreas Probst in August. The retired cop was hit by a automotive while on his morning bike ride near his Las Vegas home last month. Despite Schnur being first on the scene, first to talk to the Probst family, and being the one who urged a witness with footage of the intentional strike to return forward, she’s been the goal of anti-Semitic vitriol and hate. It only got worse when Elon Musk picked up the story. From Poynter:
When retired police chief Andreas Probst was killed in a hit-and-run last month, Las Vegas Review-Journal crime reporter Sabrina Schnur was the primary journalist to reach on the scene.
Schnur was also the primary local reporter to consult with Probst’s family, penning an obituary to be sure that his widow’s and daughter’s voices could be heard.
And she or he was the reporter who instructed a source with video footage of the killing to go to the police, just nine hours before police announced a murder charge within the case.
But despite her work documenting Probst’s death, Schnur became the goal of anti-Semitic attacks and death wishes over the weekend as social media users questioned why the “media” wasn’t properly covering the attack. Screenshots of the month-old obituary’s headline sparked outrage amongst readers who falsely assumed the Review-Journal was downplaying Probst’s death.
The obituary originally ran on Aug. 18 with the headline “Retired police chief killed in bike crash remembered for laugh, love of coffee.” At that time, police didn’t yet know that the killing was intentional. Thirteen days later, on Aug. 31, a source approached Schnur with a video showing the motive force within the crash intentionally hitting Probst and laughing about it with the passenger. She connected the source with the police, and the Review-Journal covered the next murder charge.
But when that video went viral over the weekend, social media users shared screenshots of the old obituary, taking issue with the phrase “bike crash.” They filled Schnur’s inbox and social media mentions with increasingly personal attacks and accused her of being anti-white. They shared her photo and made anti-Semitic comments. They circulated her office phone number and told her that they hoped she would get cancer, that they hoped she would die. They found her private social media accounts and dug through her Twitter, unearthing posts she’d made as an adolescent, going way back to 2015.
“That’s what began to scare me — in the event that they’re taking the time to undergo my Twitter, what else are they taking the time to search out on me?” Schnur said. “I began to piece together, OK, if I used to be going to simply cyber stalk someone, what things would they have the option to search out on me? I began to feel genuinely unsafe at that time.”
On Sunday morning, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly referred to as Twitter, amplified one among the screenshots, posting “An innocent man was murdered in cold blood while riding his bicycle. The killers joked about it on social media Yet, where is the media outrage? Now you start to know the lie.” That post had 68.2 million views as of Monday evening.
This unfortunately isn’t the primary time reporters on the Las Vegas Review-Journal have faced violence from perpetually online individuals. Just last yr, reporter Jeff German was stabbed to death outside of his home, with a subject of his reporting currently under arrest for the murder.
All the story is actually sad; a horrible death was a dangerous situation by individuals who don’t understand how police investigations or reporting works. Schnur isn’t letting these delusional individuals slow her down, nevertheless. You’ll be able to read the entire story here.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
