•July 11, 2018•

Editor’s Note: Kathy Best, Sullivan native and Missoulian editor, wrote this insight into the Annapolis newsroom shooting. She touches on issues that affect Moultrie County as well as the rest of the country.
Ten days ago a man was arrested for walking into a newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland – a newsroom much the same size as the Missoulian – and systematically gunning down five journalists.
As a newspaper editor, I’ve worked on coverage of mass shootings at a college campus, in a high school and even in a suburban coffee shop. The horror — and the fear — inflicted on the community by those deaths had always been unimaginable. Until June 28.
I didn’t know the reporters, editors and sales associate killed in Annapolis. But I was intimately familiar with their world. The smells: cheap coffee, a hint of pizza spice, the musty bouquet of old paper. The sounds: the quiet clack of computer keyboards, the quirky ringtones of cell phones, the laughter over the latest goofy online headline. And, most of all, the mission, the thing that brought each of them together in that place.
My own path to journalism wasn’t direct, in part because I knew exactly what I would be getting into. My parents owned a weekly newspaper that my Dad published, my Mom edited and they both wrote for.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story. 

Covering night meetings and community events didn’t leave much time for cooking. But on my birthday, Mom would always make my favorite meal. When I turned 16, she brought a steaming bowl of beef stroganoff to the table. But just as everyone was sitting down to eat, the fire alarm in town went off. Someone had set the jail ablaze.
Mom, Dad and my brother, who already was taking pictures for the paper at 13, got up and left me sitting there. Alone.
Two years later, on my 18th birthday, the nicest restaurant in town burned down. Party canceled.
For my 21st birthday, Mom and Dad urged me not to come home. But by then, I would have beaten them out the door to cover whatever horrible thing had happened.
After drifting for my first two years in college — a little pre-med, a little pre-law, and even, in Illinois, a little oceanography — I finally realized that the conversations around my parents’ dinner table were consistently and endlessly interesting. Government. Science. Law. Theater. Music. Education. History. Agriculture. Natural resources. The environment. And, most of all, the stories of people.
Journalism meant you could be interested in all that, and more. In reporting and writing about those things, you could chronicle the life of your community and its place in our ever-evolving culture. And if you did that right, you could make the world a better place.
While we cover it up with crusty facades and sometimes excessive skepticism, the vast majority of journalists got into the profession because we truly believe our work makes our democracy work better. That’s why movies like “All the President’s Men,’’ “Spotlight’’ and “The Post’’ get applause from theater audiences.
By telling you stories about the community we share, we give you facts that can inform the choices you make at the ballot box and in how you spend your time and money.
Sometimes that means we tell you stories you’d rather not hear — about friends or family members who get in trouble with the law, about off-the-field behavior by teams whose colors fill your closets, about businesses with sketchy practices, about elected officials whose political philosophy you share and don’t want to see sullied.
The smaller the newspaper, the more intimate those conversations become.
At my family’s weekly newspaper, my brother and I knew our names would be in headlines on the front page if we got caught doing something wrong. Our parents made clear we could not be treated differently than others they wrote about because readers held them accountable every day on the street and in the grocery store.
I embraced that lesson of accountability at the metro newspapers where I worked in Baltimore, St. Louis and Seattle. It informs the choices we make every day at the Missoulian and Ravalli Republic.
But the reactions to those choices have gotten sharper, sometimes meaner, as the country has divided itself into like-thinking tribes. That isn’t just a Montana phenomenon. As Robyn Tomlin, an editor friend in North Carolina, wrote last week: “It’s harder to engage people in a dialogue about issues or concerns. People want to lump us into this massive bucket called ‘the media.’ Some even call us the ‘enemy.’’’
So what do we do?
Let’s start by treating each other with respect and civility. Let’s check our assumptions about each other at the door and really, truly listen, even if we don’t agree. Let’s talk with each other, not at each other. Let’s have conversations in person or on the phone instead of sending off anonymous blasts on social media. Let’s understand that we’re all — journalists, business people, government leaders, educators, Millennials, Baby Boomers – imperfect humans. And when we make mistakes, and we all do, let’s admit them and learn from them.
Humanities Montana is sponsoring conversations around the state this year under the umbrella of “The Informed Citizen’’ that explore the future of journalism, how we can increase news literacy and combat “fake news,’’ and how American journalism has historically responded to periods of upheaval. There’s still time to request a conversation in your community or for your organization by calling Kim Anderson at 406-243-6022. or going to the Humanities website at: http://www.humanitiesmontana.org/programs/mtconversations_informed_citizen.php
Meanwhile, keep watching these pages. In an effort to increase understanding and break through the cultural silos, we will be rolling out a series of columns explaining how and why we make decisions about our news coverage. Because we want these to be as useful to you as possible, please send me your questions or the concerns you’d like to see addressed.
Journalism organizations, understandably, are urging newsrooms across the United States to beef up security and undergo active shooter training. Those steps are wise. But the best way to make sure that what happened in Annapolis never happens in another American newsroom is to create conversation, embrace civility, and restore trust. Please help us do that.