Rockland County, NY – As fallout continues from The Journal News’ controversial decision to publish the names and addresses of licensed gun holders in Westchester and Rockland counties, one blogger has called out the newspaper for its irresponsible actions and retaliated by publishing the personal contact information for The Journal News staff.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
According to a report by the Huffington Post (http://huff.to/TDcoWL), Christopher Fountain posted the names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social media pages, and in some cases, photographs, of the paper’s publisher, editor and other staff members who were involved in creating the gun owner’s map.
In an interview with CNN, Fountain explained why he opted to respond in kind, saying, “Somehow, [The Journal News was] conflating legal gun owners with some crazed, tormented devil up in Newtown and putting the two together. And I was offended by that and I wondered how’d they’d like it if their addresses were published.”
Earlier this week, The Journal News defended its “important” decision to post the information, saying its readers “are understandably interested to know about guns in their neighborhoods,” in the wake of the shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
Fountain disputed that notion, arguing the publisher could have chosen to publish the total number of gun permits in the two counties instead. “But the fact that they put the addresses – and 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,” Fountain said.
Fountain’s blog post can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/RUxhfm
Way to go thanks.
Awesome!!!!!!! Someone with guts!! Take that urinal news.
The JN just changed its sexual molestion policy to not releasing the names of the perverts in order to protect the victims(?) So instead, they publish the names of innocent gun permit holders!!!! I’d much rather know a potential threat to my kids’ lives than know that my decent, honest, next door neighbor has a gun permit!
By the way, MY name is on that list.
Do you think this is an inside job? An employee that has gripes against the decision of the newspaper?
How dare they retaliate. Only the press has freedom of the press?!?