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Society of Professional Journalists AirPlay Event Subject to Multiple Bomb Threats

posted by LaminatorX on Sunday August 16 2015, @09:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept.

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

A press event gets not one but six bomb threats and it's not covered by any major news outlet that day aside from a few paragraphs on Forbes.com? Is it just me or would not the mainstream media eat this much meta up with a spoon if any topic other than #GamerGate were being discussed?

The first threat was made at 1:15 pm ET, but attendees chose to stay. Later, a specific threat was phoned into The Miami Herald and the Miami PD, claiming that a bomb would go off at 2:45 pm ET. At this point, attendees and panelists exited the building and eventually finished their discussion outside.

You can watch both the morning panel and the interrupted afternoon panel on the SPJ AirPlay YouTube channel.

The most interesting bit to me though is the difference in how differently #GamerGate and its critics handle anonymous threats. Finishing the event in the parking lot then throwing a party just has more style.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @12:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @12:40AM (#223690)

    While you may choose to live in fear, I think taking into account probability is a much more rational way to live. Even if there was no bomb threat, there is still a chance that there could be a bomb. There have been tons of instances of fake bomb threats, so the mere fact that a threat was issued doesn't mean it was credible. If no danger is too unlikely to ignore, then you have no choice but to live in a bubble whether or not there has been an actual threat.

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday August 17 2015, @06:30AM

    by zocalo (302) on Monday August 17 2015, @06:30AM (#223793)
    Living in fear or not wasn't the point, which is why I mentioned the fire alarm scenario and the liability insurance. It was more about the fact that they had apparently held the conference in a facility where they were actually *given* the choice in the first place by the owners/operators of the facility, rather than waiting until they got a second and presumably more credible threat that prompted them to relocate to the car park. When an office fire alarm goes off you don't generally get a choice about whether to wait and see if the fire is real or not before you head to the assembly point; the fire marshalls will shoo you out of the door to a safe point and keep you there until the building has been checked and shown to be safe. You'd kind of expect a similar default reaction in the case of a bomb threat, especially when dealing with a controversial group, would you not?
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by szopin on Monday August 17 2015, @08:38AM

      by szopin (5710) on Monday August 17 2015, @08:38AM (#223822) Homepage Journal

      They had the building swept the night before, locked with guards through the night and then swept again before letting anyone in (with guards throughout the day), for the people that organized this there was no credible threat. They were expecting trolls and prepared for them. Do they evacuate any politicall rallies based on similar? Or do they also screen people that come in and sweep the area before?