The Buffalo Newspaper Guild and Buffalo History Museum are postponing a planned happy hour event this evening at the museum in light of serious concerns about public safety and direct threats that have warranted intervention by Buffalo police.
The initial event, “Drawing Support for Local Journalism,” was planned more than a month ago to launch the Guild’s public “Protect Local Journalism” campaign at a museum exhibit highlighting the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis, before the exhibit’s closing.
The free, public and nonpartisan event was intended to promote a message about the need to protect this community by safeguarding a strong, local free press amid pressures being faced by news organizations across the country and here in Western New York.
However, public criticism of an editorial cartoon about Texas flooding published Tuesday in The Buffalo News, and malicious campaigning for individuals to protest and confront Zyglis at this event, has resulted in a series of death threats against Zyglis and a deluge of other direct threats to hurt him and his family.
We wholly condemn the individuals who have chosen to twist a positive, public event into an attempt to terrorize and silence Zyglis, spread fear among journalists and their supporters, and distort the mission of a free press.
Zyglis is an opinion cartoonist who puts his name to every cartoon he draws. While his work is separate and independent from the work of newsroom reporters and editors at The Buffalo News, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild will not stand for physical threats of harm against him and his family. Those who stoop to such cowardly, disgraceful and anonymous acts must be held accountable. The threats made against Zyglis are being forwarded to law enforcement.
Out of an abundance of caution and in the interests of public safety, however, we have decided to postpone the Buffalo History Museum happy hour event. It will be rescheduled. We thank the museum leadership and staff for graciously hosting this event and enduring the needless inconvenience recent events have placed upon them.
The Buffalo News remains the largest news organization in Western New York. Its staff, including members of the Buffalo Newspaper Guild, are dedicated to providing comprehensive and accurate information to the people who live and work here every day. The spiteful campaign to attack and harm Zyglis represents only one more example of the challenges we face as a community and the need to better communicate and support our vital, public role.
We encourage everyone to speak out against these hateful and illegal intimidation tactics and to support the Guild’s greater mission, found at www.ProtectLocalJournalism.com.