Security must be on the minds of most journalists and newsroom managers across the globe, following the massacre of staffers at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Could such an incident, wherein three apparent Islamic terrorists ambushed a newsroom and shot dead 10 journalists and cartoonists, happen in the U.S?
“It confirms some of our greatest fears that these attacks are likely to happen first in Europe and then quite possibly over here,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who leads her party on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC News.
The Washington Examiner media desk visited the entrances of a few newsrooms in the Washington, D.C., area to examine their level of access security.
At the Wall Street Journal’s D.C. bureau, we simply walked past an occupied guard at his desk and took an elevator up to the newsroom’s entrance, which requires an electronic key to open. The door of the entrance, however, is glass, which could be penetrated by firearms such as the AK-47, the weapon reportedly used by the gunmen who broke into the Charlie Hebdo office.
At the D.C. bureau for the New York Times, which is close to the Journal’s, we were stopped by the front desk before we made it to the elevators. She told us we would need a key to access the Times newsroom.
We encountered a similar situation at the Washington Post, where two guards at the building’s front desk told us we could not enter through the door behind them without a key. That door, however, was also glass.
The Politico office, which is just outside of D.C. in Northern Virginia, may have been the most secure. To get inside, visitors need to walk inside of a building, use a key to enter a separate set of doors, which serves as a kind of lobby where there are security guards, and then go through another set of doors after. Those are all glass doors as well.
The National Press Club building, which houses many news bureaus from smaller newspapers, radio and TV outlets across the world, security may have been lacking the most. The building also features restaurants and stores, so it is open to the public. Through the halls, where doors lead to individual news bureaus, most of the doors are solid and require a key to enter but some are glass and others were even left ajar, including the door to the Denver Post and the Salt Lake Tribune, which share an office space.
At the top floor, where the Press Club is, we walked past the front desk and walked around the area where newsmakers deliver speeches to rooms full of journalists (though at the time we went, the rooms were serving as a meeting place for a conference).
“Security is something we’re always mindful of and careful about but as a matter of policy, we do not discuss our procedures publicly,” a spokeswoman for the Times said.
Myron Belkind, current president of the Press Club, offered a similar comment. “Security of our members, our guests and our facility is always a top priority, and we are continually reviewing our security,” he said. “As you will appreciate, we do not discuss specifics publicly.”
None of the other publications returned request for comment.
