Journalists for the Haitian Times, a news site that covers the Haitian community in the United States, have been targeted with swatting and threats over its coverage of false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio.
Last week, former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said on the debate stage in Philadelphia that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the pets.” Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has also spread the false rumor. Springfield authorities, meanwhile, have repeatedly denied such claims.
These false claims have threatened the safety of not only the Haitian community in Springfield but the entire city. Bomb threats were made in Springfield last week, leading to the closures of schools and municipal buildings.
Now, the Haitian Times says its reporters have been harassed and intimidated with racist and threatening messages for its coverage and debunking of the false claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio.
“We’ve never faced anything like this,” Garry Pierre-Pierre, founder and publisher of the Haitian Times, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Macollvie Neel, the New York-based special projects editor for the Haitian Times, was “swatted” this week. “Swatting” occurs when authorities receive a fake crime report, triggering a police presence at an unsuspecting person’s home. It is illegal and dangerous, as police assume there is a threat at the home.
Police were sent to Neel’s house on Monday after a Haitian advocacy group got an email about a crime at her address and notified the authorities. Neel told the AP that the instigators of the fake report covered their tracks by funneling the report through the advocacy group. Police searched Neel’s house and then left.
“This is a new form of domestic terrorism, and we have to treat it as such,” Neel said.
A police cruiser sits parked downtown in Springfield, Ohio, on September 16. Journalists for the Haitian Times, a news site that covers the Haitian community in the U.S., have been targeted with swatting and threats.
Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
Despite the harassment that the journalists have recently faced, the news site is not giving into fear.
“We’re taking the precautions that are necessary. But our first duty is to tell the truth without fear or favor, and we have no fear,” Pierre-Pierre said, echoing a mission statement from his former employer, The New York Times.
Pierre-Pierre said the Haitian Times previously had the Committee to Protect Journalists conduct safety training for its journalists in Haiti and now has asked for advice on how to protect its reporters in the U.S.
Katherine Jacobsen, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ U.S., Canada and Caribbean program coordinator, called the recent harassment “outrageous.”
“We should not be having this conversation. Yet we are,” she told the AP.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
