This is my 40th year in the newspaper game.

Not saying longevity makes me an expert, but it does make me what I used to call a “survivor” … until some bad guy with a gun walked into a Maryland newsroom and killed five of my peers.

The shootings were hopefully the low-point of an unnerving cycle of escalating rancor between some of the populace and the so-called “mainstream media,” a journalism genre that spans giant broadcasters and national news brands to modest community newspapers like the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., where the massacre took place.

But sadly, the shootings were a worst-case reminder that reader feedback has morphed from the sharply-worded “letter to the editor” critiques into venomous online putdowns.

Look, journalism is an odd profession. In some ways, we’re that thing you love to hate. Our customer-relations mission statement is a tad different than most industries: Newspapers don’t provide happiness, rather we want to inform and make you think.

Being a newspaper person is like being that annoying relative, pal or co-worker. A columnist, as I’ve been the past 21 years at the Orange County Register, is that person — times a few. You know the type … that loud and nosey persona with an odd habit of occasionally irking you by sharing information you didn’t want to hear.

Newspapering all-but requires upsetting our audience with factual work. At a minimum, good news to some may be bad news to others. You know, tough love.

This is an endeavor that includes enraging powerful leaders and high-profile personalities and the supporters of those icons. The impacted can also be flocks of folks, too, from political groups to fans of a certain team, region or music genre.

And the afflicted party could be one individual, such as the Maryland shooter who took the most extreme dislike to the accurate reporting of his criminal history.

I’m not saying this industry is by any means perfect. We’re human and work in a fast-paced, high-stress environment. Mistakes happen and hopefully, we correct them and learn from the transgressions. But the bottom line is clear: It’s not a trade for the thin-skinned.

The product is made to stir passions. And take it from somebody who once covered high school football in western Pennsylvania, you don’t have to be doing long-researched exposes to draw angry responses.

But the heated response to newspaper stories is no longer a thoughtful rebuttal of ink-stained words. I saw this brewing a decade ago when I started an experiment at the Orange County Register, blogging about local real estate economics.

In those nascent days of online debate, I marveled at how people would exert tons of time and energy to argue incessantly in the blog’s comment section about the future of the housing market. Of course, my coverage was often the derision of their critiques.

Yes, my analysis was fair game. Heck, I was stirring the proverbial pot. But the tone of real estate conversation circa 2009 had an anger that was worrisome. It was not disdain tied to the economic downturn. Rather it was what, at the time, I thought was an odd bitterness to anyone who disagreed accompanied by strange conspiracies about what motivated those with opposing forecasts.

If people could get so worked up about real estate, I wondered, what might happen when folks started to talk en masse online about the bigger picture of life?

Answer: Anger, 2018 … of which that Maryland shooter was the latest example.

It’s become a tired routine. After each mass shootings, briefly, there’s some hope something will change. In this case, the latest prayer is close to my heart: desires for a better understanding of what newspapers attempt to do.

But I’m no dummy. If kids getting shot at school won’t change society, why should five dead newspaper people?

Nothing I write, or what dozens of other newspaper columnists may say, will change the ugly arc of public discourse any time soon. “Media” as a pejorative to many people won’t end quickly. It may take a generation or two for human emotions to evolve to sanely adapt to this new era of information overload.

But to the Maryland shooting victims — John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rob Hiassen, Gerald Fischman and Rebecca Smith — I pledge not to give in to this misplaced rage.

For example, take my columns that say California is not a horrible place to work and live, even if it is pricey. If that logic frays your nerves, I’m simply asking you to respectfully see the other side of the coin. Could you somehow politely tell me why I’m an idiot?

And I can assure you, that’s the sentiment of most of my fellow newspaper folks. We will report, to the best of our abilities, what we see and hear in and around our communities … even if the facts run counter to “the customer’s always right” mantra.

Maybe the product — in print and online — needs a warning label: “Reading may lead to a stirring of emotions!”