Article content continued

My paper sent me first, and then a few hours later, another female reporter, also in her 20s. We ended up there because none of the male reporters working the night shift could say more than bonjour.

There was immediate anxiety on the news desk about having sent two young women to cover the slaughter of other women. Some editors worried junior reporters like us weren’t up to the task; one told me he worried we wouldn’t cover the story objectively.

In my hotel room that first night, after filing a few paragraphs to the night desk about the massacre scene, I watched the CBC National’s coverage. Only men were quoted: Eyewitnesses. Professors. Police. Survivors.

The following day, I raced around finding details that humanized the murderer. By that time, we knew the gunman had not only targeted feminists but also had a hit list of other prospects. Even though feminists had been getting death threats for years, there had to be another reason he went on a murderous rampage. So we went looking and found he had been beaten by his father; liked to play war games, and had been turned down by the military.

That evening, I thawed my feet in my hotel and watched the late Barbara Frum, one of Canada’s most respected journalists, refuse to admit that the massacre was indeed an act of violence toward women.

“Why do we diminish it by suggesting that it was an act against just one group?” Frum asked on CBC’s The Journal.

Frum was puzzled that so many women insisted the massacre was a result of a society that tolerates violence against women.