Journalists Outraged After Finding Out They’re Targets in Sniper Video Game

“Well, this is horrifying.”

Journalists from major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian and MSNBC are up in arms over a sniper game for mobile phones and tablets, in which players target a reporter during one mission.

Following the publication of a HuffPost piece about the controversy, the Brazilian developers of “Sniper 3D Assassin” removed the level from the game.

New York Times editor Jamal Jordan appeared to be the first to spot the offending segment, which has sparked consternation from liberals that it is an example of how President Donald Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric is creating a “dangerous” climate for members of the media. Trump has continuously denounced the mainstream press, and members of his administration have frequently been involved in high-profile clashes with reporters, such as CNN’s Jim Acosta.

The Washington Post’s Angela Fritz, in a piece on “Sniper 3D Assassin,” catalogued a number of threats and attacks on journalists, which she claimed “had skyrocketed since 2017, when Donald Trump became president.”

A report from earlier this year by press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders alleged that the U.S. had become more dangerous for journalists, a claim that has been disputed by some in the media industry.

Fritz also highlighted guidelines on the Apple Store, which sells “Sniper 3D Assassin,” that advised against “content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste.”

“My nephew let me play an iPad shooting game with him. He chose the mission: It’s called ‘Breaking News,’ and the objective is to shoot a journalist who just received documents from a police officer,” Jordan tweeted Saturday.

“The goal is to make the journalist ‘famous in a different way,'” he added.

https://twitter.com/xlbLoOdlx/status/1130249531877134338

Fellow journalists soon chimed in to express their disgust at what some viewed as an assault on freedom of the press.

“Well, this is horrifying,” tweeted Jordan’s New York Times colleague, Lauren Hard.

“What the hell,” exclaimed Meghann Farnsworth, director of social media at Wired.

“christ,” Nicky Woolf, an editor for New Statesman America who formerly worked for The Guardian, wrote in a tweet.

“Holy fucking shit,” tweeted MSNBC’s Brian Latimer.

https://twitter.com/SarahMaslinNir/status/1129843345646342145

Referencing controversial tweets by the president from last October, activist Barbara Malmet complained that Trump’s claim that the “press is the enemy of the people” had “morphed into a video game.”

But other, non-blue checkmarked, users of Twitter suggested that journalists’ outrage might be overblown pearl-clutching.

“The point of the game is that you are an assassin. So now that the target is a journalist you are offended? This is becoming beyond ridiculous,” tweeted one commenter.

Another tweeted that “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” an immensely popular video game, “had a similar mission.”

“I don’t see a problem with it, it’s just a game,” the user added. “not like journalists are a protected class of people.”

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