The terrorist attacks in Paris at the newspaper Charlie Hebdo last week came as a shock to most. The killing of 12 journalists, in a military-style execution for exercising their free speech rights, should concern every person who loves their freedom and democracy.

But for many in journalism, the attacks were a reminder of how important our jobs are to our communities and mostly to our democracy.

Most newspapers in the United States, including the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter, received an FBI bulletin late last year warning of potential terrorist attacks against accredited media sources.

Most of us laughed it off – until last week.

But the attacks in Paris are not unusual. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that 61 journalists were killed while on assignment during 2014.

And while the killing of journalists is mostly confined to war zones and terror attacks, the attempts to silence journalists are not.

Every week our reporters share stories of people in the community who do not agree with what we printed in our paper. Most leave us a voice mail, an email or a message on our Facebook page. Some take the time to write a letter to the editor. We appreciate constructive criticism. We are not perfect and we make mistakes. We also make it a point to print corrections when we are alerted to incorrect factual statements in our publications.

But when sources attempt to tell us how to write a story, they truly do not understand the point of a free press.

We are an independent source for news in the community.

We are not a public relations department for any business, city official or organization.

We gather the facts and we report what we find independently. Allowing sources to view stories prior to publication is against journalism ethics. Newspapers are meant to be an independent third party. It is the government’s primary job to protect its citizenry. It is journalist’s job to protect the citizenry by educating them on what the government is doing.

But whether it is a terrorist attack or a source trying to tell reporters how to do their job, everyone should be concerned when journalists are silenced.

Without free speech there is no freedom.