Don Your Way: How photo of empty bread shelf sparked response: "You want shooting."

Donald Trump’s inflammatory speech sparked deadly scenes in Washington DC, fuelled by his fervent supporters who have hung on his every word for the past four years.

Now, I’m in no way comparing myself to Trump (not that I would ever wish to anyway) but I was also caught up in a war of words yesterday. Over a photo of an empty shelf in a supermarket.

As journalists, its our job to bring you the news, whether good or bad, especially during these extremely difficult times.

On a shopping trip to a Doncaster supermarket on the first day of lockdown, I noticed that many of the shelves were empty, suggesting that panic buying was once again, stupidly and irresponsibly, under way.

Meat, fruit and vegetables, milk and eggs and toilet roll stocks were running low. Some shelves were totally empty.

The bread shelf was bare.

This photo formed the basis of a story – showing the empty shelves, but at the same time, urging people not to rush out and stock up unnecessarily.

Within seconds of it appearing on our Facebook page, one angry reader wrote: “Utter bulls*** reporting by you and other media outlets. Scaremongering causes unnecessary panic. You want shooting whoever put this picture/story on.”

Later comments suggested the photo had been somehow doctored, was a photo from the original panic buying chaos in March or, was quite simply false and fake news.

Numerous readers crowed that there weren't shortages and we were making it up.

We weren’t. I saw it with my own eyes and took the photo.

And for that, I got someone wanting to shoot me.

My partner suggested to ignore it. But why should we?

Sadly, this is the world we live in these days. Threats and abuse are commonplace in all walks of life.

Nurses and NHS staff are abused for supposedly being part of the whole ‘Covid hoax.’ Shop staff are abused for enforcing mask wearing.

Police are told to ‘get a proper job’ should they crack down on coronavirus breaches.

We’re supposedly all in this together. When someone tells you you need shooting, it certainly doesn’t feel like it.