How a Vancouver reporter felt when a 'disturbing' murder plot against her came out in court

When Greg Gianforte met his supporters to celebrate his win in Montana's congressional race Thursday night, he also apologized to them.

A day earlier, Gianforte was charged with misdemeanour assault for throwing to the ground a newspaper reporter who asked a question he didn't like. "I should not have treated that reporter that way and for that I'm sorry. I made a mistake," Gianforte told the crowd.

Someone in the crowd yelled back: "Not in our minds."

Canadian journalists have watched from a distance, with a mix of shock and alarm, as often-violent rhetoric against reporters has heated up in the United States — most notably since the presidential primary races last year.

• Watch The Investigators Saturdays at 9:30 pm ET and Sundays at 5:30 pm ET on CBC News Network.

But this week, it was made clear again that Canadian reporters are not immune to retaliation from those they cover.

Kim Bolan, who has long covered the bloody violence of Vancouver's gang wars for the Vancouver Sun newspaper, reported this week that while recently covering the trial of a former member of the so-called "United Nations" gang, she learned she had in fact been the target of an assassination plot.

Bolan spoke with CBC's Diana Swain about the surprising way she learned she'd been a target and why she decided to go public with her story on this week's episode of The Investigators.

Kim, you had been told that you would hear information about a plot … Then as you're sitting in the courtroom, you realize it's about you. What was it like to hear that?

Well, it was obviously quite disturbing. It's not directly related to the evidence in the murder case. But this witness, who has done many things himself while he was in the United Nations gang, was sort of disclosing his criminal past. And as a result, he laid out details of this plot to kill me, that was apparently underway back in 2011.

Why did they want to silence you?

They said they didn't like what I was exposing about their gang. They felt like I was giving intel, if you will, to their rivals. I also have this blog, where I post my news stories from the paper, and I allow people to come and comment. And what was happening, some of it beyond my knowledge, was rival gangsters were going on there and anonymously calling out others, or posting information to throw police off.

So this man said he did that, trying to link murders to their rivals, when they had actually done those murders. So it was quite a fascinating glimpse, journalistically, into what was going on at the time. But obviously I didn't like hearing the details about the efforts they made to come after me.

Give us some that detail. What did you learn about what they had in mind, and the efforts that they were taking to figure out your comings and goings?

The United Nations gang leader at the time, Conor D'Monte — he's the man who's now a fugitive — apparently got a hold of my land title, so he knew where I lived. He passed that along to this witness, who I can only call "Mr. C", because there is a ban on his name.

And Mr. C did at least two scouting missions to my house, to my neighbourhood … Went up and down my street, my alley. He didn't really say what they were going to do, except that they did talk about killing me.

And that their idea was, if they were to do that, they should do it during the Surrey Six trial. And, of course, that trial was of members of the rival Red Scorpion gang. So their thought was if they did it at that point in time, maybe the Red Scorpions would be blamed for the murder.

You had known about this for a little while … but hadn't worked it into your daily reporting at this trial. Why did you decide to reveal this, this week? Because no one else — journalistically — was in the courtroom when this came out.

No, that's right. I mean there were sheriffs, there were prosecutors. We had some chats about it at the breaks, that's for sure. Because I guess they understood that it was quite troubling for me to be sitting there hearing that. But after talking to my editors, we realized that this is something for the general public to understand, that journalists can still be threatened in Canada for the work that they're doing. So we figured out the best way to do that, and it ended up being me writing this first-person piece, which I don't normally do. But, you know, I'm glad that I did it. I've had very positive feedback from the general public.

Why is it important, do you believe, for people to understand that journalists in this country can be intimidated, can feel threatened?

Well, I think that we as Canadians appreciate the fact that we live in a peaceful country. That we have these democratic institutions that we don't think are threatened. And yet, there is this undercurrent, there is this underworld, where journalists — it's happened before. We had Michel Auger, covering the Hells Angels in Quebec, who was actually shot. We had Tara Singh Hayer, who was a Punjabi journalist here in [B.C.'s] Lower Mainland, who wrote about the Air India bombing suspects, and ended up being assassinated. So it can happen here. And sometimes I think we need to remind the general public that that's a possibility.

Also this week, investigative reporter, author and co-founder of The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill, explains why he thinks audiences and the news media should treat "terrorism experts" with skepticism. Plus Jack Nagler, CBC's director of journalistic public accountability, talks about decisions made behind the scene to guide on-air coverage after a terror attack.