Furthering their quest to improve the all-too-often harmful coverage of gun violence, the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting and the FrameWorks Institute released recently a toolkit for reporters covering the topic.
“News coverage of gun violence often inadvertently perpetuates stereotypical narratives about the people and communities most impacted,” the introduction of the toolkit reads.
“Typical coverage focuses on individual episodes of gun violence and often lacks an explanation of what causes it and what could be done to prevent it. These reporting practices can further stigmatize marginalized communities and promote fatalism around gun violence prevention.”
A core belief at the Center is that when reporters cover gun violence better, they’re playing an active role in minimizing harm done to people and communities and in helping to prevent gun violence.
For a deeper dive into this topic, check out the panel I’m moderating this Friday during AHCJ’s annual conference in New York City, “In your lane: Covering America’s biggest public health crisis.” Dr. Jessica Beard, the Center’s research director, will be on the panel alongside The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia and Dr. Ruth Abaya at the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention.
Here are some of the reporting tips offered in the toolkit:
Taking a trauma-informed approach
The toolkit first offers a quick-start guide to “ethical and empathetic gun violence reporting” that runs through what a reporter should do when they have to cover a shooting scene.
“Reporting from the scene of a shooting should be carried out with caution and sensitivity, as it can often intentionally or inadvertently sensationalize the event and further stigmatize those impacted,” the toolkit says.
All these recommendations center around taking a trauma-informed approach. For example, when talking with loved ones, survivors and witnesses, it’s important to get their informed consent. That means asking permission to use their name, take photos, ask questions and use their quotes. But also keep in mind that this might not be the best time for them to talk, and that’s okay.
But even before arriving at the scene, the toolkit advises to gather community context. Where did this happen? Was it near a store, church or park? Is there a community or neighborhood representative who can offer some larger context on the area and the problems residents deal with?
Find sources who aren’t just the police, the toolkit explains. Seek out activists, public health experts and community members. Most importantly, try to find a person who knows the victim, like a friend, relative or neighbor, who can offer a fuller picture of who the person was.
These sources are good to cultivate for gaining trust in the community and reporting accurate follow-up stories. And let them know that their participation is making the coverage of the shooting more detailed and accurate.
The toolkit also reminds reporters to “acknowledge and address your own emotional responses to reporting from the scene and seek opportunities for self-care.”
Changing the narrative
Another section of the toolkit walks reporters through constructing “evidence-based, humanizing and more complete” narratives for gun violence coverage.
A more nuanced narrative means audiences will better understand the event, its context and potential solutions. It also avoids perpetuating stereotypes about the people and communities impacted by gun violence.
The toolkit presents examples of harmful narratives to help reporters avoid irresponsible storytelling and shares the elements of prevention-focused, public health-minded stories.
The toolkit breaks down the narrative elements often used in news stories: characters, story structure, setting, point of view and tone.
In a harmful story, the characters are “good-guy” cops, “bad-guy” criminals and “helpless” victims. The story structure could be fatalistic, present law enforcement as the only solution and present sensationalized depictions of traumatic events.
The settings are usually in neighborhoods that are only bad and inevitably violent. The shooting is a part of a “crime wave” or an “epidemic.” The point of view is exclusively the police at the crime scene and the tone is sensational and relies on graphic images and language.
On the flipside, in a humanizing and prevention narrative, the toolkit says the characters are community members, health and public health experts and victims empowered to share their stories.
The story structure should put the person’s situation into larger context, offer resources and information and illustrate how systemic factors play a role, such as a lack of investment in communities of color. The point of view is from people impacted by gun violence and the tone is level and pragmatic.
Knowing the drivers of gun violence
“For people to see gun violence as a preventable issue, they need to know what causes it in the first place,” the toolkit reads.
The toolkit provides five examples of what drives gun violence:
- Lack of access to social support.
- Concentrated poverty and racism.
- Ineffective firearm policies.
- Inequities in the built environment.
- Disinvestment in public health systems.
Each driver also offers a solution. For example, it’s hard for poorly funded public health departments without access to good data to prevent gun violence or to implement a comprehensive plan to address it.
According to the toolkit, a solution is stronger local, county and state public health departments with good data to help “chart a course from where we are now to where we want to be when it comes to addressing gun violence.”
More resources
- The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting has a wealth of resources on gun violence reporting.
- The Trace is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to exclusively covering gun violence.
- Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is a go-to resource for reporters who cover traumatic events.
