Changing the Way Media Reports on Gun Violence
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
In the past 72 hours alone, seventy-one people were killed and 114 were injured by shootings in different incidents all across the country - including another mass shooting this morning near Los Angeles. Three people were killed and four were injured.
Beyond getting the facts right, which is crucial, news outlets put careful thought into how best to cover these stories. But as gun violence continues to rise, is it time for the media to rethink their approach?
NPR's Michel Martin talks to Nick Wilson, the senior director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress. And Dr. Jessica Beard from Philadelphia Center For Gun Violence Reporting discusses ways the media can avoid retraumatizing survivors of gun violence.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | breaking news, a mass shooting, following the end of a lunar New Year's festival in Monterey Park. |
| 0:05.2 | We have just heard there is now a total of 11 people dead as a result of Saturday's mass shooting in Monterey Park. |
| 0:11.5 | We're getting a different number of mass shooting also in California. |
| 0:15.2 | This time in the city of Haifloon Bay. |
| 0:17.3 | There is still a week left in January and there have already been 39 mass shootings from coast to coast. |
| 0:24.0 | It's just about impossible to ignore the recent news about gun violence. |
| 0:28.1 | 11 people killed a nine injured last week in Monterey Park near Los Angeles. |
| 0:32.6 | On Monday, seven people killed and one gravely injured in Haifloon Bay just south of San Francisco. |
| 0:38.4 | But those were just the events that got the whole country's attention. |
| 0:41.3 | In the past 72 hours alone, 71 people were killed and 114 injured by shootings in different incidents |
| 0:48.7 | all over the country in just about every region of the country. |
| 0:52.0 | That's according to the gun violence archive. |
| 0:54.5 | And that includes another shooting in Los Angeles early this morning. |
| 0:57.8 | Where three people were killed and four others were wounded. |
| 1:00.7 | Now when we report on these horrible events, responsible members of the media put time and effort into thinking about how to cover these stories. |
| 1:08.5 | Not just to get the facts right, which is of course crucial, but to consider how much to say, how much space and time to devote and which details matter in any given story. |
| 1:18.1 | But researchers are now beginning to say that that's not enough. |
| 1:21.2 | With violence as prevalent as it is and the amount of news covered given to violence, |
| 1:25.9 | the way the media cover stories can unintentionally skew the way violence is perceived. |
| 1:31.3 | There was work that came out in the early 90s by Shanto Ayangar looking at whether or not the way that news stories are told |
| 1:39.4 | could affect the kind of attributions of responsibility that viewers or readers might make. |
| 1:46.0 | So if you tell a news story about individual people, individual problems, |
... |
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