{"id":26979,"date":"2025-11-06T19:53:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26979\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T19:53:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:53:13","slug":"how-philly-became-ground-zero-for-rethinking-gun-violence-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26979\/","title":{"rendered":"How Philly became ground zero for rethinking gun violence reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a two-part series about Philadelphia\u2019s role in shaping gun violence reporting across the country. This first installment focuses on the rising awareness of gun violence as a public health issue. The second installment highlights survivor and journalist voices and collaboration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Journalists who report on gun violence are swimming in uncharted waters, and a conference held last month in Philly dove headfirst into this rapidly changing environment, attracting nearly 120 journalists, scientific researchers, educators and survivors of gun violence to discuss the question of \u201cWhat Now? Gun Violence Reporting in Unprecedented Times.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The good news: deaths by gun violence have fallen steadily to record lows since cresting during the pandemic. The city ended 2024 with the lowest number of homicides in a decade \u2013 and that same trend is echoed in cities across the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n

The bad news: disinformation, conspiracy theories and \u201cvacuums of information\u201d threaten to overwhelm and perhaps overturn that progress.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aben\u00e9 Clayton speaks at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting\u2019s 2025 national conference. (Photos by Kriston Jae Bethel for PCGVR)<\/p>\n

\u201cGun violence before this year was already one of the most complex, multi-faceted of topics, in this country in particular,\u201d explained Jim MacMillan, journalist and founder of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR). \u201cNow, events of the last few months have changed the demands on journalists.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time,\u201d MacMillan noted, \u201cit\u2019s becoming more clear that the same things that worked for prevention last year will work this year. But we are dealing with journalists who are swimming in a completely unprecedented ecosystem of disinformation and changes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Changing perceptions<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, prevention work from experts and advocates has focused on finding and creating solutions, and raising awareness of the idea of gun violence as a public health issue<\/a>, rather than as a criminal justice issue. Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy gave the issue a mainstream boost in 2024, but popular perception of and news coverage on gun violence has continued to focus on crime and high-profile shootings.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jessica Beard observed the disconnect in real life through her work as a trauma surgeon with Temple University Hospital, leading her to dedicate her time and research<\/a> into finding and promoting solutions-focused approaches that take into account community firearm violence, also known as interpersonal gun violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take care of people who are shot, so I am deeply invested in preventing gun violence. When I tried to read news reports about my patients and about gun violence more generally in Philadelphia, I learned about episodic crime reports framing violence more as a crime issue than a public health issue,\u201d Dr. Beard said. \u201cFor the past seven years, [I\u2019ve been] building research, evidence and recommendations for journalists to tell the stories better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Trauma surgeon and PCGVR Research Director Dr. Jessica Beard leads a session at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting\u2019s 2025 national conference. (Photos by Kriston Jae Bethel for PCGVR)<\/p>\n

The resulting resources \u2014 a reporting toolkit, an online platform to connect journalists and survivors, formal training, a short documentary video, and a professional organization \u2014 are now proving foundational to the evolving national conversation around how gun violence is portrayed in news media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of research does exist when it comes to self-inflicted injury or mass shootings that can guide journalists to report on those events. But far less or nothing [is] out there when it comes to community gun violence,\u201d said Dr. Beard, who also serves as director of research with PCGVR.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On her and PCGVR\u2019s work, \u201ceach step has been incremental. All the work has been collaborative with folks who we consider our community: People with lived experience, journalists, scholars. There have been multiple, different, great growing points where we\u2019ve been able to identify needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the Better Gun Violence Reporting Summit \u2014 hosted at WHYY\u2019s offices in 2019 \u2014 focused on human-centered design, attendee feedback \u201cidentified a need for a toolkit, and also building connection between survivors and journalists,\u201d Dr. Beard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd finally, a need for training,\u201d she continued, noting the progression from the smaller program in 2019 to this month\u2019s conference on the national stage. \u201cIt has been organic, but incremental, and we use research in the background to inform everything we\u2019re doing. We add layer upon layer and it has been very collaborative with folks around the country doing the same work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Temple University\u2019s Prof. Yvonne Latty speaks during a panel of gun violence survivors and advocates at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting\u2019s 2025 national conference. (Photos by Kriston Jae Bethel for PCGVR)<\/p>\n

Evidence-based and solutions-driven<\/p>\n

Since joining PCGVR, Dr. Beard has published dozens of research studies<\/a> around trauma, gun violence, public health, the impact of media coverage on neighborhoods and people, and community-based violence \u2014 making her one of the country\u2019s leading experts on these issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her research, and that of other health professionals, also had the benefit of being part of the boom<\/a> in such work after the end of the Dickey Amendment<\/a> in 2019. The law \u2013 passed by Congress in 1996 after years of lobbying by the National Rifle Association (NRA) \u2013 restricted funding for research into the relationship between gun violence and public health for more than 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During those two decades, mass shootings<\/a> \u2013 particularly at schools \u2013 skyrocketed<\/a>, as did criticism of the Dickey Amendment and the NRA, decreasing public support and\/or apathy to the amendment\u2019s annual inclusion in government funding bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the restrictions ended in 2019, researchers rushed to make up for lost time<\/a>. Still, the silence had a lasting impact<\/a> and the legacy of sensational crime reports in media narratives (like the adage \u201cif it bleeds, it leads\u201d) remained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most exciting things today is the conversations people are having,\u201d Dr. Beard told Billy Penn. \u201cWhen I think about past conversations, these are really deep and nuanced down to the nitty gritty about how to make gun violence reporting better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Eric Marsh Jr moderates a panel talk with the board of the Association of Gun Violence Reporters at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting\u2019s 2025 national conference. (Photos by Kriston Jae Bethel for PCGVR)<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge now? \u201cGetting the word out. Reaching journalists. Moving to a more national presence. And in the research, it\u2019s sustaining the research and taking it to the next level,\u201d Dr. Beard said.<\/p>\n

Next up for Dr. Beard is completing a project \u201cthat looks at TV news reporting and the rate of harmful news content elements in the TV news reports. We\u2019ve done a lot of work on that and putting that together and hoping to present it in some public health places and to journalists.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After that comes taking action in practice: \u201cTo work with journalists to create TV news reports that minimize harm. And test their impact on people with lived experience,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve identified harms, want to support journalists to make better news reports, and then see how people respond to them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Part II in the series will be published tomorrow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the first in a two-part series about Philadelphia\u2019s role in shaping gun violence reporting across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[227,758,17674,17675,69,17676,71,70],"class_list":["post-26979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-education","tag-gun-violence","tag-jessica-beard","tag-jim-macmillan","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-center-for-gun-violence-reporting-pcgvr","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}