Above: Last month alone, our staffers visited the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Tufts University and Washington and Lee University in person. We Zoomed into 27 US newsrooms with the Poynter Institute and to present our research at the Guggenheim Symposium on Crime In America. And we did about 1,000 more good things. MORE INFO
So far this year, our team has visited with: The Center for Media and Risk and SAFELab at the University of Pennsylvania • Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute • The Institute for Storycraft and Information Gathering at Tufts University • The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication • The International Communications Association • The National Association of Black Journalists • The Online News Association • Poynter Institute for Media Studies • The Law & Justice Journalism Project • • Report for America • Guggenheim Symposium on Crime In America • The Council on Criminal Justice • The Full Frame Initiative • The Schemel Forum at the University of Scranton • Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation • The American Psychiatric Association • The Stoneleigh Foundation • Emerson College • Swarthmore College • Washington and Lee University • Temple University • University of California San Francisco • Medical College of Wisconsin • The University of Colorado • The Ohio State University • The New York Amsterdam News • FOX 29 News Philadelphia • The Philadelphia Inquirer • NBC10 Philadelphia • WURD Radio • WHYY News • The Trace • Power 99 • WDAS
We are proud of our progress and excited to contribute significantly to addressing Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis while shaping journalism practices along the way. But we need your help.
We convened our first Gun Violence Prevention Reporter Certification Workshop last week in the Cope House at the Awbury Arboretum in the East Germantown section of Philadelphia.
Twenty-five journalists and 15 community-based gun violence prevention experts participated, including journalists from four other cities and two national news organizations. All participants received certificates identifying them as PCGVR 2023 Gun Violence Prevention Reporting Fellows.
The workshop was led by Prof. Jennifer Midberry of Lehigh University and Manny Smith of Yahoo News, who have both played critical roles in our organization’s development since inception. Our director of research Dr. Jessica Beard also presented as well as Prof. Yvonne Latty, director of the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting at Temple University.
The curriculum was informed by our own research, live events, virtual brainstorming calls and listening sessions convened during the past four years, including responses from journalists who report on gun violence, community representatives with extensive lived experience, journalism educators from several universities and our multidisciplinary research collaborative.
We plan to scale up this workshop nationally in the spring and you can stay up to date with our plans by subscribing to our free Weekly Brief email newsletter.
Above: Oronde McClain speaks during our first Credible Messenger Film Festival in 2022.
The Stoneleigh Foundation has announced that our newsroom liaison Oronde McClain has been selected among their 2023-2025 Emerging Leader Fellows.
Oronde will lead new project here at PCGVR, titled: Centering the Voices of Firearm Survivors in Media, and in this role will be working to identify, recruit, and support survivors of firearm violence who will make themselves available to local journalists via a secure, digital directory.
The Stoneleigh Foundation has been Addressing Philadelphia’s Gun Violence Epidemic through a growing portfolio of investments focused on gun violence prevention in recent years, also supports our director of research and Stoneleigh Fellow Dr. Jessica Beard and has been essential to our growth and impact.
The It’s All Journalism podcast digs into our work with our director of research Dr. Jessica Beard. LISTEN
A new report from Save Our Streets host Bill Anderson on Fox 29 Philadelphia features several of our staffers and key partners sharing their personal stories of survival.
Watch it now: Save Our Streets: The Survivors
From left above: PCGVR intern Dashawn Walker, Armond James, PCGVR community manager Maxayn Gooden, TJ Walker, Angela Wade, PCGVR newsroom liaison Oronde McClain, Bill Anderson of FOX 29 and Curtis Singleton. Armond and TJ are participating in current PCGVR Credible Messenger projects and Armond and Angela will appear in the upcoming documentary The Second Trauma, hosted and co-produced by Oronde.
Left to right: Oronde McCain, Dashawn Walker and Maxayn Gooden.
Congratulations to our new intern Dashawn Walker and staffers Maxayn Gooden and Oronde McClain, each of whom has been recognized with the Lenfest Next Generation Award. Four other new recipients are also past, present or incoming participants in our Credible Messenger Reporting Project.
Dashawn is a Shippensburg University student from Philadelphia and has joined in our efforts to end harmful news reporting and raise the voices of survivors, like himself. The Lenfest Next Generation Fund has also supported our previous interns Sheila Hodges and Maria Mitri.
We had an incredible August at PCGVR, making the case for better gun violence reporting on panels at three national conferences, culminating with the Online News Association (ONA) Conference here in Philadelphia. READ MORE
We are grateful to NBC10 for joining in us in the pursuit of more empathetic, ethical, impactful reporting in gun violence and prevention. WATCH THE VIDEOS
We gathered at Temple University on July 29 for our Second Annual Credible Messenger Film Festival, this time screening several short documentaries from some of our favorite partnering organizations, each followed by panel discussions including some of the producers, participants and other media experts. VIEW THE SLIDESHOW
More than 40 people attended our first Credible Messenger Link-Up and Info Session on May 6 at Temple University. We hope to launch five new reporting teams in our Credible Messenger Reporting Project soon and the first step is to apply. MORE PHOTOS AND INFO
Photographs by Kriston Jae Bethel
Our team joined the Full Frame Initiative and another special guest recently to discuss how solutions might be unlocked by fundamentally shifting the way we talk about gun violence. The panel included Maxayn Gooden, Oronde McClain and Jim MacMillan from our Center as well as Cheryl Thompson-Morton, Black Media Initiative Director at the Newmark J-School at CUNY, and was moderated by Tanya Tucker, Chief of National Engagement and Partnerships at the Full Frame Initiative.
We recently had the opportunity to present our work to the Firearm Injury Prevention Institute at the University of Colorado.
Our team participated in “Changing the Narrative on Gun Violence: The Role of Media,” from the Stoneleigh Foundation. WATCH THE VIDEO
Nearly 60 Philadelphia TV news journalists, community leaders and other experts came together to imagine how we can lead the way in our city to advance the most ethical, empathetic and impactful reporting possible. READ MORE
Our director of research Dr. Jessica Beard discussed our work on Trauma Code at WBAI in New York.
Tashawn Strother, a community journalist from our Credible Messenger Reporting Project, hosts an audio documentary sharing her family’s journey after her son Walter Willis was shot and critically wounded on New Year’s Eve in 2019. Voices include our Director of Research Dr. Jessica Beard, who is also the trauma surgeon who cared for Walter – and Walter himself. LISTEN: BEHIND THE SCENES INTERVIEWS
We organized the inaugural Better Gun Violence Reporting Summit at WHYY in Philadelphia shortly in late 2019. Nearly 250 people attended from around the city and across the nation. VIEW THE INTERACTIVE AGENDA
In advance of the Summit, we invited 15 Philadelphia journalists who play some role covering gun violence to spend a day with 30 residents from core communities impacted by the problem in the city. READ MORE
