TELL THE STORY OF GUN VIOLENCE AND PREVENTION FROM YOUR COMMUNITY

The Credible Messenger Reporting Project will provide stipends for community representatives and professional journalists. Apply for support now:

The Center for Gun Violence Reporting at Community College of Philadelphia is now seeking applicants to join the Credible Messenger Reporting Project and tell the story of gun violence and prevention in Philadelphia from the community perspective.

Community reporters will be paired with professional journalists to build trusting relationships, learn from each other, craft stories together and get the news out where it can make a difference.

We hope to see some of the resulting reports shared by local news organizations, while other might be more effective on social media platforms. And we hope to find professional journalists learning more about engaging new audiences. The possibilities are endless.

The Center will provide equal funding to both partners and cover related expenses, including stipends for story subjects from the community in some cases. Total budgets between $500 and $5,000 for each team project will be considered for approval.

Community representatives should compete the following:

Credible Messenger Application

Professional journalists should complete the following:

Editor / Producer Application

Approved participants should team up and complete the following:

Project Proposal Form

COVID-19 safety guidance: PHL | PA | CDC

Contact: This is a pilot project and we can adapt to you feedback. Please send us your: Questions, Concerns and Recommendations

Welcome to the Center

Community College of Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting will focus on preventing shootings and saving lives by changing the narrative around this public health crisis.

The Center will improve reporting on community gun violence by collaborating with journalists and local organizations to raise voices from neighborhoods and broaden the range of expert sources quoted in stories while de-emphasizing the predominant law enforcement narrative.

Programs developed at the Center will include community training sessions on issues such as media literacy, finding better sources, and holding civic leaders accountable. The Center will also create opportunities for members of affected communities to meet with traditional journalists and learn from each other.

Building these trusting relationships will empower vulnerable populations to tell, publish and distribute their own stories. This will help community gun violence to be addressed as a public health challenge that can be eradicated with intervention, education and the pursuit of economic justice.

Reports from several cities show elevated rates of COVID-19 cases in the same neighborhoods suffering the most gun violence, suggesting that the same social inequities fuel both epidemics. These overlapping challenges create channels for communication and opportunities for intervention.

Here’s what you can do

The Center for Gun Violence Reporting is the signature project of The Initiative for Gun Violence Reporting, which also organizes events and supports research. We have good reason to believe this work makes a difference and your contributions will help us do more. More info: ibgvr.wedid.it

NEW RESEARCH: HALF OF ALL SHOOTING VICTIMS WERE NOT REPORTED IN THE NEWS

PCGVR director Jim MacMillan was named among the authors of a new study in the journal Preventive Medicine titled “Making the news: Victim characteristics associated with media reporting on firearm injury.” In summary: Researchers and the public turn to the media for information on firearm violence. Half of all shooting victims were not reported in the news. Deaths, multiple shootings, women, and children were more often covered by the media. Comprehensive data on firearm injury is essential. (View the study.)

Reporting on gun violence comes with exceptional challenges, responsibilities and opportunities. The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting wants to help.

Join the community

Subscribe here to receive free monthly email newsletters from The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting and learn about opportunities here at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting

Hosting organization

The Center resides within the Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership at Community College of Philadelphia.

Critical partnerships

Our Weekly Philadelphia Gun Violence Tracker now appears in the Billy Penn newsletter every Wednesday.

We’re grateful for guidance from the leaders of the Coalition of Trauma Center for Firearm Injury Prevention.

Thanks to the Fels Lab at the University of Pennsylvania for providing a Masters of Public Administration student to work on a new project we will introduce later this year.

The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting is helping us get organized.

We are grateful to the community at Mothers in Charge for partnering on our first few events and latest projects.

Leaders and members from The Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists have been critical advisors and partners from our earliest events and programming.

We’re now collaborating with the Philadelphia Obituary Project on how we can serve communities better together.

We’re grateful to our friends at Resolve Philly for helping us get organized.

We are honored to collaborate with Seeking Solutions: Gun Violence in Missouri, from the Kansas City Star and Report for America.

The Center is grateful for support from the following organizations:

The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting is organizing the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. The Initiative is led by Philadelphia multimedia journalist and educator Jim MacMillan and was created during his term as a fellow with the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. This project is co-managed with fiscal sponsorship by CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia and is a member of CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia. Visit IBGVR.org for more information. Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Photographs, logos and embedded content may not be covered by this license. ©2020 - The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting and The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting.