As we begin the new year, it’s appropriate to pause and reflect on all that has been accomplished in 2022. Our work won’t be finished soon but we are proud of victories at The Center and those in the larger ecosystem.
- The Center’s core team continues to grow! This year that included the addition of Maxayn Gooden as our Credible Messenger Community Manager. Additionally, with the support of the Stoneleigh Foundation, Oronde McClain became our Credible Messenger Newsroom Liaison. With two summer interns still working on new projects, The Center now has a small but mighty team of six!
- As the world began to emerge from COVID-19, The Center began to more actively engage in conversation with a growing group of community members invested in addressing Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis. Both the Credible Messenger Film Festival and the Better Gun Violence Reporting Workshop provided opportunities to convene journalists from every major news organization in our city and those most impacted by firearm violence, thanks to support from the Independence Public Media Foundation and Spring Point Partners, respectively.
- The Centers’ team also had the opportunity to educate others. We collaborated to produce two webinars, one sponsored by the Stoneleigh Foundation and the other in partnership with with filmmaker Terrance Pitts and Mothers in Charge. Additionally, our Director of Research Dr. Jessica Beard delivered a presentation at Reporting on Violence as a Public Health Issue: An AHCJ Summit with the Association of Healthcare Journalists. More recently, our Director Jim MacMillan introduced The Center’s work at The Wellbeing Summit.
While we are extraordinarily proud of The Center’s progress, it is important that we lift up our heads to recognize all that’s happening in Philadelphia.
- WHYY added gun violence prevention reporters Sammy Caiola and Sam Searles to their team, a bold and extremely rare investment in nuanced, community-informed journalism.
- Our partner Yvonne Latty collaborated with Sammy Caiola to produce Stop and Frisk: Revisit or Resist, a critical podcast from WHYY News and the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting at Temple University.
- We’ve also seen a growing commitment to gun violence journalism with The Trace tripling the number of Philly-based journalists and with The Center’s continued partnership with Billy Penn producing the Weekly Briefing on Gun Violence and Prevention in Philadelphia.
While we’re proud by what’s been done, there are more exciting things to come. In the coming weeks, The Center will publish the first original research produced by our collaborative. Also, in 2023, we expect to engage more Credible Messengers in telling their own stories while working with local journalists to advance empathetic, ethical, and impactful reporting.
Finally and importantly, we will implement and test the best ideas from participants in our recent workshop and announce plans to reconvene engaged stakeholders in the coming year to continue to imagine and further advance better gun violence reporting.
None of this is possible without your support. We’re so proud of all we have accomplished in 2022 and, with your partnership, we are excited about what the future holds. Please consider making a year-end gift today!