Insight Spotlight: Center for Gun Violence Reporting

Media coverage of gun violence can do more harm than good and retraumatize survivors and their family and friends.   I speak to Jim MacMillian and Oronde McClain from the Philadephia Center for Gun Violence Reporting about the Philadelphia premiere of a powerful documentary “The Second Trauma” what shows the harmful effects of episodic gun violence and how the media can do better.  The event takes place April 17th at 7 pm at the Temple Performing Arts Center.
For more information:  PCGVR.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Lorraine Ballad. Moral critics ofmedia argue that the sensationalized nature of reporting
can glorify perpetrators, potentially inspiring copycatincidents. Also, the focus on dramatic
narratives can overshadow the victims stories,leading to a desensitization to the human toll
of such tragedies. Additionally, therush to be the first to break news

(00:22):
can result in inaccuracies and misinformation,further complicating public understanding and response to these
events. Some critique the media's tendencyto disproportionately cover certain types of shootings,
potentially perpetrating biases and neglecting broader discussionsabout underlying societal issues like gun control and
mental health. Overall, these criticismsunderscore the need for responsible, ethical journalism

(00:47):
that prioritizes accuracy, sensitivity, andcontext in its covering of shootings. That's
why the Philadelphia Center for Gun ViolenceReporting is hosting the Philadelphia premiere of the
short film The Second Trauma on Aprilseventeenth. Their mission is to encourage thoughtful,
ethical coverage of shooting to tell usmore. Jim McMillan, director of

(01:10):
the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reportingand assistant director of Temple's Logan Center for
Urban Investigative Reporting and a Rendez McClainnewsroom liaison at the Philadelphia Center for Gun
Violence Reporting, an Emerging Leader Fellowat the Stoneleigh Foundation. He is also
a producer and is in this documentary. And I'm so excited to speak to

(01:30):
you both. I'm going to startwith you, Jim, tell us what
was the inspiration for trying to dothis documentary. There are two answers to
that question, and first of all, thank you for inviting us to be
here with you today. One sortof origin is that I spent a great
deal of time reporting on gun violencein Philadelphia. I was a photographer with

(01:51):
the Philadelphia Daily News, and tobe perfectly candid, I did a lot
of the sort of reporting that ourresearch now shows is harmful. So I
started getting in a double feedback andcritical feedback while I was in the field.
Then as I went on and startedstudying more aspects of journalism after that,
I started better understanding the harm ofreporting. Another aspect of the information

(02:13):
driving this is that we have aninterdisciplinary research collaborative at the Philadelphia Center for
Gun Violence Reporting, and we publisheda study last year in which our research
team interviewed survivors of gun violence inPhiladelphia to get their opinions, and they
reported on the harm. The otherorigin story is also I think really interesting,
which is A Rondez Maclin came tothe Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting

(02:36):
originally in our community reporting project,the Credible Messenger Reporting Project, and produced
a documentary Professor Yvon Laddie, who'sthe director of the Logan Center. This
is a collaboration of two organizations,right, and she had just started her
job at the Logan Center when Ireached out to meet with her because I
was excited to reconnect. We hadworked at The Daily News together thirty years

(02:57):
earlier, and it happened just soincidentally that we first met for the first
time in at least ten years onthe day when A. Runde had organized
the screening of his documentary. SoI invited A Rondez to the I invited
Professor Letti to a Runde screening.She saw the event, she saw him
on stage, she saw him inhis element with his community and his leadership.

(03:19):
I think kind of decided right thenand there to produce a documentary centering
him and he's the host, he'salso the co producer. I want to
get to you, Arundi, becausein this documentary, not only are you
the producer and you do the interviews, but you are also the subject as
well, because you, in fact, can speak from very personal experience about

(03:40):
what it was like to see yourcase described in the media. And I
don't think I even really remembered this. You were ten, right when you
were shot in the back of thehead, and you went through a lot,
you were in a coma for along time, and then for the
longest time you're fat. Family andfriends didn't tell you what had happened.

(04:02):
They said that you had been ina car accident, and then one day
you turned down the TV. Whathappened? Then? I was watching Crumb
Fighters, you know, Clumbfighters waseverything Channel six, and my face popped
up and it was a reward sayingpen Year row Boys shot in the head.

(04:23):
If you know anything or see anything, please call the tip line.
And that's when I had my firstseizure because I was trying to remember what
actually happened to me. Like yousaid, I didn't know I got shot
in the head. I thought itwas a correction, right, and so
what your story illustrates very starkly isthe impact of this kind of reporting on

(04:47):
the survivors. I think we watchedthe TV news, We see the bulitz
circled in chalk, we see theyellow police tape, and we just keep
it moving. But for those individualsthat are directly impacted by that, there
can be a tremendous triggering effect.And I wonder if you can tell us

(05:08):
more about that and what you thinkthe media can do better in terms of
covering these shootings in a way thatdoesn't further traumatize the survivors. Like you
said, the guns and the bulletcasing, the yellow tape, that's traumatizing
to the survivor and the survivor familyand the Coe victims. And they just

(05:30):
take the spilight of the out ofsurvivors. They don't talk nothing about the
survivors, no follow up stories.It's just the breaking news of the pictures
that they see. And that's terrible. That's re traumatizing the survivor and or
the Coe victim. They said,focus more on the victim, how it
was like before they got shot,what actually happened on their side of the

(05:55):
story. You never see that onthe news. That's what PCGV are stories,
that's what we're trying to do.There is another story that you cover.
You do the interview with a woman, a mother who lost her son
and a shooting, and I thinkwhat really struck me there was her reaction
because she found out kind of hadan idea of what had happened, not

(06:21):
directly from the police, she foundout through media coverage. And then within
that media coverage there were so manyinaccuracies right that made what was just the
most horrific thing that a mother couldpossibly go through even more traumatic. Yes,
bless how her Angie Wade, shelost her son. They mithl his

(06:45):
name, they didn't know where hewas. She didn't know where her son
was for in three days. Theykept showing the respect, but not her
son. It was all these reportersknocking on her door. She didn't know
nothing at all, and the carwas still running and she liked that my
son was never out on them sometimes of nights. So it was so

(07:08):
like shocking and horrific to her becausesaying of what was going on, it
was like a bad dream. Andyou also interviewed the brother of the man
who was shot at Jefferson University Hospital. And once again, I think that
what the documentary does indicates so beautifullyis the impact of media coverage in that

(07:31):
particular case that became an international story. Do you have reporters coming in from
all over the place at a timewhen the last thing you want to do
is really interact with a journalist.Do you want to just deal with the
horrible tragedy that was there. Youhad lawyers, you had international news,
you had different type of our languagescoming at him, and the family was

(07:57):
still hurting. They still was cluelessbecause they didn't know what happened, because
nobody shouldn't get shot at a job, so it wasn't no clue. They
didn't know what was going on.They didn't even get the full story yet.
And you have reporters banging on theirdoor, knock on the door.
And the funny thing was like hedidn't know how they got to his number.

(08:20):
You have all these news channels callinghim, and he like, how
did you get my number? Andhis mom, I felt was so far
sorry for his mom because she wentin the room, laid in the bed
because she thought it was all adream, you know, And then reporters
they don't know what families go through. Quite frankly, you think they would
because they covered these stories all thetime. But I talked to a lot

(08:43):
of reporters that they don't understand andthey don't realize the hurt that doing because
they think they're just doing a fantasticjob, right, And that's not the
case, right, Jim, Ijust want to briefly touch on some of
the work of the Philadelphia Center forGun Violence Reporting. You've done a number
of very very impactful workshops and gatheringsof reporters and editors and even news directors,

(09:09):
and I wonder if you, ina few words, can suggest what
would make the media better when itcomes to covering shootings. Our job at
the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reportingis to we bring together journalists with people
who have been affected by gun violence, as well as researchers to talk about
what better reporting looks like. SoI don't think it's for me to decide

(09:31):
our mission and nutshell, we striveto advance more empathetic, ethical, and
impactful reporting. So what does thatmean? Empathetical? First of all,
to just, you know, tobe sympathetic to the experiences that victims and
survivors and co victims and anybody affectedby gun violence is going through or really
just sort of adhering to the standardethical practices of journalism. But impactful is

(09:54):
exploring the idea that reporting and gunviolence could play a role actually help prevent
gun violence, and consider the possibilityon that spectrum is a pendulum springs back
and forth that if it can actuallybe helpful, it could actually be harmful.
We have science, we have peerreviewed research that shows that news reporting
is harmful, but unlike other harmfulproducts like you know, cigarettes or guns,

(10:16):
the reporting can also be incredibly beneficial. It could point to evidence based
strategies, It could point to knowthe sort of public health framework that they
understanding that it's preventable, it's notinevitable, It's not like this in other
countries. It's that, you know, we have to look upstream to structural
causes and solutions. That there areall sorts of interventions that have been proven

(10:37):
by research to be effective, violenceinterruptors, hospital based intervention programs, even
fixing infrastructure, cleaning and grading lots. We think reporting should be community informed.
And when I say we, I'mtalking about five years of work with
these three communities that we bring together, that the reporting should be solutions oriented,
trauma informed, and community informed,among the things. Well, to

(11:01):
have this conversation about how the mediacan do better. There is going to
be an event that's coming up onthe seventeenth, and I am, for
full disclosure, I am moderating andI am so looking forward to this event.
So you're going to be having thePhiladelphia premiere of the Second Trauma and
you're also having a panel discussion tellus more about that. Thanks to our

(11:22):
supporters, we've made this event freeand it's going to be very helpful if
people can go to our site andregister in events, but even if not,
we'll find a way to register youon location. First, we'll screen
the documentary. It's a two hourevent, but it's a fairly short film,
about twenty five minutes. So thefirst conversation will be sort of a
fireside chat with the other two peoplewho are in the film but not in

(11:43):
this call, Angela who Angela andamand Rande. I know you mentioned Angela
Iam if you mentioned around our mind, but that's the brother of the guy
who was shot and killed at JeffersonHospital. And then the next session will
probably basically be our team. Itwill include me at Ronde as well as
doctor Jessica Beard. She is atrauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital who actually

(12:03):
cares for in their language, firearminjured patients, or we say in the
new the shooting victims. But she'salso an esteemed public health researcher who leads
the research that informs this work.And the fourth panelist is Professor Yvon Laddie,
who I mentioned. She is thedirector of the Logan Center at Temple.
We both work together at the PhiladelphiaDaily and as many years ago.

(12:24):
She's also she's incredible. She's afilmmaker, author, playwright, and podcaster
among other things. And we're goingto talk about the missions of our centers,
how we collaborated to make this documentaryand both the strategies for better gun
violence reporting. If people would liketo participate, that's happening on April seventeenth,

(12:45):
and it's at the Temple Performing ArtsCenter on Broad Street. Starts at
seven o'clock. If people would liketo register or find out more about the
Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting,where do they go? You'll find the
most information on our center site withthe Philadelphia site for Gun Violent Reporting is
a pc g v R dot org. I know that was a long one,

(13:09):
but you know what, if youjust google the Second Trauma documentary,
you'll find all sorts of ways intothe ticket link. If you google just
the Second Trauma, you'll get somepsycho psychiatric education. But the Second Trauma
Documentary are the keywords that we'll getyou to everything you need. We look
forward to the Philadelphia premier of theshort film The Second Trauma on April seventeenth.

(13:30):
Jim McMillan, director of the PhiladelphiaCenter for Gun Violence Reporting, assistant
director of the Temple's Logan Center forUrban Investigative Reporting, and a Rendez McLain
newsroom liaison at the Philadelphia Center forGun Violence Reporting, an Emerging Leader fellow
at the Stoneleigh Foundation, and alsothe producer and the interviewer and also sort

(13:50):
of the subject as well of TheSecond Trauma, the movie that everyone should
see. Thank you both for joiningus here today and see you on the seventeenth