{"id":2720,"date":"2018-09-14T17:30:37","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T22:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.home.ona\/newsroom18\/?p=357"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:26:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:26:24","slug":"covering-mass-shootings-journalists-can-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2018\/09\/14\/covering-mass-shootings-journalists-can-better\/","title":{"rendered":"When covering mass shootings, can journalists do better?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Moderator Versha Sharma, Akoto Ofori-Atta, Lori Shontz and Delaney Tarr discuss ways for journalists to do better in their coverage of gun violence. Photo by Zo\u00eb Jackson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every semester, Lori Shontz asks her journalism students at the University of Oregon to imagine if they were to cover a mass shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very stressful, but I think it’s really important. Otherwise, you’re just going to run on adrenaline. And how would you know what to do?\u201d Shontz asked. \u201cYou just don’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many journalists don\u2019t. But Shontz\u2019s exercise is a useful one borne from experience.<\/p>\n

In 2015, when a shooter killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon \u2013 just an hour from the University of Oregon in Eugene \u2013 three of Shontz\u2019s students went to cover it.<\/p>\n

The proximity of the tragedy inspired Shontz and fellow University of Oregon professor Nicole Dahmen to research ways to minimize harm in communities affected by violence, while accurately reporting on the tragedy. The two professors partnered to create ReportingRoseburg<\/a>, an in-depth project focused on 19 of the journalists who covered the mass shooting at the community college.<\/p>\n

In separate interviews that spanned 45 minutes to two hours, the reporters discussed their experiences from the ethical challenges they faced to their reporting techniques for covering a dangerous incident.<\/p>\n

Shontz wanted to learn what journalists could do to make communities affected by violence healthier and how best to minimize harm when covering them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs awful as it is to think about how we\u2019re going to do this, or what should we do, journalists need to take time to think about how they would cover a mass tragedy before it happens,\u201d Shontz said. \u201cThere needs to be more discussion and debriefing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marjory Stoneman Douglas student speaks out<\/h3>\n

Shontz shared her ideas on a panel with Marjory Stoneman Douglas student activist Delaney Tarr and The Trace<\/a> reporter Akoto Ofori-Atta at ONA18.<\/p>\n

Tarr recalled the overwhelming media presence in the days after the Parkland, Florida shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of a lot of lines being crossed in the days after the shooting at my school,\u201d Tarr said. \u201cIn the days after the vigil, I distinctly remember reuniting with my friends who I hadn\u2019t saw since it happened and sobbing into their arms, and hearing the click of a camera inches from my face.\u201d<\/p>\n

When tragedy happens, the media pours in. They leave soon after, too quickly to cover the grieving process or how a community recovers, said Shontz. Journalists must examine whether what they choose to cover is contributing to the number of mass shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give an immense amount of coverage to school shootings and mass shootings, which are quite rare compared to day-to-day violence,\u201d Shontz said. \u201cThose news values that we teach give a large emphasis to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, criminologist Adam Lankford has conducted research on people motivated by media attention, or fame-seeking mass shooters. He has said this category of shooter seeks out attention and is aware that this kind of act will bring them that attention.<\/p>\n

Shontz said the 2015 incident was an example of this: \u201cSeems the more people you kill, the more you\u2019re in the limelight,\u201d the Umpqua Community College shooter wrote in a blog post.<\/p>\n

What can journalists do?<\/h3>\n

\u201cI think we need to be careful about this,\u201d Shontz said. \u201cI\u2019m not in the business of withholding names. That\u2019s not what I do as a journalist. But I do think that the name doesn\u2019t need to be in the lead. The name doesn\u2019t need to be in the headline. There do not need to be repeated photos in the article.\u201d<\/p>\n

What reporters choose to put in headlines and leads can be an issue in all forms of violence. Tarr, as well as many of the student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Strong are a part of the #NoNotoriety movement \u2013 which aims to keep the names of perpetrators out of the limelight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll show their face, they\u2019ll show their words, they\u2019ll show their name, they\u2019ll talk about them,\u201d said Tarr. \u201cBut ultimately that\u2019s not where we want the narrative to be focused. All that does is retraumatize us, to give some small incremental knowledge to the public. Knowledge that doesn\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarr added that knowing the name of a shooter is fine, but the focus should not be on them alone. \u201cThis is about focusing on the victims, the survivors, the heroes. Every person that was affected by it. There\u2019s 3,500 kids and each has their own story. Why focus on the one that was horrible?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

Don’t put people in danger<\/h3>\n

Using social media to report on violence comes with a lot of responsibility. Many reporters were criticized when they chose to contact students inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, while the shooter was still at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any need to be putting that level of information out there right away, without verifying it,\u201d Shontz said. \u201cI think the Parkland students did an amazing job of covering their own story, and owning their story.<\/p>\n

“But I cannot understand any circumstance where I would ever contact someone who was in danger and say, \u2018Hey, can you give me more info about what’s going on?\u2019 That should just be stopped. There is no reason to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Shontz said she hopes newsrooms will become more intentional with their coverage, and continue to ask questions about the reporting processes in violent incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there’s a sense among many journalists that if we can shed light, if we can explain the horror of this, and if people really understand this, something will happen,\u201d Shontz said. \u201cIt\u2019s (been) 20 years and nothing\u2019s happened. Not only is nothing changing, but it\u2019s getting worse. Do we have any role in that at all?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every semester, Lori Shontz asks her journalism students at the University of Oregon to imagine if they were to cover a mass shooting. \u201cIt’s very stressful, but I think it’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10687,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[836],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"coauthors":[899],"class_list":{"0":"post-2720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-industry","8":"tag-ona18"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/IMG_3176-1-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5Q1c-HS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}