The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting is honored and excited to help launch this new organization. Launch team members participating in this webinar include: Abené Clayton, who leads the Gun & Lies project for The Guardian and specializes in covering community-based gun violence and California’s criminal legal system; Sammy Caiola of the Kensington Voice, who is is also a Dart Center fellow and was the first gun violence prevention reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia. Jennifer Mascia, who is a founding staffer at The Trace, a CNN contributor and previously reported for The New York Times, and Alain Stephens, an independent journalist who has developments in firearms technology and the ATF. His investigations into auto sears, toy guns, and ghost guns have led to congressional action. One launch team member was unable to attend: Kaitlin Washburn of the Chicago Sun-Times also writes about gun violence and prevention reporting for the Association of Health Care Journalists and previously reported for the Missouri Gun Violence Project at The Kansas City Star. We are grateful to Laura Bennett, director of the The Center for Just Journalism, for hosting this webinar.
By Sammy Caiola
In the spirit of professional media organizations such as the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists, four gun violence reporters posted across the U.S. have created the Association of Gun Violence Reporters for purposes of networking, skill sharing and camaraderie.
Sammy Caiola, a former WHYY News gun violence prevention reporter who now covers policing and public safety at Kensington Voice, manages the initiative from Philadelphia. Co-presidents include Kaitlin Washburn, a Chicago Sun-Times reporter and AHCJ beat leader for firearm violence and trauma, Trace senior news writer Jennifer Mascia, and Abené Clayton, a reporter for The Guardian’s Guns and Lies series.
AGVR is a project of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting, launched in 2020 to help reporters tell more nuanced, solutions-forward, public health focused stories about gun violence in hopes of minimizing harm to survivors. The new organization aims to have a national presence, beginning with chapters in D.C., Chicago and New York.
Covering gun violence can create vicarious trauma for journalists who cover it, especially when reporters are pressured to produce content that is misaligned with their values, or frames the issue as hopeless or inevitable. AGVR aims to provide space for reporters to talk about this emotionally intense content.
The movement for better gun violence reporting is already well underway, with a focus on prevention. AL.com now has a violence prevention reporter, and Amsterdam News has a gun violence reporter on its investigative team. NPR’s Gulf States Newsroom recently hired a senior reporter covering justice, incarceration and gun violence. The Guardian continues to add to its “Guns and Lies” series, launched in 2019.
The Association of Gun Violence Reporters aims to elevate gun violence as a systemic problem and address prevention on the level of health care, education, etc. The founding reporters hope to create a better map of where gun violence journalists are and what they’re covering, and encourage collaboration between gun violence reporters. If you touch this beat, no matter what your position in the newsroom is, please consider joining us.
We’d like to hear from journalists about what AGVR can facilitate that would be beneficial. Some initiatives we’re considering include:
- Member directory
- Job board
- Chapter support and in-person chapter events
- Trainings
- Mentorship
- Opportunities for cross-publication
Please send thoughts and/or voice interest via the form below.
Association of Gun Violence Reporters interest form
First meeting in Philadelphia
