Al Tompkins
Mar. 26, 2013
9:02 am
The Huffington Post has compiled and mapped news reports of gun-related homicides and accidental deaths in the U.S. since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
For 98 days, a team of Huffington Post researchers scanned news reports from around the … Read more
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Mar. 7, 2013
2:39 pm
AP Stylebook | NAB
The Associated Press has introduced guidance on how to use information about mental illness in coverage. "Do not describe an individual as mentally ill unless it is clearly pertinent to a story and the diagnosis is properly sourced," the new Stylebook entry begins.
In the immediate aftermath of
the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 20 children and 7 adults dead, there was much speculation about the mental health of shooter Adam Lanza.
By email, AP spokesperson Paul Colford acknowledged that shooting was a factor.
"Newtown was certainly among the reasons we considered this carefully, as well as the run of other mass shootings where the state of the shooter was an issue. Editors heard from and sounded out mental health experts and welcomed their input," he said.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Jeff Sonderman
Jan. 10, 2013
10:20 am
By now you’ve heard about how The Journal News of Westchester County, N.Y., published the names and addresses of thousands of local gun permit holders.
And you’ve heard that many gun owners felt The Journal News was either insulting their … Read more
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Jan. 4, 2013
11:10 am
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Jan. 3, 2013
7:59 am
When I looked at the state of reporting on mental-health issues after the Newtown, Conn., shootings,
I saw a forbidding landscape. John Head sees improvement. When he started reporting on mental health for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the turn of the century, a diagnosis or even a suggestion that a violent person was mentally ill "was end of story," he said in a telephone interview. "That explained it."
-
- John Head
But after some news outlets reported that
shooter Adam Lanza may have had Asperger's syndrome, Head said, "I’ve also seen things like reporting that the mother might have been trying to get him committed. I’ve seen in most cases people follow up. I’ve also seen a lot of reporting about how difficult it is for a family, or in this case a single mother, to deal with a child who is suffering."
And in fact one of the most-talked-about analyses that followed Newtown was written by a woman whose son has extremely challenging behavioral issues. Liza Long's provocatively titled essay
"I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" has spawned lots of responses, from
a psychiatrist, from
a parenting blogger, from
Hanna Rosin.
That kind of conversation is an improvement, NPR science reporter Jon Hamilton said: "Virginia Tech, Columbine — in every one of these instances there’s been some talk about mental health issues. I think what’s happened is the experts and advocacy groups have realized it’s a given it's gonna come out and you should get out in front."
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Dec. 27, 2012
10:06 am
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Dec. 26, 2012
8:24 am
The Journal News honored victims of
the Newtown, Conn., shooting on its front page Christmas Day with memorial candles that named the 26 students and staff killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The paper chose
a less lyrical approach last weekend, when -- in response to the shooting --
it published maps with the names and home addresses of people who had been issued pistol permits in Westchester County, where the Gannett paper is based, and nearby Rockland County.
- Newtown, Conn., is about 43 miles northeast of Westchester County, N.Y., where The Journal News is based.
Readers were outraged, as were
conservative commentators. Soon after the paper published the data, acquired through Freedom of Information requests, bloggers published what they believe to be the home addresses of
Gannett CEO Gracia Martore,
the paper's publisher,
its editor, and the story's reporter.
That response seems entirely appropriate to Poynter senior faculty Al Tompkins, who said by email: "I hope any journalist who does this is willing to be accessible and responsive. If it is unfettered openness you want, you jolly well better set the example."
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon and Julie Moos
Dec. 21, 2012
2:41 pm
At a Friday "press conference" (no questions were allowed), National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre provided
the gun lobby's explanation for
the shooting deaths of 28 people a week ago today in Newtown, Conn. Among LaPierre's culprits: the media. Here is a breakdown of ways the NRA says media causes gun violence, along with a factcheck.
Media inspires copycats:
The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Jeff Sonderman
Dec. 20, 2012
8:32 am
Reuters | Nieman Lab
Ben Walsh writes that his unfiltered Twitter stream “was basically unusable as an information source” during the Newtown school shooting.
Because he follows so many journalists and news organizations, his timeline repeated the same facts … Read more
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Dec. 19, 2012
11:06 am
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
