When Dr. Jessica Beard began working as a trauma surgeon in Philadelphia, she turned to local news to understand why there were so many firearm-injured patients arriving at her hospital. What she found was not helpful.

Very little mention of root causes. Very little mention of possible solutions. The way gun violence was framed in the media made it all seem so, well, inevitable. She wanted to change that.

Enter Jim MacMillan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philly photographer on a mission to change the way gun violence was reported in his city. Jim is the founder of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR), a non-profit that is educating journalists about better ways to report gun violence, with much of its work drawing on the research of Dr. Beard, who is now PCGVR’s director of research.

PCGVR works closely with victims and survivors of gun violence in an effort to change the narrative from “gun violence is inevitable” to “gun violence is preventable.”

Resources:

pcgvr.org

Better Gun Violence Reporting Toolkit

PCGVR weekly newsletter

Systemic disparities in reporting on community firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia, PA, USA

Public health framing of firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia, PA, USA: a quantitative content analysis

“Like I’m a nobody:” firearm-injured peoples’ perspectives on news media reporting about firearm violence

More about Jim MacMillan

More about Dr. Jessica Beard

As per trauma-informed practice, each guest in The Trauma Beat podcast is afforded the opportunity to review and veto a list of anticipated questions before the recorded conversation. Ongoing, informed consent is sought throughout the production process.

This conversation was recorded in March 2024.

For more trauma-informed storytelling resources, visit pickupcommunications.com.