The Crime Report - Covering Gun Violence
"America has a complicated relationship with its guns--perhaps best illustrated by the fact that we don’t even know how many we own, and some of us are determined to keep it that way. The use of guns in the commission of crimes has mirrored the broad trends of American crime statistics. Gun use in crime reached unprecedented levels in 1993 and 1994, when 1.3 million Americans each year faced assailants wielding firearms. Crime statistics indicated a precipitous decline in the use of firearms in crime during the late 1990s and early years of this decade—mirroring the overall crime decline in America. However, many communities in America--in particular minority and poor communities-- suffer from an abundance of gun violence.
In an effort to further examine this dichotomy, reporting grants were awarded to seven media outlets covering gun violence in the Midwest. Participating journalism fellows attended a skills workshop on November 15, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Access the agenda here.
Following months of investigative reporting, journalism fellows reconvened on Jan. 31st and Feb. 1st at the 2011 H.F. Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In addition to attending related panels, fellows worked with veteran investigative reporter Cheryl W. Thompson of the Washington Post on their stories. Access the agenda here.
In order to assist other reporters in investigating gun-related stories, resources from the two workshops are made available on this page, in addition to the finished story and corresponding materials from the media outlets.
This special project was made possible by grants from the Joyce Foundation and the David Bohnett Foundation. It is administered by the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice, including Pulitzer-prizewinning former Chicago Tribune journalist Maurice Possley, who is the project coordinator."