Stoneleigh Fellow Jessica Beard was featured by The Philadelphia Citizen for publishing a new study attempting to identify the effects of episodic crime reporting on gun violence.
There are many things that contribute to our longstanding — and, now, record high — gun violence crisis in Philadelphia. Is one of those things…the media?
That’s the hypothesis of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR), a nonprofit founded by former Daily News photographer Jim MacMillan to explore the theory that changing the way news media portrays gun violence could lead to a reduction in shootings.
Now a group of researchers including Temple University trauma surgeon Jessica Beard, PCGVR’s director of research, has published a study that attempts to identify the effects on shooting victims of what is termed “episodic crime reporting: the daily catalog, without context and without comment from those involved, of shootings around the city.
