Beyond ‘thoughts and prayers’: Covering the death of a journalist in a meaningful way

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Hours after undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound, Spectrum News 13 photojournalist Jesse Walden found enough strength Thursday to remember his reporting partner, Dylan Lyons, who was killed by a shooter who ran up to their news car and opened fire.

(Screenshot/Facebook)

Elsewhere in Orlando, prosecutors stood before reporters to explain how a 19-year-old with a dozen prior arrests could be free, county officials tried to explain how they would try harder to control violent crime, and community leaders said they would try again to persuade state lawmakers to pass meaningful gun reform laws.

But journalists that I texted with and spoke to Thursday all said different versions of the same predictable theme. I didn’t take precise notes, but the conversations were roughly like this:

I am angry today.

I am not sure how long I can keep doing this job.

That could have been me. Yesterday I was doing exactly the same thing as Dylan and Jesse. I was covering a murder, the killer was still out there and there I was at the scene, in my news car, writing my story and hoping the killer was not coming back.

If we cover stories about guns, we are called anti-gun. If we don’t ask questions about guns, we seem like we are afraid to ask important questions. I know we will write those stories and I dread the hateful response.

I see they have a GoFundMe account for the journalists’ funeral expenses. Is that what we get now, a publicly funded funeral from the same public that hates journalists?

It is all so predictable. We know the steps that follow mass shootings. Erica Goode, a visiting professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, described it this way: “You do the day story, and then you do the victim stories, and then you profile the shooter.”

We have done this so many times and, once again, it is unfolding exactly as we knew it would.

KnowYourMeme gives us this, the Columbine Effect, that has worn well over time. Nothing changes.

(KnowYourMeme)

I have some thoughts about how this post-tragedy coverage could be different.

Dig into how a 19-year-old young man can have a dozen arrests on his record from the last five years. State Attorney Monique Worrell told reporters in a somber Thursday news conference, “This individual’s only adult offense was the possession of marijuana, 4.6 grams of marijuana that my office did not charge because when you have a quantity that low, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement does not test the substance and that means the state attorney’s office cannot prove the case.”

The prosecutor told reporters why her office cannot consider criminal acts committed by juveniles, a hole in the judicial process that she says should change. She told reporters:

I will go further to say that Florida law prohibits me from discussing the details of any juvenile disposition, so I am unable to discuss with you or confirm or deny the existence of any juvenile dispositions that happened regarding this individual. But I will say that juvenile dispositions are not qualified as convictions.

So, when we say that an individual has a certain amount of juvenile ‘arrests with no convictions,’ that statement is out of context because there is nowhere in the state of Florida when a child is arrested that the result of that arrest is a ‘conviction.’ I also want to say that in this legislative session, I have proposed to our legislature that they change the rules regarding juvenile justice to extend the period of time that children can be held in juvenile programs. Under the current state of the law, jurisdiction is lost to the Department of Juvenile Justice when a child is sentenced. That means the court, nor the state attorney’s office has a say in what ultimately is the program or the length of time that a child is kept in a program.

The prosecutor described a system in which a child can be found guilty of serious crimes but, because he is a child, the conviction does not show up in the records as a “conviction.” Even after being found guilty, the court and prosecutors lose control over what happens to the juvenile.

Look for trends. Flower shops always do big business after mass shootings. Gun sales often rise, too.

(Screenshot/Twitter)

Orange County Sheriff John Mina said a few things Thursday that are worthy of exploration — not just around Orlando but in your community, too.

The sheriff told reporters that mental health is a huge issue. “We respond to close to 4,000 calls for service (for mental health issues) and not one arrest was made,” he said. He also said violent crime in Orange County is declining even while the population is growing.

Dig into such statements. If they are true, find out why they are true and what is working. Do not just focus on what is broken. Whatever is working, what would be needed to do more of that?

One trend to explore is how despite high-profile gun crimes, Americans have not changed their minds much about making gun laws stricter. The percentage of Americans who say gun laws should be stricter has fallen in the last three decades.

(Gallup)

Generally, researchers find that gun owners own more guns than they have in the past, but the percentage of gun owners in America is about the same as it has been for more than 30 years.

(Gallup)

Do not allow politicians to grandstand without taking a stand. After every mass shooting, politicians promise to be tough on criminals. Democrats scream that we should tighten gun safety laws and Republicans push to loosen them. Journalists should not include politicians’ comments in the news coverage if they promise no specific action.

(Screenshot/Twitter)

I recommend that journalists who decide to publish a politician’s “thoughts and prayers” should routinely also include a link to that politician’s votes on major gun and gun violence legislation. Here is Rick Scott’s record on gun issues as governor of Florida and a U.S. senator.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said nothing about the Orlando shooting, but did hold a news conference condemning President Joe Biden’s immigration policy and held a photo opportunity with Tiger Woods opening an indoor golf venue. DeSantis just finished a three-city “Law and Order” tour in which he said he is committed to safety. This is his record on gun issues.

If you air local officials’ promises to convene a citizens’ panel to get to the root of the crime problem, take a fresh look at the Citizens Safety Task Force recommendations that emerged from other shootings. In Orlando, the committee held 52 community meetings and wrote a 52-page report packed with recommendations. That was two years ago. The committee was formed in fall 2020 when Orange County experienced seven shootings in three weeks involving children 17 and younger.

The committee made seven recommendations in 2021, prioritized from top to bottom:

• Use a Racial Equity Lens and Trauma-Informed Approach to Implement All Task Force Recommendations
• Expand/enhance access to effective youth, and parenting, mental and behavioral health programs in the target zip codes
• Transform the criminal justice system to reduce disproportionate arrests and incarceration of Black youth
• Support economic development, reduce poverty and address family economic insecurity in the target zip codes
• Reduce access to illegal firearms
• Develop and implement a comprehensive plan to improve neighborhood livability in the target zip codes
• Communicate key issues and programs to the community

Sheriff Mina told reporters that crime in Orange County has dropped in recent years, even while the population grew.

Explore the significant disconnect between local, state and federal officials about what constitutes “common sense gun laws.” Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings said he will push the state legislature to pass “common sense gun laws.” But before he gets to Tallahassee to talk with lawmakers, a bill that will legalize concealed weapons that do not require a permit or safety training will likely pass. It has loud support.

Two years ago, the Citizen’s Safety Task Force took no position on open-carry laws, saying:

A noticeable group of Orange County Community Crime Survey respondents (about 20 percent) recommends some form of open or conceal carry legislation with the intent of arming law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from individuals with firearms who intend to harm. The reality is that this method’s effectiveness is unclear.

Sheriff Mina opposes the unpermitted concealed-carry legislation, but many other sheriffs support it. The Florida Sheriffs Association is backing the proposal with statements like the one from Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis, who said, “We trust people to do the right thing.”

Build lasting connections. I spoke this week with journalists in Lansing, Michigan, who were exasperated that when they tried to talk with Michigan State University students this week about the mass shooting there on Feb. 13, they were met with “no media” signs.

(StateNews.com)

The university handed out the signs.

The fact is college students generally don’t know you journalists. They do not read your work; they don’t watch or listen to your reporting. They just know that it is in vogue to dislike and distrust you.

Do what you know how to do well. Build sources, build trust and prove yourself to be a listener. Do the same thing in communities that experience the most gun violence.

TV stations used to be required to listen to and respond to community concerns. A couple of years ago, when I heard one TV station in the Midwest was holding town hall meetings around the community, I called to see if I could do a story about it. The corporate management considered it such a radically new notion that they didn’t want to talk about such a trade secret.

Not all listening involves a camera, microphone and notepad. If you want to build trust, give people your time and focused attention.

Help the public understand how many Americans are dying every day from gun violence.

For a brief moment, the death of journalist Dylan Lyons and the others killed on Wednesday topped the Gun Violence Archive’s constantly updated list of gun deaths in America. By midnight, eight hours after they died, 13 more fatal shootings stacked up on the list, moving their names to mid-page. By the time you read this, you will have to search to find the Orlando shooting. Their names will be buried in the data before their friends and family gather for their funerals.

(Gun Violence Archive, Feb. 22, 2023)

(Gun Violence Archive, Feb. 22, 2023)

(Gun Violence Archive, Feb. 22, 2023)

In the days ahead, newsrooms should be aware that threats and violence against journalists may rise for a while. Violence often rises for a month or more after a widely publicized act of violence. News coverage can incent copycats to act out, so newsrooms should be especially careful in the days to come. The Trace notes:

It’s not uncommon for mass shootings to cluster in time. In 2019, a mass shooting that targeted Latin American immigrants in El Paso, Texas, killed 23 and injured 23. Just a day later, a shooter in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine and injured 27. And the May 2022 shooting in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were killed and one wounded, was followed by the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, less than two weeks later, which killed 21 and injured 17.

While none of those shootings appeared to be directly linked, earlier examples of clustering led some researchers, advocates, and commentators to hypothesize that there is a contagion effect increasing the rate and frequency of mass shootings.

Other researchers say the contagion effect is not so easily proven and may not be provable at all. Keep in mind that journalists likely under-cover domestic killings, the violence that happens away from public venues:

Indeed, the majority of mass shootings are not media spectacles. Many occur in private spaces and are targeted with specific motivations aside from indiscriminate killing or terrorism. Though these multivictim shootings are far more common, other studies have shown that they receive little to no national media attention. And without news coverage, there’s limited means for contagion.

I suspect this shooting will be a tipping point for some journalists. The risk is not worth the worry. I also suspect some newsrooms will be reluctant, at least temporarily, to send journalists to crime scenes if there has been no arrest.

As I wrote this column, I scrolled through hundreds of social media posts offering condolences, prayers and thoughts for our journalism colleagues. In all of those heartfelt posts I did not see one person thank you for being journalists.

Nobody said thank you for going places most people would not want to go, for risking public critique, for asking nosey questions, for being open to unpopular truths, for staying put in your community even when bigger opportunities beckon, and for finding empathy when everything in you tells you to scream.

Keep reporting. It is our best chance at finding a way out of this unrelenting violence.