
Covering School Shootings
Student journalists and advisers from Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University show how they reported on mass-casualty attacks on their campuses. Video, timelines and tip sheets for student journalists and educators.
Student journalists and advisers from Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University show how they reported on mass-casualty attacks on their campuses. Video, timelines and tip sheets for student journalists and educators.
This documentary, available online and on DVD, examines the impact of the news coverage of the Columbine High School shootings.
Suicide is a leading cause of teenage deaths, but is often treated as a journalistic taboo. Reporters and researchers break down the complicated ethical issues reporters must face to get the story right.
They spend a lifetime covering city council meetings, working the police beat and sitting through school board meetings. From solid waste to sparkling rivers, they cover the news of their community - whether it is along the beaten path or a few steps into the road. But every now and then when their mind drifts away from the day's events, nearly all journalists wonder what it would be like if the big one ever came their way.
Photographs convey the emotion of a tragedy, but the images may serve to wound as well as to heal. Such was the case with news photos used after the Columbine shootings in April 1999. How do we judge pictures that take us closer to the grief and shock of people whose lives are directly touched by violence?
Since the tragic events in the Russian town of Beslan two months ago, when more than 400 children and adults died after being taken hostage by militants demanding independence for Chechnya, counselling centres have been working hard to try to help the survivors.
Whether clinicians like it or not, children and families affected by trauma are routinely covered by the media. When that happens, clinicians often face difficult choices.
Note: Available as PDF download only.
This nine-part series tells the story of a teenage relationship turning to obsession and abuse, and a strong young woman recovering from a horrific act of violence. Originally published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in September, 2007.
Each teen suicide is a puzzle with pieces missing. Gone is the only person who might know the exact reasons. But taken together, these deaths reveal much about the social forces contributing to teen suicide. Originally published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 2005.
An overview of current research on the short- and long-term impacts of media coverage of tragedy on children, as well as aggravating risk factors and suggestions for future research.