The database helps journalists build stories centered on the people most affected

This winter, journalists covering gun violence in Philadelphia will get access to a newly created source list of gun violence survivors who want to speak with the media.

The newly launched “Survivor Connection,” serves two goals: Empower people harmed by gun violence to tell their stories, and ensure news coverage of the topic is survivor-centered.

Gun violence survivor Oronde McClain devised the project after feeling frustrated about the lack of survivor voices in the news media — especially in the past couple of years when fatal and nonfatal shooting rates were climbing in Philly (they’ve since dropped to pre-pandemic levels).

“I felt like nobody listens to survivors,” McClain said. “I really can teach people how to get their stories out. And we need to get the media involved.”

The concept is this: People who have been shot or lost a loved one to a shooting can sign up to be included in Survivor Connection. They provide basic information such as their name, neighborhood, and date of shooting incident.

They can also add other details such as their availability for interviews, their role in the violence prevention space, whether they want to speak on or off record and to what types of media outlets.

Then, journalists who watch a short video on trauma-informed reporting gain access to that information through a secure, searchable web database. 

McClain hopes that before rushing to cover a shooting in the city’s Germantown section, for example, a reporter might check Survivor Connection for a gun violence survivor who lives in the area and can serve as liaison, guide, or source in the situation.

“They don’t know how to get into communities,” he said. “They don’t know how to talk to survivors and co-victims. There’s communications errors between journalists and survivors. I think with Survivor Connection, we can bridge the gap.”

McClain said he wants to teach reporters how to build trust with survivors, using strategies like:

• Being transparent about deadlines and story scope;
• Offering survivors an opportunity to hear back parts of the story before publication;
• Keeping survivors up to date about changes in publication date;
• Asking survivors what resources they need and providing connections.

The team says 300 people have expressed interest in Survivor Connection, and plans to launch with about 90 source participants.

Philadelphia resident Angie Wade met McClain after her son Joseph Daniels III was killed by gunfire in 2019, and was part of a documentary McClain co-produced.

News coverage of her son’s death disturbed her, she said, especially “b-roll” of her son’s glasses or sneakers on the street. She wanted journalists to ask her how she was doing, and what her grief felt like.

“To have that other side, to understand how we feel and how broken we are on the inside, and how much pain,” she said. “I’m just hoping that they would go and just offer time, offer compassion, offer empathy and just understanding.”

Survivors who agree to be part of the database also participate in a workshop that includes a trauma education session with a clinical psychologist, and introductions to public health approaches to preventing gun violence.

McClain said it’s been a way to help survivors and co-victims connect with one another, too. 

“There’s a lot of things where we can help each other,” McClain said. “Now we are all in this community we don’t want to belong to, but we have to do it.”

Caroline Suarez helps manage the project. She says the database could potentially expand to include other kinds of sources.

“[With] community experts, public health experts … we are evolving the concept,” she said. “To cover this topic not as isolated cases but as a huge problem that we have to solve together.”

Down the line, the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting will survey journalists to find out how many times they used the database, and how it showed up in their coverage.

If the model works, McClain and Suarez said they’d like to help other cities launch their own versions. 

McClain is a Stoneleigh Foundation Emerging Leader Fellow working for the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. He began the fellowship last fall.

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Cite this article

Caiola, Sammy (2024, Nov. 20). Survivor Connection links reporters with gun violence survivor communityty with resources. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/survivor-connection-links-reporters-with-gun-violence-survivor-community/