The Stories Behind the Stories: A Qualitative Inquiry Regarding the Experiences of Journalists Who Covered the Newtown Shooting

Abstract

The news coverage of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting brought to the fore some of the profession's most glaring deficits. On one hand, many of the published reports in the first days were full of speculation and, in some cases, falsities. On the other hand, the grieving community was invaded by a horde of reporters looking for exclusive content. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the Newtown reportage through the experiences of reporters who were assigned to the event, and to discover how to improve the process and whether an ethic-of-care-based approach could be implemented. Through 6 semi-structured interviews, analyzed first through a grounded-theory mechanism and second through an ethic-of-care framework, this study proposes new practices for the handling of trauma coverage, which include maximizing resources and minimizing community invasion going forward. These recommendations point toward a rich area of curriculum development at the academic and professional levels.