Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

Scar Tissue: 1 Crime. 2 Writers. 18 Years.

On August 7, 1994, a deranged man brutally stabbed seven people in a New Haven cafe. Award-winning writers Emily Bernard and Bruce Shapiro, both critically injured that night, pondered the attack in essays written nearly two decades apart. In November 2012, they continued the conversation at Columbia University.

Violence: Comparing Reporting and Reality

By Sara Tiegreen and Elana Newman

An overview of reporting trends in crime news, comparison with actual crime rates and an analysis of how coverage affects public perception of criminal activity.

Getting it Right

Reporting on Youth Violence

Even as crime hits record lows in New York, among teenagers around the nation, gun homicides, gang violence and police shootings of young people are on the rise. Yet while shootings in suburban schools, churches and malls generate media controversy, epidemic levels of teen homicide in cities like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New Orleans attract scant attention.

Breaking Bad News

This booklet is intended to offer informal guidance in circumstances where journalists, their editors or managers are required to tell next-of-kin of the death of a colleague.