Gun violence is a topic that hits close to home to me.
Over the years, I have had family members, friends and members of our community experience the unimaginable pain of losing loved ones to gun violence. I’ve attended funerals, listened to grieving parents and siblings, and witnessed the lasting impact these tragedies have on entire families and neighborhoods. Long after the news cameras leave and the headlines disappear, the grief remains.
Too often, conversations about gun violence focus only on the incident itself—the who, what, when and where. While those details matter, they rarely tell the whole story. They don’t explain the circumstances and disparities that contribute to violence, the trauma left in its wake or the solutions communities are working toward every day.
That is why I am proud of how the Mississippi Free Press is covering this issue as we launch our statewide Mississippi Violence Project this year with the help of the Solutions Journalism Network.
Our newsroom is committed to systemic journalism that looks beyond individual acts of violence and examines the larger systems shaping our communities. We ask difficult questions about access to mental-health services, educational opportunities, economic conditions, community support systems, trauma, public safety and policies that affect the lives and safety of Mississippians. We believe our readers deserve reporting that provides context, not just headlines.
An Anti-Violence Collaboration with Youth Media Project
I am especially encouraged by the joint violence-prevention journalism with the teenagers of our Mississippi Youth Media Project, supported this summer by the Community Foundation for Mississippi and the Hardin Foundation. As adults, we often talk about young people when discussing gun violence, but too rarely do we listen to them for either causes or solutions. Our Youth Media Project students are exploring violence causes and solutions through enterprise reporting, conversations and storytelling. They are asking thoughtful questions, examining root causes and exploring potential solutions.
Their willingness to engage with such complex topics gives me hope.
The young people participating in this project understand that preventing gun violence will require more than outrage after a tragedy. It will require listening, learning, collaboration and a commitment to addressing the conditions, or the voids, that allow violence to persist. Their voices offer a perspective that is not only valuable but necessary.
At the Mississippi Free Press, we believe journalism can help communities better understand the challenges they face and illuminate pathways forward. Our solutions coverage of Mississippi violence is rooted in that belief. We will continue to center the experiences of those affected as we interrogate causes and investigate solutions.
Centering People and Elevating Voices
This work will also do what the Mississippi Free Press and Youth Media Project do best: center people, elevate voices and local efforts that are too often overlooked, especially in sensationalistic crime coverage or the usual media focus on criminal justice, jails and prisons. While that work is vital, too—and we’ve done a lot over the years—it is not enough to help communities find the solutions that they tell us in solutions circles across the state that they desperately need to prevent violence and incarceration in the first place. This is violence-prevention reporting the Free Press has excelled at for 24 years now.
For those who have lost loved ones, we honor your stories. For those working toward change, we see your efforts. And for the next generation of journalists and community leaders exploring these issues through the Youth Media Project, thank you for reminding us that hope and solutions can exist alongside difficult conversations.
Because gun violence is more than a headline. It is a human story. And it deserves our attention, our compassion and our commitment to finding a better way forward.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
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