After a pandemic surge, overall gun violence deaths — including suicides — were down in the U.S. last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. However, mass shooting deaths were higher than pre-pandemic numbers, with 500 people killed in 2024.
“My kids have been in lockdown for kids bringing guns to school twice in the last week,” said Laura Wides-Muñoz, NBCUniversal director of standards for digital and social platforms. “I look at this issue as both a journalist and a mom.”
Covering gun violence is an inescapable reality for both local and national journalists. When reporting on these incidents, accuracy in language is just as crucial as getting the hard facts and data right, said Wides-Muñoz.
Watch the video above and read the excerpt below to learn our standards director’s tips for responsibly reporting on gun violence.
What actually defines a “mass” shooting?
There is, in fact, no official definition of a mass shooting. The FBI doesn’t even have a definition. What we use at NBCU News Group is from the Gun Violence Archive. They track shootings in real time, as close as possible as you can get to that. Their definition of a mass shooting is four or more people shot, not including the shooter.
When you’re covering a gun violence incident, what is most important to keep in mind?
We don’t want to pre-write the narrative. Many of us who cover these issues have covered them time and time again, and we can go into a sort of muscle memory action state. We really want to be careful and not presume that we know why things happened or what the motive was.
What are some things we should be most careful about when reporting on gun violence?
We don’t want to have unforced errors. Be really careful with numbers and names and stats early on. This is a moment where communities and the nation turn to us for information. We have all eyes on us, and this is not a time that we can be a tiny bit relaxed about not getting every single number buttoned up or not having official sources on names. Not only is it confusing and makes us look untrustworthy, but it can also be devastating to families if the numbers might mean that it’s their kid or their father who was shot, and it turns out not to be true. We just can’t take any risks there.
How much should we cover the shooter?
We get that question a lot — how do we cover the shooter, or should we cover the shooter, should we name the shooter? Of course, we need to cover the shooter. That is part of the story, and we need to do it responsibly. We need to think about why we’re naming them and how much attention we are giving them, and we need to be very intentional about that.
Avoid quoting the shooter’s diatribes and showing the shooter in action. It may be necessary to understand the motivation, quoting a tiny bit from what they have written, but we don’t want to give them a lot of air for hate speech or calls to violence. We also don’t want to glorify the shooter by showing them holding a gun, trying to look like Rambo.
What should journalists be aware of when entering a community that has experienced gun violence?
It’s important — especially for a national network, but even for our local networks — when we’re going into communities, to remember that lots of people who are there, including first responders, may be related to the victims. Be very sensitive when coming into a community and be respectful of the local folks who are working there, who may be directly affected by this trauma.
What is the best way to handle commemoration dates of violence?
We don’t want to parachute in on the commemorative date of the violence. That is an incredibly traumatic date for the victims and communities, and when we come back, we’re almost adding to that trauma.
Show victims as more than their trauma. We want to remind people that the impact of gun violence is the loss of loved ones, family members, daughters, wives, husbands, grandparents. And we have to name people. Naming things gives them life. We want to make sure that we never lose sight of the victims. We want to keep them the center of our storytelling, because these are humans and lives are being devastated.
