{"id":120505,"date":"2022-06-15T17:55:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T21:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=120505"},"modified":"2022-06-15T17:56:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T21:56:37","slug":"blockbuster-the-poynter-institute-for-journalistic-studies-is-asking-major-questions-about-the-uvalde-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=120505","title":{"rendered":"BLOCKBUSTER: The Poynter institute for journalistic studies is asking MAJOR questions about the Uvalde shooting!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Questions like: Why can’t we report anything? Why are you blocking us from investigating this so we can do accurate reporting on what happened?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From Jim Stone:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Continue reading here:<\/p>\n

By: Amaris Castillo | Poynter Institute
\nJune 10, 2022<\/p>\n

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By now, many who have been following this story know that the official narrative of the tragedy that left 19 students and two teachers dead has shifted, with early accounts being amended or retracted.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Express-News on Thursday\u00a0published a timeline<\/a>\u00a0detailing the series of mistakes and deviations from original reports that officials made following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The New York Times also provided a\u00a0clearer picture<\/a>\u00a0of the police response, including that officers delayed confronting the gunman for more than an hour, even though supervisors at the scene had been told that some trapped with him in two classrooms needed medical treatment.<\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks, Nora L\u00f3pez, executive editor of the Express-News, has led her staff in covering this story. The job has been made more difficult, she said, by the obstacles facing her reporters and photographers. Visiting law enforcement officials and bikers\u00a0obstructed reporters\u2019 abilities<\/a>\u00a0to cover the funerals of victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to the trauma of covering such an event, then to have to deal with all this harassment and attempts to stop us from reporting this story has been really disconcerting,\u201d L\u00f3pez said.<\/p>\n

The Express-News and the Houston Chronicle (which are both owned by Hearst) sent a whole team of reporters and photographers to Uvalde after the shooting. But now she said they\u2019ve scaled back to just one reporter and one photographer. She remains steadfast in a commitment to telling the stories of families still reeling from their loss.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, L\u00f3pez spoke with Poynter about the work to continue covering the story of the Uvalde shooting victims and their families, and the obstacles journalists are facing in doing so.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.<\/p>\n

What have the past two weeks been like for your newsroom in covering the mass shooting in Uvalde?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been pretty intense, just in and of itself \u2026 a mass shooting with so many people who were killed, children especially. It\u2019s been a difficult story, but it\u2019s been made all the more difficult by the problems that we the media have encountered with law enforcement and authorities in Uvalde. That has been a whole other issue that we\u2019ve had to deal with. In addition to the trauma of covering such an event, then to have to deal with all this harassment and attempts to stop us from reporting this story has been really disconcerting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard that some officials have been stonewalling the press in town. Can you tell me more about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had reporters on the ground who have been harassed. Last Thursday, there were groups of motorcycle gangs that we believe are former police officers. They were physically getting in front of reporters and videographers, and using their body and their hands to try to obstruct the sightlines. The motorcycle gangs kind of backed off a little bit on Friday, but through the weekend, the police that\u2019s been there helping with the situation continue to do the same thing \u2026<\/p>\n

I can understand they\u2019re trying to control all this media that\u2019s descended on this little town. We, the media, are used to having designated areas where they ask us to stay and stand, and then they come and give us updates. But even in this case, they\u2019ve put up fire engines to block the view of the church or the funeral home \u2014 even the cemetery. Now they\u2019re putting up blockades around the entire block where the funeral home is. So now we can\u2019t even walk across the street to the corner there. They are like, \u2018No, you can\u2019t be here,\u2019 even though it\u2019s a public sidewalk.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s about a dozen police departments in Texas who have sent volunteers to help the Uvalde police. So some of this has come from these visiting jurisdictions, which is just really bizarre because they\u2019re out of their jurisdiction. They don\u2019t have the power to do anything. If they want to arrest us, they have to call in the Uvalde police. \u2026 They keep threatening to arrest us, but so far they haven\u2019t. It\u2019s been really hostile. There\u2019s the concern that they are violating our constitutional rights, because we have the right to news gather. I believe that this is bordering on official oppression in stopping us from talking to people and doing my jobs.<\/p>\n

The other equally disconcerting thing to me is that they\u2019re also discouraging families from talking to us because they\u2019re hustling them along. Even families who have agreed to talk to the media, they\u2019re basically saying, \u2018No, you shouldn\u2019t. You need to move, you need to just move along quickly.\u2019 That\u2019s my biggest concern, that they\u2019re actually now stopping people who want to talk to us, from talking to us.<\/p>\n

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RELATED POYNTER TRAINING:<\/strong>\u00a0How to Cover Gun Violence and the Gun Debate in America<\/a>\u00a0(June 13-14, free)<\/em><\/p>\n

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I imagine this makes it a lot more difficult to tell the stories of the victims\u2019 families, including those, like you said, who want to share their story with the world. What are we missing if we don\u2019t hear from them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re missing out on the stories of who these young children were, and that\u2019s very important for this narrative because people need to realize that these are real children whose lives were cut short. The other thing that it\u2019s impeding us from is interviewing survivors who might be able to give us firsthand accounts of how the situation unfolded \u2014 those eyewitnesses to help reconstruct what actually happened that day. That\u2019s particularly important right now, given the lack of information that authorities are giving us. To me, this feels like an effort to control the narrative. It\u2019s in their self-interest for us not to talk to the family or to the survivors.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0spoke to a broadcast journalist<\/a>\u00a0a few days after the shooting about the conflicting information from authorities on what occurred, as far as police response. What has your newsroom\u2019s experience been like in trying to sort through all this and report the facts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has been very frustrating because we\u2019re hearing a little bit here and there, and it doesn\u2019t line up. We still don\u2019t have the full story about how these things unfolded. There\u2019s a lot to account for in that time that they waited before finally going in. What\u2019s really troubling is that some of these things that we now know, it seems pretty obvious that they should have known it when they had that first press conference.<\/p>\n

For example, the teacher who they said had left the door open, and that that\u2019s how the gunman had gotten in. The video shows that she had opened it to go get something from the car, but when she saw that there was this guy with a gun outside \u2014 and somebody from the funeral home across the street yelled at her (about) this guy with a gun \u2014 she closed it. They have this on video. They knew that she had indeed closed the door. And she thought it was locked and apparently it wasn\u2019t locked, so now they\u2019re investigating that. They knew that from day one. \u2026 That\u2019s what\u2019s been really disturbing. Why wouldn\u2019t they tell us that to begin with?<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve been in the news business for more than three decades, and you have also been a police reporter, correct?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. I\u2019ve been a police reporter here. I covered cops in Dallas, in Fort Worth, and some of the smaller communities between Dallas and Fort Worth. I have never seen anything like this. As journalists, we have a healthy distrust of (officials), but as a former police reporter going out to the scene and speaking to the sergeant on duty, you expect that they\u2019re giving you the facts as they know them. Now we see that they didn\u2019t give us all the facts in that press conference.<\/p>\n

Have you seen police misinformation like this before?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. Never.<\/p>\n

Your newspaper published commentary from one of your staff about how the police\u2019s stonewalling the media appears to be a coordinated effort in Uvalde. Why was it important to make this statement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because we have to let the public know what\u2019s going on in Uvalde and, more importantly, we have to let the Uvalde city officials know that we\u2019re not going to be scared away. In fact, we\u2019re going to report on this and we will continue to go back. We\u2019re the largest daily that\u2019s closest to this community, and it\u2019s incumbent on us to stay on top of the story no matter what.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been in communication with Hearst legal (on) whether or not we should take legal action. I don\u2019t think we have anything yet. We\u2019ve crafted a letter that we\u2019re going to send out to all the departments who are represented right now in Uvalde, reminding them of our First Amendment right to gather news. We\u2019re also directing our reporters to not engage them \u2026 even if you\u2019re standing on a public sidewalk or street, take down their name, their badge, ask them \u2018Why are you threatening to arrest me? Under what law, what statute?\u201d and just documenting. At the end of the day, move, and don\u2019t get terribly argumentative. So we\u2019re having to give them advice. There was a point where we were basically discussing whether we have to get security for our reporters, to protect them from the police. \u2026 I know other TV stations did do that.<\/p>\n

Have you heard anything else from your team reporting in Uvalde that you didn\u2019t expect?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, so far that\u2019s it. Again, this whole issue of them having a chilling effect on the residents of the Uvalde. Now we\u2019re starting to hear stories that even those people who do want to talk to us are now afraid to talk to us.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s so unfortunate. We\u2019ve been learning more over the past few years about the vicarious trauma that journalists can carry after covering traumatic events. What have you done to assist reporters and editors who have been covering Uvalde?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are bringing in some counselors this week, making them available to our reporters and encouraging them to make use of them and talk to them and set up some therapy if they feel they need it. Over the weekend I reached out to reporters to try to talk to them and recognize their anxiety and their fear. As of Friday we are having a reporter and a photographer team up together and we\u2019re telling them to not go out alone \u2026 just to help them feel a little bit safer. Both myself and my editor have tried to reach out individually to the reporters and assure them that we\u2019re talking to legal and we\u2019re doing everything we can to protect them, and encouraging them to seek out counseling if they need it.<\/p>\n

What is your goal in continuing to tell the story of Uvalde?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our goal is to shine a light on this community, to document their recovery, and to talk to survivors who can help tell us what happened here so that hopefully people can learn lessons from it. At the end of the day, it\u2019s our job to show the world the impact of such a tragedy and the impact it has on a small community, and how do you recover from it. We\u2019ll be focused a lot on the recovery of survivors who may have injuries that they have to live with for the rest of their lives. Our hope is to bring those stories to a wider audience, so that they can really know and understand who the people of Uvalde are, and how they\u2019re going to be able to move forward. I think that\u2019s all part of the healing process, as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Questions like: Why can’t we report anything? Why are you blocking us from investigating this so we can do accurate reporting on what happened?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}