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Background Firearm violence is an intensifying public health problem in the United States. News reports shape the way the public and policy makers understand and respond to health threats, including firearm violence. To better understand how firearm violence is communicated to the public, we aimed to determine the extent to which firearm violence is framed as a public health problem on television news and to measure harmful news content as identified by firearm-injured people. Methods This is a quantitative content analysis of Philadelphia local television news stories about firearm violence using a database of 7,497 clips. We compiled a stratified sample of clips aired on two randomly selected days/month from January-June 2021 from the database ( n  = 192 clips). We created a codebook to measure public health frame elements and to assign a harmful content score for each story and then coded the clips. Characteristics of stories containing episodic frames that focus on single shooting events were compared to clips with thematic frames that include broader social context for violence. Results Most clips employed episodic frames (79.2%), presented law enforcement officials as primary narrators (50.5%), and included police imagery (79.2%). A total of 433 firearm-injured people were mentioned, with a mean of 2.8 individuals shot included in each story. Most of the firearm-injured people featured in the clips (67.4%) had no personal information presented apart from age and/or gender. The majority of clips (84.4%) contained at least one harmful content element. The mean harmful content score/clip was 2.6. Public health frame elements, including epidemiologic context, root causes, public health narrators and visuals, and solutions were missing from most clips. Thematic stories contained significantly more public health frame elements and less harmful content compared to episodic stories. Conclusions Local television news produces limited public health coverage of firearm violence, and harmful content is common. This reporting likely compounds trauma experienced by firearm-injured people and could impede support for effective public health responses to firearm violence. Journalists should work to minimize harmful news content and adopt a public health approach to reporting on firearm violence.

Community firearm violence (CFV), including fatal and non-fatal shootings that result from interpersonal violence, disproportionately harms people from marginalized racial groups. News reporting on CFV can further exacerbate these harms. However, examining the effects of harmful news reporting on CFV on individuals, communities, and society is hindered by the lack of a consensus definition of harmful reporting on CFV. In this study, we aimed to define harmful reporting on CFV. We used a modified, three-round Delphi process to achieve consensus among diverse stakeholders. Round 1 sought to assess consensus on 12 potentially harmful news content elements for three levels of harm (individual, community, and society). Round 2 invited panelists to rate the severity of each news content element at each level of harm. Round 3 asked panelists to agree or disagree with the panel’s median severity rating of each element at each level of harm. Twenty-one panelists were recruited from three expertise groups (lived experience of CFV, journalism practice, scholarship) and all panelists completed all three rounds. In Round 1, no negative consensus was achieved for any of the proposed news content elements. In Round 2, panelists assigned moderate to severe harm ratings for all but two news content elements, and median harm ratings for each element varied across the different levels of harm. In Round 3, panelists reported high levels of agreement for each harm rating at each level. This modified Delphi process yielded a definition of the 12 elements that comprise harmful news reporting on CFV and severity ratings of harm caused by each element at each level according to expert consensus. Future work will use these results to evaluate and intervene on harmful reporting on CFV. Reducing harm from reporting on CFV can help address this health disparity and support evidence-based approaches to this urgent public health issue.

Background News coverage of community firearm violence (CFV) can cause multilevel harm. We aimed to quantify the frequency and severity of harmful CFV news content and examine how victim, shooting event, and place-based characteristics relate to harmful CFV reporting. Methods We performed a quantitative media content analysis of a random sample of CFV clips aired on Philadelphia local television news in 2021 using a novel codebook. We matched clips to shooting victims in the Philadelphia Police Department dataset and used shooting event location to obtain place-based characteristics from American Community Survey data. Generalized structural equation models evaluated associations between victim demographics, shooting event, and place-based characteristics (Group I), news coverage characteristics (Group II), and either composite harmful CFV reporting scores or specific harmful reporting elements determined by a prior modified Delphi process (Group III). Results Among 394 individuals covered in 303 clips, the mean (SD) individual-level harmful CFV reporting score was 15.2 (4.38) out of 29. Episodic framing (i.e. reporting lacking systematic context) (93.9%) was the most common harmful content element and perpetrator mugshot (4.8%) was least common element. Graphic and/or explicit content was present in 30.3% of clips. Individuals having more than one clip and longer total focus time had higher harmful reporting scores, while individuals involved in fatal shootings, having longer total clip length, and having a follow-up story had lower scores. Black, adult, victims in non-fatal shootings and people shot in areas with a higher proportion of Black residents were more likely to have news coverage containing graphic and/or explicit content. Conclusions Harmful CFV reporting is pervasive, and the severity of harm is associated with news coverage characteristics. Disparities in specific harmful CFV content elements may further exacerbate existing health inequities. Journalists should modify CFV reporting practices to minimize harm.

According the US Department of Energy, ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems in schools reduce energy use by 25 percent to 50 percent compared to traditional systems and result in typical payback periods of two to eight years. However, the US General Accounting Office states that the use of GSHP systems is limited, in part, because users are unfamiliar with the technology. MacMillan presents a cursory review of various considerations to help guide design professionals when proposing these systems to school boards, parents, and others.