GUNFIRE RANG OUT yesterday afternoon in the Back Bay. The casualties?
Several cars — and confidence among some in the media’s coverage of gun violence. No one was hit in the gunfire exchange, which occurred near the corner of Fairfield and Boylston streets, but several cars were struck.
With gun violence on a troubling upswing in Boston, attention to the issue seems well deserved. But do we treat such incidents equally regardless of where they occur?
News helicopters circled the Back Bay yesterday, and TV station websites as well as the Boston Globe had reports this morning on the arrest of two men who are facing illegal gun possession and armed career criminal charges in connection with the incident.
Reports described a terror-filled scene, with patrons in nearby businesses ducking for cover and one Uber driver telling of being caught in the middle of the crossfire involving four men.
The Herald reported earlier this week that homicides are up 60 percent this year in Boston — there have been 40 to date — and nonfatal shootings are up 32 percent.
The news coverage question seems to come down to the old adage that it’s news when a man bites a dog, not when a dog bites a man. The fact that gunfire is rare in the upscale Back Bay neighborhood makes it more newsworthy when it happens.
The Crime Hub Twitter account, which follows crime reports in Boston, tweeted yesterday about coverage of the gunfire. “Seriously! So this single incident, no one hurt, is reportable local news? Hundreds of shots fired calls all year long in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan area complete[ly] ignored by media.”
Reporter David Bernstein, who has extensively covered gun violence issues, had a head-shaking take on the situation this morning. “Boy oh boy Boston, you really have quite a reaction when someone fires a gun near white people,” he tweeted.
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Executive Editor, CommonWealth
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
If we were less inured to gun violence in Boston’s black neighborhoods where it’s concentrated, and if it got the same level of coverage as unusual gunfire incidents in the Back Bay, could that shift public priorities and resources in a way that might make a difference?
Shots ringing out — with no one hit — in the sections of Boston most plagued by gun violence rarely if ever make this kind of news. But the incidents are no less terrorizing to the people who endure them than yesterday’s gunfire on Fairfield Street.
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