ABOUT

Newspapers report on over 100 gun deaths every day in the United States. And it’s always the same story. By writing about shootings as if they were filling out a template, journalists are desensitizing us to these events when they could be using their platform to enact change. To show journalists the flaws in their gun violence coverage, we created The Inevitable News, a newspaper that covers every mass shooting over the last 3 years—with one single article. The typical newspaper branding feels familiar: black and white copy populating the pages of newsprint, contrasted against the handwritten red details of the shooting event. This shows how journalists haphazardly fill in the particulars of a shooting event on the spot, rather than shaping the story to the specific needs of the community they are writing about. To make The Inevitable News feel authentic, copies were printed on real newsprint and distributed to branded dispensers across New York City. Further, we personalized the design of The Inevitable News to mirror the brand guidelines of 10 of the biggest newspapers in the United States. These copies were sent to their respective publication’s editorial boards, showing the impact of their routine coverage in the context of their paper. These copies also served as an invitation for journalists to attend the Gun Violence News Summit, a landmark event that brought together influential leaders representing the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post to forever change the way their industry covers gun violence. Working together, these leaders crafted The Gun Violence Coverage Commitment, an unprecedented agreement outlining the new standard for gun violence reporting.