The Columbia Journalism Review, the most respected voice in journalism criticism, sought to fundamentally alter how gun violence is covered in the US by convening the Gun Violence News Summit.

How did we influence 200+ of America’s greatest influencers, journalists, to get involved? We published The Inevitable News, a newspaper covering all mass shootings over the last 3 years—with a single article. We distributed copies through the streets and to the most respected papers in the country.

Journalist’s participation resulted in adopting the Gun Violence Coverage Commitment, an agreement that will forever change American news stories on gun violence.

Journalists’ approach to gun violence has continued to fall short, writing sensational stories about mass shootings while ignoring everyday shootings in minority communities. This creates a duality where some victims are commodified and others go unnoticed, as if their death by bullet is inevitable rather than a symptom of an ever-growing national crisis.

Amidst the largest spike in gun violence ever in the United States, it’s important that we address journalism’s failures and set a new path forward to put an end to the rote gun violence coverage that perpetuates our numbness to this violence.

To address this issue, we set out with one ambitious goal: unite American media and produce a commitment that outlines new practices for gun violence journalism.

If we can bring together journalists to create a new standard for gun violence journalism, we can impact the American gun violence epidemic – and inspire long overdue change.

Newspapers report on over 100 guns deaths every day in the United States. And it is 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 illuminate journalists to 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 Inevitable News served as an invitation for journalists to the Gun Violence News Summit, a media event like no other 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, they crafted The Gun Violence Coverage Commitment, an unprecedented agreement outlining the new standard for gun violence press.

The Inevitable News set out the reshape how all future gun violence press is written.

To do this, we targeted the biggest names in American journalism, and the industry at large, with The Inevitable News.

This paper was designed to highlight the flaws of the current approach to coverage and served as an invitation to the Gun Violence News Summit, where the thought leaders of journalism created new guidelines for all gun coverage in the future.

As thought leaders, their alignment on these guidelines enacted a paradigm shift for the entire journalism industry, fundamentally altering all future gun violence press. By influencing the biggest influencers in American media, we did more than get press. We reshaped the press itself.

To launch the campaign, we invited the biggest voices in American press to join a media event like no other, The Gun Violence News Summit. To do this, physical copies of the Inevitable News were placed on the street in front of major media companies.

Further, we sent invitations to the biggest papers in the US including The New York Times and The Washington Post: personalized editions of the Inevitable News that mirrored their brand guidelines.

The virtual summit occurred on April 6, where 200+ participants from the most respected publications in the US debated the future of gun violence coverage.

The conversations at the summit led to the creation of the commitment. The commitment was published online on April 27 and put in the hands of hundreds of media outlets across the US.

By influencing the biggest influencers of American media, we impacted the entire US journalism industry.

The Inevitable News exceeded all expectations. Over 200 journalists from 100+ publications targeted by our street dispensers and personalized editions participated in the virtual Gun Violence News Summit. 25k copies of the Inevitable News were circulated within two weeks, emptying all of our news dispensers.

Yet, we were not merely seeking coverage of the summit, we were looking to forever change how news organizations cover gun violence. And we did.

The changemaking Gun Violence Coverage Commitment is now in the hands of hundreds of newspapers. The Columbia Journalism Review’s publication of the Commitment was seen by more than 100K people and is estimated to have impacted 30K journalists.

This will forever change how the story of gun violence is written in America. In the short term, news organizations and journalists have become advocates for change to the longstanding attitudes and opinions of their industry. Journalists are now equipped with the tools to properly discuss gun violence. Through the influence of these journalists, stories applying new principles outlined in the Gun Violence Coverage Commitment will begin to alter the way the American public perceives gun violence and gun deaths. In the long term, gun policy reform becomes more possible due to a more informed public’s understanding of the nuances of gun violence.

The Inevitable News is the spark driving us towards major change—helping usher in a new era for gun violence reporting, and a new era for America.