Engaging around gun violence in Ohio
Five listening sessions, community partnerships, and a new podcast season shaped how Ideastream Public Media approached a complex issue.
Myesha Watkins (left) and Marlene Taylor-Harris pose for a portrait on the Ideastream’s Living for We: Keep Ya Head Up podcast set. (Credit: Ideastream)
When Ideastream Public Media decided to tackle the complex issue of gun violence, Marlene Harris-Taylor realized they’d have to change their engagement strategy to really hear from their communities. Harris-Taylor is the Director of Engaged Journalism at the station that serves Cleveland and 22 counties in northeast Ohio. She talked with María Arce of America Amplified about their revamped engagement strategy and the second season of their podcast called Living for We: Keep Ya Head Up.
Harris-Taylor has covered gun violence more times than she wants to count. All of them, one way or another, are tattooed on her soul. The ones involving children left a more profound mark. One of those cases she cannot forget.
“It was a 9-year-old girl who was innocent, sitting in the car, waiting for her mom,” said Harris-Taylor.
“After school, her mom ran into this boxing gym to pick up her brother. And just in those few minutes, two groups of young men saw each other across the street. They're in this busy area, businesses, pedestrians… They didn't care. And she got hit by one of the stray bullets and died,” she added.
The shooting happened not far from where Harris-Taylor lives. “I just felt impacted by that. I just wanted to grieve with people who knew her. So I went to the funeral.”
She recorded audio at the funeral and ended up doing a two-part story, including interviews conducted weeks later with the girl’s family and community members. “I've been wanting to do something more ever since then.”
Tell us about your engagement initiative.
The podcast's first season focused on Black women and health disparities. So, as we began to think about what we wanted to do with season two, that idea that had been building inside me for years – wanting to take that deep dive into gun violence – came back out.
Harris-Taylor and the station knew that to cover the issue of gun violence, they needed to collaborate with grassroots organizations already working on the issue to earn people’s trust. So, when Myesha Watkins of Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance approached her, Harris-Taylor did not hesitate.
Watkins is the executive director of the Alliance, a community violence prevention organization focused on services for young people. Harris-Taylor explained that she came up to her after a station-led listening session on women’s health and said, “You can't talk about what it's like being a Black woman in Cleveland without talking about gun violence because there are so many mothers out here who are grieving for their lost children.”
Harris-Taylor hoped Watkins could serve as a bridge to connect Ideastream with the local community groups working on the issue. She knew that addressing a complex topic, such as gun violence, meant that Ideastream had to innovate its engagement strategy to lead with the community. For the first time ever, they decided to partner and join other organizations' initiatives and spend more time listening instead of hosting a listening session by themselves.
“Myesha was an integral part in helping us identify the organizations in Cleveland and other communities that were best for us to work with.” To co-organize five listening sessions in 2024, “We reached out to those groups and asked if they would work with us,” said Harris-Taylor.
Four organizations and a community leader decided to partner with Ideastream. The sessions were held in Cuyahoga, Stark, Summit, and Lorain counties. Two hundred people participated, and more than half of those participants indicated they were personally impacted by gun violence.
“The person facilitating [each meeting] was the key because they were trusted.” One of them was Walter Patton, the founder of Ghetto Therapy, an organization that started meeting in a federal housing community and now meets weekly in The Langston Hughes Center, Cleveland Clinic Community Health and Education Center.
“He allowed us to come to one of his regular Wednesday meetings and to have the floor for a portion of that meeting for this discussion.”
Other partners were New Era Cleveland, a local chapter of a national Black activist organization; Project Ujima, a grassroots community engagement organization that teaches and facilitates discussion circle processes; Young Christian Professionals, a group of Christian leaders whose purpose is to work with men and women in prison, as well as those newly released; and Eileen Torres, a well known Hispanic leader who serves at various committees, boards, and leadership roles. Torres helped organize a meeting with the Hispanic community. in Lorain County.
What was the main objective of the listening sessions?
I wanted to understand what is fueling this current rise [of gun violence].
Watkins explained to Harris-Taylor that the cause was usually interpersonal conflicts. “People — and particularly young people after the pandemic — don't know how to relate. They don't know how to just settle things without it escalating to the point somebody picks up a gun. Over the slightest thing, somebody will shoot you. It was crazy to me.”
Harris-Taylor hoped these listening sessions – in different counties, co-hosted by different community groups—-could shed light on the why behind gun violence and the possible solutions.
How did the partnerships with local organizations and community leaders work?
We provided a small stipend to every person who attended the event. We didn't want to incentivize people to come and just make up a story. But if we were inviting a professor from a university, we wouldn't think anything about paying them for their time to be on a panel.
They also paid partners $1200 and reimbursed them for food for the events. In return, the organizations created their own invitations, reached out to their networks, and brought their communities together.
“It was very clear that this was an Ideastream-sponsored event, but we did not center ourselves at the meetings. We sat in the background, and the meeting was conducted by either the people who normally run the meetings or a combination of them and Myesha running the meetings together.”
They also informed the attendees that Ideastream would use the information gathered to inform their reporting. Although there were no cameras or recording devices, except Harris-Taylor’s cellphone, to take some pictures, a note taker documented each meeting. “I was not the note-taker because I wanted just to listen,” she said.
Ideastream gave the organizers six questions they wanted people to answer during the meetings to see if patterns emerged. Questions such as, Why do you carry a gun? Why do you think other people carry a gun? What do you think the media could do better?
How are you bringing reporting back to the community?
Ideastream’s Living for We: Keep Ya Head Up podcast focuses on gun violence and solutions in Northeast Ohio. It explores the idea that there are two victims behind every bullet fired: the person in front of the gun and the one pulling the trigger. For the second season, Myesha was brought in as the co-host.
Harris-Taylor also explained that Ideastream has a Community Advisory Group that can bounce ideas off of and get feedback on the podcast episodes. In addition, Ideastream pulled clips from the podcast for their daily talk show.
The new season’s second episode focuses on gun violence and education and is called No Safe Place. “Because what we've learned is kids don't feel safe when they're in school,” explained Harris-Taylor. It showcases stories of young students impacted by gun violence and school shootings. But also solutions.
What lessons do you take from this work regarding strengthening engagement?
Join other organizations' initiatives. Connect with organizations already working in the field you want to cover. “People know them already for having regular community meetings. When people got there, they were very transparent about Ideastream’s role. So there wasn't really a need for a lot of special marketing there.”
Find trusted messengers. “Find a partner not only in that space but also trusted by the community and already doing something that brings people together. You need to find your local Myesha. And then, you got to listen.”
Wait for people to be ready. “There's a hope that media will be more compassionate in the coverage and will not be so quick to react and stick a mic in front of somebody's face who's grieving. Families do want to talk because they do want their loved one to be seen as a person, but they need time and respect.”
Give young people their own space. “We discovered through trial and error that it takes a while to get the youth talking, and the adults do not feel comfortable with silence while the youth work through their thoughts and feelings. So they would jump in and basically take over the conversation. Then, the youth would sit back and not really share much. It worked better if we had a separate session with the youth and then one with everybody together.”
Co-create with communities. Have people from the communities where you held the listening sessions showcased in your podcasts or stories. “Explain that the themes you include in your podcast come from these meetings.”
Provide solutions. “It was very important to us to have a segment with solutions because otherwise, it's just like looking at this trauma and throwing up your hands. We wanted to showcase the heroes trying to do things and talk about the resources out there. We have a resource page for people to go to on our website.”
Build a community advisory group. “We put together an advisory group to help us check if we get things right. Check out this episode of the podcast. What do you think? And some of the people on that advisory group are people from those meetings.”
Partner with the marketing team. “We had a launch party, the marketing team invited some local influencers to come and learn about it, and we did a panel discussion.”
Expand distribution. “We have a daily talk show called “The Sound of Ideas.” When a new episode drops, an excerpt from each episode is shared on that talk show as well. So it reaches our traditional audience, too.”
Celebrate your achievements. “Spotify chose to feature our first episode in their “Podcasts We Love” section on their app,” said Harris-Taylor. “Amir, one of the young men featured in episode one, is getting a job! I want great numbers for the podcast, but an impact like that is just awesome.”