These requests are based on many conversations with the directly impacted community members, members of Pittsburgh’s journalism community, and national best practices.

• Please summarize or describe the contents of hate speech and avoid direct quotations unless necessary.

• Please avoid showing or naming the perpetrator above the bare minimum necessary.

• Please use straightforward descriptors of the event and avoid excessively violent imagery. For example: attack, shooting instead of massacre, slaughter, etc.

• To describe the 11 people who were killed, please avoid passive phrasing like “lost their lives.” They were killed – their lives were taken, not lost.

• Please use the term “Commemoration” to refer to the date of the attack. For example, “We are approaching the sixth commemoration of the attack,” instead of, “We are approaching the sixth anniversary of the attack.”

The National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center has curated numerous resources for journalists, available at: https://www.nmvvrc.org/learn/resources-for-journalists. These are thoughtful, practical guides for the challenges of reporting on mass violence incidents.

Additional resources are available at 10/27 Healing Partnership, which provided the information for this page.