REPORTING ON VIOLENCE, a handbook for journalists
Jane Ellen Stevens has been a journalist for 25 years. She began her career as a freelance writer then moved on to the Boston Globe, where she was a copy editor for two years, and the San Francisco Examiner, where she worked for 10 years with various duties, including assistant foreign-national editor, business columnist, and science and technology writer. She was a freelance science and technology writer for eight years. For four of those years, she lived in Kenya and Indonesia and covered science and technology stories for more than 20 newspapers around the world, including the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Post, and AERA, Asahi Shimbun's weekly magazine in Tokyo. Her magazine credits include BioScience, Discover, National Geographic, International Wildlife, Longevity, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, National Wildlife, Science, Technology Review, The Sciences and Vogue. She was a science and technology videojournalist for New York Times Television for two years. She is currently a freelance multimedia science and technology journalist. She has been writing about violence issues for several years.
Lori Dorfman, DrPH, is director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, which conducts research and training in the use of media to promote healthy public policies. The Group's current focus is on violence among youth in California, childhood lead poisoning, alcohol, children's health and other public health issues. Dr. Dorfman conducts research on news media operations and media content. Her current research examines how television news frames health issues and how local television news and newspapers portray youth and violence. She has published articles on public health and mass communication issues and is a co-author of Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention (Sage, 1993). Dr. Dorfman has served as a consultant for government agencies and community programs and has conducted media advocacy training for public health leadership and community groups across the country and in Canada.
Lawrence Wallack, DrPH, is director of the School of Community Health at Portland State University and professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a former co-director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group. Dr. Wallack has published extensively and lectures frequently on policy issues related to health promotion. His current primary research interest is the role of mass communication to address public health problems, particularly alcohol and violence. He is the principal author of Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention (Sage, 1993), a book examining the mass media's role in promoting healthy public policy, and co-editor (with Charles Atkin) of Mass Media and Public Health: Complexities and Conflicts (Sage, 1990). Dr. Wallack has appeared on "Nightline," "Oprah," "Good Morning America," "The CBS Evening News," "The Today Show," "CNN" and numerous local news and public affairs programs to discuss his research and comment on social policy issues regarding alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Leah Shahum is a freelance writer, researcher and copy editor in San Francisco. She has worked as a research fellow at Mother Jones magazine in San Francisco and as a reporter at The Florida Times-Union daily newspaper in Jacksonville, Florida. She began her journalism career as an intern at The Independent, a weekly paper in Durham, NC, while attending Duke University.
Linda Lawler is a graphic designer whose particular interest lies in the visual communication of information and ideas. She has a degree in fine art. Her work has been published in Communication Arts magazine and San Francisco: Graphic Design (Madison Square Press, 1993).
Peggy Skaj is a projects manager at the Trauma Foundation in San Francisco. She has worked on the issues of violence prevention, domestic violence, violence in the workplace as well as injury prevention. For the last three years she has been a part of the web team who collaboratively design and maintain the Trauma Foundation's three websites. She is also a potter who has been working with clay for 10 years.