In August 2019, days after thirty-two people died in the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings, our host Kyle Pope spoke with John Temple. Temple was the editor of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News when the Columbine massacre changed America’s perception of safety forever.
Temple told us about the photos he decided not to run that day in 1999, and the one he did, which confirmed a child’s death before police spoke with the mother. In the wake of the horror in El Paso and Dayton, Temple’s thoughts were on the Civil Rights Movement, on the fight for abolition—the times in our history when journalists have taken a moral stand.
As we take stock of the devastation in Atlanta and Boulder, and of the ways in which the news cycle failed, especially Atlanta’s victims, here again are John Temple and Kyle Pope.
SHOW NOTES
I’ve seen the limits of journalism, John Temple, The Atlantic
Covering the Atlanta massacre from inside the Korean community, Shinhee Kang, CJR
Another day, another mass shooting, Jon Allsop, CJR
Hesitant coverage of the hateful Atlanta shootings, Jon Allsop, CJR
The 2000 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Breaking News Photography, Photo Staff of Rocky Mountain News, Denver, CO, The Pulitzer Prizes
Amanda Darrach is a contributor to CJR and a visiting scholar at the University of St Andrews School of International Relations. Follow her on Twitter @thedarrach.