WMU journalism project presents perspectives on guns

The spring capstone reporting class of the WMU journalism program exhibited their reporting project titled “Guns and Us” at the June Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo. The exhibit featured 31 short interviews with Kalamazoo-area residents accompanied by portraits of each source. The interviews focused on each individual’s relationship to firearms. About 125 people came through the exhibit on Friday, June 3.

“The goal of the series was to explore the variety of experiences and attitudes that citizens have regarding firearms,” said Sue Ellen Christian, the School of Communication professor who guided students through the project and submitted their work to Art Hop. A team of students prepared the colorful display, which hung inside the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive news hub on the Kalamazoo Mall.

Christian had planned the project and put it on the syllabus at the start of the spring semester, well before the Feb. 20 shooting rampage in Kalamazoo. The exhibit strove to encourage community dialogue about firearms and to avoid a pro vs. con debate about gun use in the United States. Instead, the wide variety of stories were presented by topic area; students found sources on their own, seeking out veterans, hunters, those who had lost loved ones to gun deaths, advocates for concealed carry as well as for tighter restrictions on gun sales and ownership.

“Gun ownership and use are a subject that is an important topic in American civic life right now,” Christian said. “One thing that community journalism does well is to inform residents about what their neighbors are thinking about a topic, and to present people’s stories as neutrally as possible, so people can hear one another, and not simply talk past each other.”

J. Gabriel Ware, a journalism major from Detroit who graduated this semester and who participated in the project, chose his subjects to provide opinions of people who were known in Kalamazoo, as well as who could give an outside view.

He interviewed a Malaysian woman who was a graduate student at WMU, former Kalamazoo city commissioner Eric Cunningham, and Kalamazoo mayoral candidate Kris Mbah.

“Everyone had different perspectives,” he said.

Cunningham discussed his personal experiences with guns—including how he had to overcome a felony he received for not reporting that a friend of his had committed a robbery. His personal experiences—including having a number of grade-school peers shot and killed—have made him really hate guns.

Mbah compared living with guns in Detroit and in Kalamazoo, calling the latter “like living in Disneyland,” Ware said.

The woman described Malaysian gun laws as very restrictive and said there was hardly any gun violence there. Here, she was “blown away” by the amount of gun violence and was initially scared, but has adjusted.

The chance to have the class’ work featured at MLive—the fact that Christian, who has written for the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, thought the project was good enough to be showcased—was the most meaningful part of the project for Ware, and a confidence-booster.

He also called it good for the community, to see what their neighbors think about guns, and to create dialogue, policy and discussion in Kalamazoo especially after a shooter murdered six people in February.

“Kalamazoo needs to speak out and share their views on guns,” Ware said.

The stories can be found under the Special Project: Guns and Us tab on the journalism website that Christian maintains.