Journalism & Media

For Reporters Covering a Mass Shooting, Sharing What’s Known and Not Known Are Equally Important, BU Journalism Chair Says

Brian McGrory, former Boston Globe editor who led the Boston Marathon bombings coverage, offers a word of advice for covering a volatile, fluid situation: “caution”

Maine Governor Janet Mills speaking during a press conference on October 26 about the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. For reporters covering this fluid, volatile situation, Brian McGrory, Boston University journalism chair and former Boston Globe editor, advises caution. Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images

In covering a fast-moving tragedy like the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday night, the most important thing journalists should do is to be up-front with their readers—about what they know, and just as critically, what they don’t know, says Brian McGrory, chair of the Boston University College of Communication journalism department and former editor of the Boston Globe.

McGrory was Globe editor a decade ago during the Boston Marathon bombings. The Globe’s coverage won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

“This is a volatile, highly unusual mass shooting situation in which people are struggling for information,” McGrory says. “The first and most important word for any reporter there is caution: both personal caution when you’re up there and caution in terms of what you share with the readership.”

On Thursday morning, Maine officials closed schools, colleges, and public buildings and ordered residents to shelter in place as law enforcement officers conducted a widespread manhunt for Robert R. Card, a person of interest in the mass shooting at a bowling alley and a bar in Maine’s second largest city Wednesday evening.

State Police Colonel William G. Ross described the situation on Thursday: “This was a very fast-paced, fast-moving, very fluid scene, very dangerous scene.”

During a press conference Wednesday night, Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said the numbers of killed and wounded were “all over the map,” which McGrory says is part of the challenge for reporters covering the unfolding events.

Early Thursday, public safety officials in Maine said there are multiple casualties in the mass shooting, but declined to specify the numbers of people killed and wounded—until a late-morning press conference when Maine Governor Janet Mills confirmed that 18 people were killed and 13 wounded.

“One big issue we have here in terms of coverage that’s probably driving authorities crazy is that officials are not speaking with one voice; there are multiple [law enforcement] jurisdictions involved,” he says, many of them reporting varying information about the events.

For example, a Lewiston city councilor told CNN late Wednesday night that at least 22 people had been killed in the mass shootings at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley. Early Thursday morning, the Boston Globe reported that at least 16 people were killed, while the New York Times reported the figure was at least 7.

These figures remained until Mills confirmed late Thursday morning the more recent figures: 18 killed in the shooting and 13 wounded.

“It’s been quiet chaos,” McGrory says, and in fluid situations such as this, where reporters might be getting conflicting information from various trustworthy sources, they have to “go with the number [they’re] most confident in,” while being clear with readers about where that figure comes from, and that it’s a developing situation.

The Maine shooting presented other challenges for journalists as well, McGrory says. It happened at two locations roughly four miles apart, and the shooter wasn’t caught at the scene, which is more typical with mass shootings. These factors make it more difficult for reporters to track down witnesses as well as heightening a real sense of danger for everyone in the region—including journalists dispatched to uncover information.

Stephen Collins, a reporter at the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, in a post on X Thursday.

However, McGrory says, there are still a handful of key locations reporters can go to try to get a clear picture, including the local city hall, where law enforcement officials set up a command center; the makeshift reunification center in Auburn, Maine; and Lewiston’s Central Maine Medical Center.

“These are going to be the best places for reporters to go right now,” he says.

This is the type of story McGrory has experience with. He was four months into his job as Globe editor when Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev detonated homemade bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line in April 2013. The ensuing manhunt for the brothers, and a regional lockdown for days, was in many ways similar to the ongoing manhunt for Card in Maine and created similar logistical and safety challenges for reporters.

“The entire region went into lockdown all day Friday [April 19, 2013]. You have a major metropolitan region in which mass transit stopped running, schools shut down, there was no traffic, no nothing,” he says. “Back then, our reporters were out there, and we had gotten the nod from authorities that journalists could move about the region, but we advised extreme caution while doing it.”

For journalists in Maine this week, McGrory offers the same advice he shared with his reporters back in 2013: “Caution is the word.”