Is Political Violence The New Norm?

Oct 15, 2026

THIS WEEK: When Local Politics Gets Violent

Covering political violence is dangerous.

A recent NYT piece reminded us here at Reporting Right how hard it can be to get it right and stay safe, while also informing our communities in ways that can empower them to take protective action.

There seem to be an endless number of pitfalls.

When doing these stories, we risk:

Becoming platforming tools for bad actors seeking attention.
Turning reporters (us) into vulnerable targets, often in newsrooms ill-prepared to handle safety issues.
Failing to inform people where, in a particular community, violence is coming from — in an effort (and need) to appear unbiased.
Giving these issues too little coverage (because they can be so complicated and scary.) This can leave communities — who rely on us for information — in the dark about real threats.

To avoid these pitfalls, local newsrooms need to get pro-active about establishing newsroom-wide strategies, protocols, best-practices and safety guidelines for coverage. This shouldn’t happen at the 11th hour while reporters are in the midst of grappling with specific stories, but long before.

Political violence stories require:

Context

It’s important to share with audiences where violent actors are coming from, who they are associated with, and what their purported motivations (and end goals) are. This helps audiences understand political violence as a complex community problem that can be tackled together, rather than a one-off that leaves people feeling powerless.

Thoughtful framing

Avoid stories that feature perpetrators in ways that can glorify or glamorize them. Humanizing them can seem like the right call; but be careful how those framings can be perceived by other troubled people in your community. Do such framings create sympathy for bad, anti-social actors and/or downplay the dangers they pose? Make a point of focusing on process: where have they gotten their ideas/plans? Who else in your community is getting info in those places? Were their warning signs? Were they heeded? Is this part of a bigger picture? Try to get past the Day One story and figure out ways for your reporting to go deeper and broader.

Community-Centered Reporting

Center your stories around the ways that political violence is harming communities, public life, the number of people who want to become public servants. Political violence garners a lot of its power from becoming a chaos-maker. Making victims/the attacked the center of your reporting helps to expose why political violence is so destructive to civic life. Doing this also robs perpetrators of the spotlight, offering it instead to people who can seek solutions.

Heroes

Highlight people, organizations or governmental bodies that are working to eradicate political violence in your community. This can give audiences much-needed perspective and incite them to act, as well. Showing civic bodies reacting collectively to political violence can expose its weakness as a political tool and recenter the power structure around pro-social actors.

Avoid bias, but not the truth

Political violence is political. Communities deserve to know what the politics are of the perpetrators. Do some institutions/political entities condone political violence? What do the numbers say? Is supposed political violence being used as a silencing tool? Are protests being confused with riots? Are some groups/actors excused for their political violence, while others go punished? Watch for restrictive legislation that involves speech and protest rights. Political violence (real or imagined) can be used to squash free expression. Knowing this helps you to better frame stories about responses to political violence and assess whether they are helpful/hurtful to democratic norms.