About the Project


T
he rate of murder in Chicago continues to draw international attention. Twenty years ago, as a young reporter at the Chicago Tribune, murder was the case assigned to John W. Fountain as the newspaper’s chief crime reporter. As a professor at Roosevelt University, he led his class of student journalists on a project this spring  to chronicle homicide in Chicago  as the bloody pace continues on the heels of last year’s 506 murders in the Windy City. The emphasis is largely, though not solely, on youth violence.
The class’ aim was simple: To examine the causes and consequences of murder in Chicago while providing the narrative details of the impact beyond the headlines. For it is the stories of the deadly gunplay, the story of the emergence of a new brand of serial killer—young, urban, male and usually black—the story of the city trauma centers that have essentially become MASH units in this urban war. 
It is the story of parents having to select coffins for their young, of children being unable to play outside in the summer, of the irony of young black men being slain on the South Side’s Emmett Till Road by killers who look like them; the story of wheelchair-bound survivors and preteen gunshot victims undergoing physical rehabilitation. It is the story of a circle of murder—when plotted on a map—surrounding President Barack Obama’s South Side home nestled on what ironically is arguably the safest block in the city.
Relying on traditional reporting techniques as well as the tools of digital technology, the team investigated the issue at its root, ultimately producing human stories, both compelling and real, well sourced and top level. Their findings appear here in the form of written narratives, podcasts, sound slideshows and videos.


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