Plenty of blame to go around following the reaction to The Inquirer investigation into anti-violence spending

Last month, a group of Black community advocates delivered a full-throated rebuke of an Inquirer story that raised questions about how violence prevention grants are awarded to neighborhood groups in Philadelphia. The article concluded that the city had “flushed millions of dollars into nascent nonprofits unprepared to manage the money — resulting in millions of dollars left unspent and tens of thousands unaccounted for.”

The paper’s investigation was not just racist, the advocates insisted, it was a gut punch to the hardworking activists who have long served the neglected communities across the city that are suffering most from gun violence.

If ever there was a moment that crystallized so many of my deep frustrations with our city — and my newspaper — this was it.

I’ve learned a lot of lessons after spending a decade covering politics, gun violence, and community organizers in Philly, including this: There are no easy answers. And more than anything else, the reaction to The Inquirer story was exactly that: a series of easy, predictable responses — from all the parties involved — that failed to adequately address the complexity and nuance of this issue.

To properly understand the nature of the dispute, we have to dive into the details surrounding the intersection of accountability journalism that’s technically sound but obtuse, the bungled community engagement by City Hall, and our collective reckoning (very much still incomplete) with Philly’s fraught racial history.

Regarding the story itself, I’ll start by saying what I’ve said to anyone who has asked, and a few who haven’t: From a journalistic standpoint, the reporting was airtight, unimpeachable, and unassailable. Our charge as journalists is to hold people and institutions accountable. We don’t owe anyone an apology for that.

But that’s almost beside the point in a case like this, when even facts are considered through the prism of our difficult history.

The truth is that for anyone who has been listening to those in the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods — and to the journalists (mostly of color) who have long covered gun violence here — the community reaction should have been neither unexpected nor unsurprising. Especially for an institution that has acknowledged that it helped to perpetuate inequality in Philadelphia for generations — and that is, at best, many more generations away from making anti-racism more than aspirational.

I’ve been yelling this for years, but one more time for the folks in the back: Do you know what happens when you tokenize stories about Black and brown people, often written by Black and brown journalists, as incidental, even throwaway topics — and then prioritize and amplify stories about wrongdoing within those same communities?

To people who have long felt like punching bags, it’s just another blow — another occasion when they are being blamed for the failures of the systems and institutions around them, including the city. (Never mind what it feels like for journalists of color whose work is sometimes minimized both by the institutions they work for and by some of the very groups that complain they aren’t receiving coverage. But more on that later.)

As the rancor over the story grew, and I watched members of the community point fingers and my newsroom colleagues clutch their pearls, I’ll tell you who was getting off the easiest: city officials who have long been at fault for the epic failure to provide enough support to the grassroots organizations doing the often invisible and thankless work of trying to make a difference in their neighborhoods.

After all, it was those city officials who, way back in 2017, created the Office of Violence Prevention, an agency whose top priority was supposed to be a full, ongoing, and transparent evaluation and monitoring of the city’s violence prevention programs. Six years later, it hasn’t done much more than pay its staff rather handsomely to do … what, exactly?

I mean, in 2018, the managing director all but told me that the office was in over its head, but instead of cleaning house, the city hired more people to make more empty promises.

When I called around this week to talk to some of the community advocates I’ve known for years, they were still fuming — though more at the newspaper than the city.

A major concern: that The Inquirer’s portrayal of Philly’s grassroots organizations might make the city less inclined to work with them in the future. And while I understood the anxiety of neighborhood organizers, their failure in this instance to also call out city officials just as vigorously as they’ve called out journalists has done everyone a disservice. Institutions are fond of putting forth minimal effort and then refusing to take responsibility when those efforts fail. See, we tried …

The fear of individuals being held accountable for the shortcomings of institutions is exactly why the leaders of several anti-violence groups told me they’d rather just continue doing the work on their own without receiving any additional grants from the city.

Think about that for a minute: Imagine how deep someone’s disappointment and distrust of institutions must run when they’d rather sacrifice funding they probably can’t get anywhere else than set themselves up to fail by relying on an unreliable city government.

Let’s get real honest here: When it comes to community organizing, there is a world of difference between growing pains and graft. And no amount of history should give corruption a pass.

While we’re trying to keep everyone honest, I would be less than forthcoming if I didn’t bring up some of the groups complaining about a lack of recognition when many journalists — especially journalists of color — have been working hard for years to ensure their stories are amplified, even before gun violence became an institutional priority in the newsroom.

I have lost count of the number of times that past editors have suggested I write about something else — anything else — besides our city’s gun violence crisis. After all, those editors have said, we have subscribers in the suburbs to think about. As if the city’s gun violence didn’t affect them as well.

But I’ve also lost count of the times that I, as a journalist of color, am sitting in someone’s living room, listening to their story, only to hear them say that “the media” doesn’t care about them or their story — even as I, a member of “the media,” am sitting right in front of them, ready to share their story.

It would be easy to get angry and defensive, and I’ve been both. But I have to keep reminding myself that — especially when it comes to race and violence and institutional failings in Philadelphia — there are no easy answers.