Behind the Headlines

Aug
4:00pm
Behind the Headlines

By TPLCulture
Crime historian Amy Bell joins award-winning journalists Brandi Morin and Tamara Cherry to discuss media coverage of traumatic events and the effects that it has on victims, perpetrators, journalists, lawyers, their families, and others involved.
In Amy Bell’s Life Sentence, Amy fuses personal and criminal justice history to tell the story of a horrific crime and examine its terrible costs. Amy’s father, Ed Bell, famously defended two men charged with the murders of two police officers in Moncton, New Brunswick. Attorney Bell’s unpopular stance—“every person accused of a crime deserves a defense”—eventually led to the ruin of his career and his family life.
Crime reporter Tamara Cherry’s The Trauma Beat documents the experiences of those who were forced to come to terms with their trauma on the public stage while at the same time confronting everything she got wrong on the crime beat. Fellow journalist and author of Our Voice of Fire, Brandi Morin is a survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis and uses her experience to tell the stories of those who did not survive the rampant violence through her clear-eyed and empathetic reporting.
Amy, Brandi, and Tamara reflect on their personal experiences of living through and reporting on deeply traumatic moments and draw connections between those experiences to advocate for a more compassionate and trauma-informed media landscape.
About this event’s guests:
Amy Bell
Brandi Morin
Tamara Cherry
Read more:
Life Sentence
Our Voice of Fire
The Trauma Beat
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This event is part of our On Civil Society series, where we host local and international authors, activists and academics in conversation about the most critical topics of our time. Generously supported in part by Chris M. Reid.
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Toronto Public Library is committed to accessibility. Please call or email us if you are Deaf or have a disability and would like to request accommodation to participate in this program. Please let us know as far in advance as possible and we will do our best to meet your request. At least three weeks’ notice is preferred. Phone 416-393-7099 or email [email protected]
hosted by
TPLCulture