AEJMC Resolution One 2023
The Dylan Lyons Resolution
News Release:
August 30, 2023
CONTACT:
Samantha Higgins, AEJMC Communications Director, 803-798-0271
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a nonprofit scholarly organization with more than 2,000 members in about 40 countries who teach and research journalism, public relations, advertising, digital media, film, and media literacy. Founded in 1912, AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of communication educators and administrators at the college level. AEJMC’s mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the broadest possible range of communication research, to promote the implementation of a multicultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication in an effort to achieve better professional practice, a better-informed public, and wider human understanding. For more information about AEJMC, please visit www.AEJMC.org.
Resolution One:
Whereas, Dylan Lyons and Jesse Walden were both shot while reporting on a homicide in Central Florida on February 22, 2023; and
Whereas, Lyons, who had just joined Spectrum News 13 in July 2022, died from injuries sustained when the suspect in the case returned to the crime scene in Pine Hills community, just outside of Orlando, and fired fatal shots at the reporting team; and
Whereas, Lyons was a proud graduate of the Nicholson School of Communication and Media at University of Central Florida where he anchored the UCF Knightly News, a student-run news program; and
Whereas, part of the Professional Freedom & Responsibility mission of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is to promote the practice of the First Amendment by reporters like Lyons while preparing students for the dangers of a profession made even worse by a recent spike in mass shootings; and
Whereas, the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that Lyons’ death came nearly six months after another reporter, Jeff German, an investigative reporter at Las Vegas Review Journal, was stabbed to death on September 2, 2022; and
Whereas, Lyons’ death brings to 14 the number of the journalists killed while working in the U.S. since 1992, the year Committee to Protect Journalists began keeping records;
Now, therefore, be it resolved that AEJMC joins the faculty at the Nicholson School in celebrating the short life and award-winning journalism of Dylan Lyons while keeping in mind AEJMC members and colleagues whose lives were touched or changed by incidents of violence such as a mass shooting; and
Be it further resolved that AEJMC divisions and interest groups sponsor research and teaching panels and programming that educate attendees about how to facilitate learning in various courses on covering mass shootings and their aftermath including lessons that help prepare students to handle and confront vicarious trauma; and
Finally, as evidence of fulfillment of public service, one of the five core areas of AEJMC’s professional freedom and responsibility, be it resolved that copies of this resolution be presented to the family of Dylan Lyons and the faculty, staff and students of the Nicholson School of Communication and Media in Orlando, Florida.
Print friendly
