Emily R. Blyth, Mo Korchinski, Lyana Patrick

Abstract

This community-engaged research project employs a focus group grounded in lived experience of police violence to identify helpful and harmful elements in reporting on use of lethal force by police. The news articles analyzed focus on the police killing of Jared (Jay) Lowndes, an Indigenous father of two killed by Campbell River police on July 8, 2021. Lived experience grounds this work through a co-leadership model, a community advisory board, and a focus group consisting of clients of Unlocking the Gates Services Society, an organization that supports reintegration of individuals who are being released from correctional facilities in British Columbia. Through a three-day focus group using the six-step DEPICT model for participatory analysis of three articles describing Jay’s killing, focus group members described 13 helpful reporting patterns (likely to support justice and healing) and nine harmful patterns (likely to prevent accountability and enact harm) in the articles. Building from these patterns, focus group members propose five recommended standards for journalists reporting on police violence and one standard for editors. We present these standards and patterns to encourage and support engaged journalism that has the potential to foster accountability and healing when police do harm.

Keywords: community-engaged research, discourse analysis, participatory analysis, police violence, vicarious harm, engaged journalism, strengths-based methods

Résumé

La présente note de recherche contient des observations préliminaires, des questions et des réflexions sur la relationnalité dans le journalisme par l’angle de l’engagement et de la collaboration avec le « plus qu’humain ». S’appuyant sur l’idée que nous sommes des êtres terrestres plutôt que de simples observateurs de la terre (Abram, 1996), la présente note s’inspire de travaux de terrain récents et de travaux universitaires émergents et joue avec une théorie de la pratique en éducation connue sous le nom de « pédagogies sauvages » (wild pedagogies) (Jickling et coll., 2018 ; Blenkinsop et coll., 2022 ; Blenkinsop et Fettes, 2020). Les pédagogies sauvages introduisent des disruptions au sein de l’éducation et, par extension, du journalisme (à titre de discipline étroitement liée à l’éducation). Par la réintroduction du « sauvage » dans l’éducation, les pédagogies sauvages offrent également l’occasion d’introduire du « sauvage » dans le journalisme ; de recadrer et de revoir les récits et l’éthique journalistiques, de même que de recréer et de réimaginer les normes et pratiques du journalisme.

Mots-clés : recherche communautaire engagée, analyse du discours, analyse participative, violence policière, préjudice indirect, journalisme engagé, méthodes axées sur les forces

Article

---

Standards and patterns for reporting on police violence: Suggestions from a B.C.-based community focus group

Emily R. Blyth, Mo Korchinski, and Lyana Patrick

 

Introduction

Scholars and political advocates have long pointed to a lack of critical media coverage as one of the key reasons that police violence continues to enact significant, discriminatory, and often overlooked harm in the nation-state colonially known as Canada (Tator & Henry, 2006; Jiwani, 2006; Maynard, 2017; Passafiume, 2024). Jared (Jay) Lowndes, Wet’suwet’en of the Laksilyu house and a father of two, was killed by Campbell River Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on July 8, 2021. The first news article on Jay’s killing^[1] (CBC News, 2021) did not mention anything about the identity of the victim. It didn’t raise questions about how the officers’ actions resulted in a man’s death. Instead, the article focused on the life of a police dog who was killed during the incident. Working with the victim’s family, award-winning journalist Odette Auger responded with a new story of Jay’s life, death, and the brutality of his loss, published on July 13, 2021 (Auger, 2021). Quickly after Auger’s story was published, major Canadian news outlets began to pick up this humanizing version of events which focused on Jay’s life and relationships (see Ball, 2021). Jay’s family and friends managed to change the media narrative after the story of his death was first told through what they saw as a deeply dehumanizing and colonial lens. They went on to form the Vancouver-based advocacy group, Justice for Jared, to raise awareness of Jay’s story and seek justice for him and others who are killed by police in Canada.

This project looks to Jay’s story to ground our work in an example of critical media coverage that changed the narrative when police did harm. Early on in this research, we reached out to Justice for Jared to learn from their experiences changing the story around Jay’s death and have been fortunate to have their guidance throughout this process.

Critical stories of police violence, like the story that Auger wrote in 2021, bring attention to and document the human impact of systemic injustice in law enforcement. They thus resist the erasure of official data-keeping practices. In Canada, police organizations, police oversight agencies, and governments do not track or release robust data on police violence or adverse contacts with police. Legal organizations such as Pivot Legal Society, journalistic investigations such as the CBC’s Deadly Force (Singh, 2020), and academic research such as the Tracking (In)Justice project (Tracking (In)Justice, 2025) have stepped up to fill this gap. They have found that police use of lethal force in Canada has been increasing over the past decade; 2022 was a record-breaking year, with 69 people killed by police across the country (Tracking (In)Justice, n.d.). Along with increases in lethal force, racial disparities in who police kill are also on the rise (Tracking (In)Justice, 2023). In August and September 2024 alone, nine Indigenous people were killed by police, leading to an emergency debate in the House of Commons and calls for a national inquiry from advocates and impacted family members (Passafiume, 2024).

Leading up to the emergency debate, Nunavut Member of Parliament Lori Idlout stated that the “lack of media coverage of these tragedies shows that systemic violence and deaths of Indigenous Peoples in Canada is normal and expected” (Idlout, in Passafiume, 2024). Idlout’s statement suggests that media-supported inattention to police violence persists. In the meantime, policing continues to produce and contribute to health inequities. Police violence is often targeted towards those affected by systemic disadvantage in society (Haile et al., 2023; Pasternak et al., 2022). It targets racialized people (Govender, 2021; Kanani, 2011; Singh, 2020); people experiencing mental health crises, illness, and neurodivergence (Kouyoumdjian et al., 2019; Kanani, 2011; Salerno et al., 2019; Singh, 2020); immigrants (Heidi et al., 2020; Chu & Song, 2008); sex workers (Pasternak et al., 2022); drug users (Pasternak et al., 2022); and people who experience homelessness (Boyd et al., 2015), incarceration (Owusu-Bempah et al., 2014), and/or disability (Mueller et al., 2019). While mortality caused by lethal force is one of the most extreme and widely recognized harms that stems from violent policing, scholars have demonstrated that police violence creates a constellation of direct and indirect adverse health outcomes  (DeVylder et al., 2020; Simckes et al., 2021). These frameworks describe how the harms that stem from discriminatory policing are expansive and can lead to ill health through a range of mechanisms including acute injuries, psychological distress, disproportionate incarceration, and vicarious harms.

While studies of news coverage of police violence are limited, the data suggest that uncritical coverage has the potential to enact emotional, psychological, and social harm on audiences who are aware of and/or have experienced violent policing. Haile et al.’s expansive 2023 review of the health outcomes of police violence points to three studies (Hawkins, 2022; Motley et al., 2020; Staggers-Hakim, 2016) that show community-level harms that stem from media exposure to police violence. Hawkins identifies four themes for vicarious media exposure including, “(1) debilitating sadness, (2) hyperarousal/chronic fear of dying, (3) a constant sense of helplessness and (4) a lack of healthy coping mechanisms” (2022, p. 1116). The study points to reductions in the social determinants of health and adverse mental health impacts, including inability to work and complete daily tasks, fear of loss of work, depression, suicide, and substance abuse. Further, this study identifies two distinct pathways for harm for Black community members from uncritical reporting: the impact when Black individuals consume the story and the impact of dismissive conversations with White peers about highly publicized acts of police brutality. Motley et al. (2020) show that for audiences who have experienced incarceration, emotional responses (sadness, fear, and anger) are more pronounced when witnessing police violence compared to witnessing other forms of community-based violence. Finally, Staggers-Hakim (2016) conducted a focus group with Black youth to explore the effects of awareness of national cases where police have killed Black civilians. The focus group revealed that exposure to police violence through media and daily conversations was traumatizing, with analysis identifying seven common themes. The authors emphasised the potential for health disparities to arise when youth experience fear and hypervigilance after exposure to police violence. Thus, media coverage of police violence can itself perpetuate the harms of violent policing onto its audience.

This project builds from an emerging understanding that uncritical news coverage of police violence is a multi-faceted source of vicarious harm. Uncritical news coverage can be understood as coverage that employs dominant frames that position police solely as protectors and dehumanize those they harm. This framing protects police from accountability, and criminalizes victims of police violence and those who oppose the police (Henderson et al., 2022; Tator & Henry, 2006; Canevez et al., 2022; Fridkin et al., 2017; Maynard, 2017). It can be understood as a hegemonic media tool (Gitlin, 2003) that upholds the dominant view in a society that policing is an implicit source of protection and therefore can do no harm. Vague language that can obscure or minimize officer accountability, such as the term “officer-involved shooting” is a common reporting norm in uncritical coverage. This vague language is so ubiquitous to uncritical reporting that it is often discouraged in style guides for reporting on police violence (The Associated Press, 2024; Ghandnoosh, 2023; Fuller et al., 2016; Race Forward, 2015). While media production encodes frames with certain meanings, audience members must decode these messages according to their positionality (Hall, 1980).

When uncritical reporting frames police violence as commonplace, acceptable, or causing minimal harm even when actions have led to civilian deaths, audience reactions will depend on the extent to which that media framing aligns with the personal schema (Goffman, 1974) through which each audience member interprets the report. The same source of uncritical reporting on police violence can thus simultaneously enact harm by invalidating audiences who have experienced police violence and prolong harm by preventing consciousness raising in audiences that could lead to socially driven change (Tator & Henry, 2006). By contrast, critical journalism that encourages scrutiny when police are violent and humanizes those who police hurt has the potential to encourage police accountability and community healing (see Table 1).

---

Table 1
Potential impacts of police violence reporting according to media and audience frames, updated from Blyth, 2025

	Uncritical news coverage	Critical news coverage
Audiences who see police violence as an inequity (i.e. avoidable and unjust)	Potential for harm	Reinforce/validate
Audiences who see police violence as commonplace (i.e. allowable and ordinary)	Reinforce/validate	Consciousness raising

---

A critical view of police violence is well aligned with the relational aspects of engaged journalism. While engaged journalism can refer to a range of practices (Wenzel, 2022), the kind of engaged journalism that this work believes in is interested in “relational or deep engagement as a means to the end of civic participation and strengthening community storytelling networks” (Wenzel, 2021, p.12). We posit that engaged reporting on police violence must reject dominant narrative tropes and turn to community to understand and share the stories that live there. Often, these communities have experienced extractive storytelling and may not expect journalists to have their best interests at heart (Wenzel, 2021). In contrast, we understand engaged journalism to centre community perspectives and be driven by compassion and truth, which we summarized during focus groups as heart-based reporting.

Through a partnership with Unlocking the Gates Services Society (UTG), this project was interested in learning from UTG clients in Maple Ridge, B.C., who have personally experienced police violence as they interpret news coverage of discriminatory policing. As an action-oriented project, this research articulates what we hope may be practical tools to support engaged journalism on stories related to police violence. Through the six-step DEPICT (Dynamic Reading, Engaged Codebook Development, Participatory Coding, Inclusive Reviewing and Summarizing of Categories, Collaborative Analyzing, Translating) model for participatory analysis, we worked with a community focus group to share patterns in news coverage that they felt were helpful (likely to support justice and healing) and patterns that they felt were harmful (likely to prevent accountability and enact harm). Through discussion, we further distilled those patterns into a shortlist of standards that our focus group members would most want to share with journalists who are interested in critical and engaged reporting on police violence.

Methods

Using community-engaged and arts-based frameworks, this study turned to community members who have experienced police violence to understand how they interpreted news reporting on police violence. As a community-engaged project, community members lead and contributed to this project across our co-leadership model, community advisory board, formal and informal advisors, and our focus group membership. The community members in our focus group had personal experiences of police violence but were not personally impacted by Jay’s story.

Project advisors

Project co-leads Korchinski and Blyth first met in early 2021 through their shared membership in the Transformative Health & Justice Research Cluster at the University of British Columbia. Korchinski joined the project as a co-lead in February 2024. She is a White settler and brings her considerable lived, community, and research expertise as Executive Director of UTG to this work. Blyth wrote the initial draft of the research program through a project proposal that was reviewed by her supervisory committee in Fall, 2023. She is a White settler and came to this work through her connections to communities that experience mental health crises and as a part of her PhD in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

The co-leads met weekly from February to May 2024 to form the community advisory board and draft research procedures. The final community advisory group included representatives from Justice for Jared, Simon Fraser University’s No Cops on Campus, graduate students and faculty members from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, and artistic advisors. Community advisory board members held expertise and personal experience with police violence, news analysis for social change, community-engaged research, mixed-methods health research in underserved populations, and artistic practice and knowledge translation. Additional informal and formal advisors included members of Blyth’s doctoral studies supervisory committee, members of the Transformative Health & Justice Research Cluster, including Indigenous Elders, peers with lived incarceration experience, and established researchers, as well as additional representatives connected to Justice for Jared.

Data selection

Our data selection process was driven by conversations with Justice for Jared, a Vancouver-based advocacy group that is widely committed to seeking accountability and raising awareness when police kill in Canada, and specifically committed to seeking justice in response to the police killing of beloved father, son, and community member Jared (Jay) Lowndes who was killed by Campbell River police in 2021. Police officers surrounded Jay’s car and released a police dog into his vehicle. Jay killed the police dog in what friends and family describe as an attempt to save his own life and that of the puppy that was with him (Auger, 2021).

We first invited members of Justice for Jared to join the community advisory board for the project in March 2024 with a hope that they would be open to sharing their experiences humanizing the narrative of Jay’s death to help inform our research. After they shared their support for the work and agreed to join the board and provide ongoing feedback, we continued working together through the research planning phase. As planning progressed, our conversations revealed that there were distinct articles on Jay’s death that stood out to members of Justice for Jared and could thus powerfully inform our data selection. For these reasons, after initial recruitment we made the decision to focus our analysis in this project on media coverage of Jay’s killing.

The three news articles (Auger, 2021; Ball, 2021; CBC News, 2021) selected for analysis report on Jay’s death and were chosen during early advisory meetings with members of Jay’s family from Justice for Jared. In these early meetings, we asked impacted family members about their experiences with news coverage of Jay’s killing. In response, they identified the three articles included in this study. When telling us about each article, they ranked them from most critical (respectful and in-depth reporting that validated their pain) to uncritical (dehumanizing and one-sided reporting that caused them psychological harm).

The July 8 CBC article (CBC News, 2021) was deemed by Jay’s family to be the least critical. It was published immediately after Jay’s killing and focuses on the police dog that handlers released into Jay’s car. This early article features details about the police dog’s career and quotes a police officer detailing his emotional response to the dog’s death. While there can be restrictions in releasing a subject’s name in early reporting, family members noted an inherent contrast in how this article refers to the dog by name, but not the victim of police violence. Focus group members also independently noted this stark contrast during participatory analysis. There is mention of a man killed in the incident, but no questions raised as to whether the officers acted in the right way or could have prevented his death. In contrast, in the article labelled as most critical, Auger (2021) shares quotes from Jay’s family about his life and loss. The story was developed by establishing a relationship with Jay’s family. The article talks about Jay’s life and role as a father, sharing his name and community ties. As a follow-up article from the CBC, members of Justice for Jared labelled Ball’s July 13 article (2021) as a middle ground as the reporting does include critical inquiry and perspectives from family, though they noted that unlike Auger, Ball didn’t create in-depth relationships with Jay’s family.

As per Blyth’s research log, the decision to include Auger (2021) and CBC News (2021) reflected “[advisor from Justice for Jared’s] stress on Odette Auger as a grounded reporter . . . and [advisor from Justice for Jared] quoting the CBC [article] as the first to uncritically cover Jared’s death” (Blyth, Research log, 2024). Further, the decision to include two articles from the CBC allowed for comparisons of immediate (CBC News, 2021) and follow-up (Ball, 2021) reports from the same outlet. This decision followed an early recommendation from one research advisor who suggested “us[ing] consistent news outlets as sources” and “includ[ing] immediate and longer-term reporting comparisons” (Blyth, Research log, 2024). On the decision to include a range from critical to uncritical articles according to the conversations with Justice for Jared, Blyth wrote, “I hoped that including this spectrum of critical-uncritical reporting might also offer the participants clearer comparisons in reporting styles, which I hoped ultimately might be helpful as participants practiced searching for patterns in the reporting styles” (Blyth, Research log, 2024).

Recruitment

The recruitment processes combined partner and researcher priorities. As UTG was particularly focused on expanding knowledge to support their work with clients who use substances, Korchinski shared the call for research with past and current UTG clients who identified with substance use experience. Eligibility requirements then zeroed in on populations who had lived experience of police violence and identified with groups most at risk of experiencing police violence. Focus group members were considered eligible if they (1) had witnessed police violence in the Metro Vancouver area in the last five years; (2) were at least 18 years old; (3) were comfortable conversing in English; and (4) identified with one or more of the groups most likely to experience police violence in Canada. These included people from key racial and ethnic groups (Black; First Nations, Métis, or Inuit; racialized individuals); transgender people; people with health experiences that lead to higher risk of police violence (disabled/living with disability; people experiencing divergent mental health and/or mental health struggles; people with histories of drug use and/or addiction); and people with life experiences that can increase exposure to police violence (experience in jail or prison; experience being unhoused; experience with sex work).

Additionally, to mitigate risk, participants who were experiencing crisis or had disclosures of active distress related to acute police violence were considered ineligible. In May 2024, a trusted UTG outreach worker met with potential focus group members to review the study procedures and consent forms. Seven community members joined the project. All had past prison experience, all described current or prior experiences with mental health struggles and with police violence, six described experiencing disability, six described experiencing homelessness, and six described experiences with drug use. Racial identity was not a necessary inclusion factor in participation, and the racial diversity of the group was impacted following a drop in attendance after a shooting death of a local resident known to many of the UTG clients that we contacted for recruitment in the days prior to the focus group. One focus group member identified as First Nations and six identified with White settler ancestry. All members of the focus group were compensated for their time in the study at a rate above minimum wage, and provided with transportation and meals during the focus group meetings. Focus group members had the option to be acknowledged by name in the study’s public-facing final knowledge products, which included a public report (Blyth et al., 2025) and art show, for which they were compensated as artists.

Focus group procedures

Over three consecutive days in June, 2024, the co-leads worked with the focus group members to perform a participatory discourse analysis following the DEPICT model. Given the potential that the topic of police violence holds for triggering distress, consenting procedures were verbally reaffirmed and reviewed at the beginning of each session. Handouts on identifying burnout were also distributed at the beginning of each session. The handouts included details on finding support and reminded the members of the focus group that their wellbeing was the priority in the research. These details were also verbalized by the facilitator at the beginning of each session. Focus group members were encouraged to call for a break at any time during the focus group meeting and were often joined by a member of the group who was also a peer-support worker when doing so. Further, to aid in healing and trust building (Ardiles Gamboa et al., 2025), an integrated arts-based knowledge mobilization framework (Kukkonen & Cooper, 2019) was employed with artistic activities at the beginning and end of the focus group meetings. (See Figure 1).

---

Figure 1
Focus group members’ artworks displayed at our Walk in Empathy; Walk in Gratitude public art show

---

The project co-leads facilitated an adapted approach to the DEPICT model for participatory analysis, developed by Flicker and Nixon (2015). This model was selected as we sought to engage focus group members in participatory discourse analysis and the DEPICT model was developed to support greater participation in the analysis phase of research (Flicker & Nixon, 2015). DEPICT includes the following six steps: 1) Dynamic reading; 2) Engaged codebook development; 3) Participatory coding; 4) Inclusive reviewing and summarizing of categories; 5) Collaborative analyzing; and 6) Translating (Flicker & Nixon, 2015).

During dynamic reading, community focus group members read the CBC News (2021) article one section at a time and each highlighted any text that they felt was helpful (defined as likely to support justice and healing) or that they felt was harmful (defined as likely to prevent accountability and enact harm). While there were cases where one or more focus group members noted a text as helpful or harmful while others did not, we did not experience any cases where some labelled the same text as helpful that others labelled as harmful. Any part of the article that stood out to at least one person in the focus group was included for consideration. Reasons for selecting given passages were not constrained and included narrative practices, sourcing practices related to direct quotes in the article, and choices for headlines, sub-headlines, and photos.

During engaged codebook development, we went around the circle looking for patterns in the text we highlighted. Each person read the passages they highlighted and discussed why each section stood out to them. Focus group members then shared whether the passage was helpful or harmful and named the phenomena in each passage with a one- to five-word description. Some created their descriptions by writing beside the highlighted text, while others articulated the descriptions verbally with support from the group. Some examples of text written beside highlighted passages include, “talked about how it impacted family” (P1), “heroizm [sic]”, (P3) “gave the man’s life worth” (P4), “humanizing” (P5) “one-sided” (P7). Here, participant numbers are included to indicate the range of voices sampled. Blyth facilitated by writing the one- to five-word descriptions on poster board lists to track helpful and harmful patterns. Members of the focus group could elect to categorize their passage as an existing pattern that Blyth had added to the boards or as a new pattern. We then repeated this process to find new and existing patterns in Auger’s article (2021). New patterns were added as long as one or more members of the focus group supported their inclusion.

In participatory coding, Blyth then read sections of the final article (Ball, 2021) aloud while the focus group members looked for patterns. Members highlighted any of the patterns that were already listed on the board and looked for any text that stood out for new reasons.

For inclusive reviewing and summarizing, we had a group discussion to review the patterns, look for redundancies or issues, and confirm that we had a shared understanding of the meaning of each pattern we had listed. Patterns were included so long as at least one group member agreed they were relevant in this final discussion. Overlapping patterns were allowed so long as someone in the group felt the distinction was relevant, for example, “1. humanizing those hurt and their actions” was considered similar to and overlapping with “2. emotional appeals (empathy),” but distinct enough to warrant including. Pattern names were also updated at this time, for example, “humanizing” was updated to “1. humanizing those hurt and their actions” after a member of the focus group pointed out that the pattern was unclear about who was being humanized. Blyth used transcripts of this conversation to help draft the descriptions found in Table 2 and Table 3.

We then moved into collaborative analyzing. Drawing on the patterns and their experience as readers, at this stage the focus group members articulated the standards for journalists and editors that you will find in Table 4.

---

Table 2
Applying DEPICT, updated from Blyth et al., 2026

DEPICT Terminology	Community- Oriented Terminology	Key prompts and questions	Example
Dynamic reading	Group reading	Read the articles one section at a time. In each section: What feels helpful? What feels harmful? Highlight the relevant text.	Highlighted text: “Friends and family grieve the loss of Indigenous father of two, Jay Lowndes, after he was killed by Campbell River police last week” (Auger, 2021)
Engaged codebook development	Comparing what stood out to find patterns	Each person will read their highlighted text aloud. As we read, use 1-5 words to describe why the text stood out as harmful or helpful. These will be the patterns we are noticing in the reporting, so it is totally fine to use the same 1-5 words more than once if different quotes feel similar. (Facilitator records the responses in two lists: helpful and harmful.) Take time to look at the articles. Are there any other patterns standing out that are not in these lists? Let’s go over the patterns and what they mean.  (Facilitator to record meaning.)	Description written beside text: “Gave the man’s life worth.”As a group, members articulate “emotional appeal” and “empathy” as possible pattern descriptions.
Participatory coding	Looking for our patterns in new articles	Let’s go over the patterns again. Is there anything that others noticed and want to add before we continue? Now, the facilitator will read sections of a new article aloud. As she reads, look for patterns. If you see one of our patterns, highlight the text and write the pattern name beside it. If you see a new pattern, highlight that and write a new pattern name. If a section doesn’t have any new or existing patterns, that’s totally ok.	Text labeled as emotional appeal/empathy in subsequent article: “Laura Holland, his mother, remembers her son phoning her Thursday with the news… ‘It really hit me: they killed my son’ ” (Ball, 2021).
Inclusive reviewing and summarizing of categories	Describing and finalizing our patterns	What existing patterns did people find? Do we all agree? How do we feel about the patterns we have listed? Is there anything missing or anything that doesn’t belong? (Facilitator to record any new patterns, meanings, and changes.)	Pattern description is finalized as “Emotional appeals (empathy).”
Collaborative analyzing	Creating standards/ recommendations	Based on the patterns we’ve seen, what suggestions would you want to share with reporters and journalists? What are the most important findings? What structural/societal factors can help us understand the stories and reporting styles?	Focus group members work together to write standard #2: “Talk to the family, work for the family, be the family.”
Translating	Sharing the work	Create something that represents your experiences of police violence or your experiences of safety. Can you tell the group about what you made and what it represents for you? How can this work inspire change for journalists? Who is already doing heart-based journalism, or interested in this work, and how can we support them?	Patterns and standards are translated into a public primer.

---

Early translating took place during group discussions at the end of each day. In these conversations, we established the target audience of our research as journalists already involved in engaged journalism and those interested in doing this work, as well as wider publics who are unaware of the inequities of police violence. Translating continued beyond focus group meetings through a practical and accessible public report to share our patterns and standards with journalists and a public art show which would share the research findings with wider publics (see Figure 2).

---

Figure 2
Research findings displayed at Walk in Empathy; Walk in Gratitude public art show. Photo Credit: Gallery Gachet

---

Collecting feedback

Blyth drafted a public report that underwent a multi-phase and iterative feedback process that involved 24 reviewers over eight months, from November 2024–June 2025 (see Figure 3). 

---

Figure 3
Iterative feedback process for the Community Voices (Blyth et al., 2025) public report, originally published in Blyth, 2025

---

An initial feedback session was held with members of the Transformative Health and Justice Research Cluster, which partially funded the research and through which the project co-leads first connected. Blyth then met with a member of Justice for Jared to present the report for feedback and invited further feedback from Justice for Jared members by email. A feedback meeting was then held with the community focus group members, for which all members were compensated for their time. Six of the seven original community members met to provide feedback on the public report, as one attendee from the initial focus group meetings was unreachable. Blyth’s supervisory committee and the community advisory board gave formal and iterative feedback throughout the eight-month drafting period. Finally, Amy Haagsma, a professional editor, was engaged to ensure that the report was accessibly written and designed. At this stage, a near-complete copy was distributed to key advisors to ensure they supported the changes that the report had undergone since their initial review. We also provided Odette Auger, the author of the 2021 news article that first humanized Jay, with a copy of the report for feedback at this time. Haagsma then completed the back-end formatting required to make the PDF accessible for screen readers and conform to PDF/UA and WCAG 2.1 standards. The primary goals of this feedback process were respecting and honouring those involved in the research and those impacted by Jay’s death and sharing the research in a widely accessible format.

Results

In total, community members described 13 helpful reporting patterns and nine harmful reporting patterns across the three articles. The members of the focus group shared reflections across a range of journalistic and stylistic practices such as the articles’ tone, content, criticality, and sourcing. These patterns appear in Table 3 and Table 4, which include descriptions and descriptive examples. These patterns are specific to our focus group, but we hope they may offer some insight for researchers, journalists, and authors who are interested in how some community members who have experienced police violence interact with news coverage on the topic. These patterns and standards were articulated as a locally specific resource that might offer a helpful perspective for those who are engaged in the difficult and taxing work of documenting police violence. As our research team is committed to generating relationships that have the potential to influence reporting standards across news organizations, and out of respect for the authors of each article, while we include some direct quotes as examples in text, in the tables we have elected to use descriptive examples rather than quoting specific passages.

Helpful reporting patterns

The 13 helpful reporting patterns (see Table 3) included examples such as “Humanizing those hurt and their actions.” We describe this pattern as:

Giving a sense of worth to the person who experienced police violence by sharing information that helps readers see them as a human being. It is especially powerful where humanizing language replaces criminalizing language, emphasizing that the person police hurt was a human being.

For this pattern, we provide the following descriptive example: “Calling the person who is harmed by name or sharing contextual information that would justify the use of self-defense.” Finally, a textual example of this pattern comes from one of our focus group members who wrote humanizing beside “Jared Lowndes, a 38-year old Wet’suwet’en man” (Ball, 2021).

Harmful reporting patterns

The nine harmful reporting patterns (See Table 4) included examples such as “Dehumanizing/criminalizing those who police hurt.” We describe this as:

Limiting attention on the person who experienced police violence by making them seem less human and thus less relatable. This is often done by presenting the person as a criminal who is thus deserving of police violence by pointing to criminal histories, perceived criminal intent, or behaviours that are seen as criminal or dangerous, such as weapon possession.

We noticed this pattern in practices such as “Referring to the person who is harmed as the ‘suspect,’ not referring to the person by name, yet naming the police dog involved.” The passage, “the dog was ‘stabbed and killed, and the suspect was shot and pronounced deceased’ ” (CBC News, 2021) exemplifies this pattern while quoting heavily from the RCMP release about Jay’s killing.

---

Table 3
Helpful reporting patterns identified by the focus group

Pattern	Description	Example
1. Humanizing those hurt and their actions	Giving a sense of worth to the person who experienced police violence by sharing information that helps readers see them as a human being. It is especially powerful where humanizing language replaces criminalizing language, emphasizing that the person police hurt was a human being.	Calling the person who is harmed by name or sharing contextual information that would justify the use of self-defense.
2. Emotional appeals (empathy)	Any descriptions of the person who was harmed that help the reader relate to that person, increase sympathy, or promote empathy.	Calling the person who is harmed a “father of two” or “a beloved son.”
3. Friend and family voices	Sharing perspectives on the instance of police violence, the wider context, and the victim’s life from people who were close to the person who was harmed.	Direct quotes and photos provided by those close to the person who was harmed.
4. Trusted community authority voices	Sharing perspectives on the instance of police violence and the wider context from community leaders and leaders of related advocacy organizations with a history of critical support related to police violence.	Statements from First Nations Chiefs from the community where the violence took place.
5. Educating on the broader history and context	Sharing information that places the specific instance of violence within the wider patterns of police harm, both exposing those patterns and bringing scrutiny to this instance not as a one-off, but as part of a bigger problem. It requires an understanding that police violence is a public inequity issue with a long history that is linked to many kinds of oppression.	Stating how many Indigenous people have been killed by police in a given year in Canada or the province when reporting on police killing Indigenous people.
6. Sharing the specific context	Sharing what happened leading up to the violence: where relevant and unprejudiced, what prior events may have motivated a civilian’s response in that moment, what is the specific policing context or history of harm in this community/detachment.	Describing past abuse that the person who was harmed experienced from police or officers’ track records leading up to the event.
7. Pointing to the system/problem	Pointing to the various problems with policing and the justice system that enable police violence by explicitly explaining the enabling issue/shortcoming and providing evidence to underscore the problem.	Describing a lack of police training or oversight, poor record keeping, or systemic over-policing in specific communities.
8. Validating community	Reporting that treats the community and family with respect and compassion during a time of loss, in both the process and the outcome of the reporting. Especially in communities where police violence is endemic, a police killing is a constant stress and a fear made real.	Meeting family and friends where they are during your investigation. Sitting with those impacted and hearing their story as people who are grieving and not as sound bites to be exploited. Writing that is attentive to the lived impacts of grief and loss.
9. Exposing racism, discrimination, and disrespect	Descriptions that explicitly call out inequities that are rooted in hate, in terms of both police response and wider community response.	Describing and/or criticizing discriminatory and/or criminalizing hate comments and acts from communities unfamiliar with the person who was harmed toward the person who was harmed.
10. Including the culture/identity of those harmed	Descriptions that humanize the person who was harmed by speaking positively of their cultural identity and that make the person’s demographic information identifiable for data tracking purposes. Note: Care should be taken with discussions of race and data collection practices. For example, expectations for Indigenous people to self-identify their ethnicity to police or reporters when it may not feel safe would be unreasonable, and mentioning race without clear ties to systemic state harm may feel discriminatory. Nonetheless, limited public data tracking makes it important to have these demographics critically included in reporting wherever possible.	Stating the specific First Nation a person belongs to and their connections there.
11. Attention to reader care	Understanding the triggering nature of the topic the article reports on and making efforts to limit harm to the community and/or address any harm that audience members may encounter by reading the article.	Stating when an article describes state violence against an Indigenous person; providing support resources.
12. Being direct	While information may be sparse at the time of reporting, being clear about what is known and what is not known after an instance where police do harm allows readers to be critically informed.	See the two sub-themes below for examples.
12a. Pointing to the harm	Being explicit when police have harmed someone: clearly describing what actions the officer(s) took; attributing the actions to police with as much specificity as possible; and, describing the result of those actions on the person police harmed.	Stating that police shot and killed a person, rather than saying shots were fired and a person died.
12b. Pointing to those harmed (ripple effect)	Describing the secondary impacts of police violence or of losing a person to police violence, including the impact on friends and family members. Especially in Indigenous communities, the loss of a community member is also the loss of a knowledge keeper and their skills, life, future, and love—and this contributes to genocide.	Stating that, due to police killing a man, two children have lost their father.
13. Calling for accountability	Articles that describe police violence are inherently describing sanctioned state harm; calls for accountability reframe police violence from commonplace to unacceptable.	See the two sub-themes below for examples.
13a. Police accountability	Instances where articles call for scrutiny and justice in response to police actions, both specifically related to the instance of violence being described, and more generally related to wider patterns of police violence.	Describing police violence as problematic and calling for changes to policing practices.
13b. Media accountability	Instances where articles call for more critical reporting or point to the harm that uncritical reporting has done in communities.	Including quotes from loved ones on the negative impacts from reading uncritical reports.

---

Table 4
Harmful reporting patterns identified by the focus group

Pattern	Description	Example
1. Dehumanizing/ criminalizing those who police hurt	Limiting attention on the person who experienced police violence by making them seem less human and thus less relatable. This is often done by presenting the person as a criminal who is thus deserving of police violence by pointing to criminal histories, perceived criminal intent, or behaviours that are seen as criminal or dangerous, such as weapon possession.	Referring to the person who is harmed as the “suspect”; not referring to the person by name, yet naming the police dog involved.
2. Justifying/ validating police actions	Language that makes police violence seem like a commonplace and acceptable part of policing or that suggests that a violent interaction was reasonable, despite the harm that was enacted and long-standing calls for change to policing practices.	Euphemisms such as describing a shooting only as “police made an arrest.”
3. Unreasonable contrasts	This pattern features a comparison or contrast that reduces blame for officers in place of scrutiny on the civilian, even where civilian actions are minimal compared with the harm police enact. This results in an “apples-to-oranges” comparison and often includes the two patterns above.	Describing that a person was holding a knife before explaining that police shot the person.
4. Not enough information	The three sub-themes below speak to ways that police violence can be covered without giving readers the information they need to make an informed decision on whether police actions were justified and proportionate.	See the three sub-themes below for examples.
4a. Vagueness/ oversimplification	Talking about broad actions without context, often making a situation easy to digest without questioning it. Often, the story is told in a way that has just enough information to feel scary, but not enough information to tell you what happened.	Jargon like “warrant vacated” and terms like “confrontation with police” or “police-involved incident” do not explain anyone’s actions.
4b. One-sided information	Speaking critically about the person who was harmed by police with little to no information on, or criticism of, police response.	Speaking critically about someone harming a police dog in self-defence without speaking critically about an officer’s decision to release the dog on a man and his puppy in a closed space.
4c. (Mis)leading expectations	Starting an article or section, including through titles and subheadings, with one-sided information that is likely to skew a reader’s perspective against the person who was harmed and toward the police.	A headline that focuses on a victim’s criminal past and does not disclose that police have killed someone.
5. Manufactured accountability	Any dialogue that makes readers believe that there is no need for action regarding police practices and that justice will be served in due course.	Stating that police oversight organizations are investigating without stating the low rates at which these organizations charge officers.
6. Racial stereotyping	Attributing any responsibility for police violence to the person who was hurt by police or to their community of origin through attributes and prejudices based on race or ethnicity. Stereotyping of all forms can reinforce beliefs about a population that cause police to engage with and act violently toward that population to begin with. For example, if police believe all members of a population are dangerous or unlikely to be sober, it is more likely that police will monitor members of that population and less likely that police will be calm and respectful when interacting with members of that population. Note: Racial stereotyping is premised on reporters knowing the race of the subjects in their articles. While, once collected, racial identifiers should not be used to support stereotyping, in the context of ascertaining racial identity we nonetheless remind reporters to take care with discussions of race and data collection practices.	Stating that police tensions are high or that resources are strained due to increased unrest within First Nations communities.
7. Deflecting/ distracting	Information that takes attention away from the police officer’s actions and responsibilities and does little to add context to the story.	A lengthy discussion on the “career” of a police dog killed in action.
8. Heroism/ glorifying police	Language choices and discussion that frame police as society’s protectors in articles describing cases where police harm or kill people.	Quotes from police chiefs that, in response to police killing, emphasize the hard work police officers do.
9. Injecting authors’ values	Any case where the reporter appears to be telling the reader how to feel, rather than stating the robust facts of what happened.	Morality judgments based on religion, race, political affiliation, etc.

---

Community-developed recommended reporting standards

By thematically reviewing the patterns, the community research team members then articulated six standards that they felt would be most important to share with people who are responsible for news coverage of police violence. This included five standards for journalists and one standard for editors who are involved in producing the news. These recommended standards are outlined in Table 5.

---

Table 5
Reporting standards recommended by the focus group

Recommended Standards	Intended Audience
1. Walk in gratitude; write in empathy.  This describes a process for respectful investigation and mindful reporting.	Journalists
2. Talk to the family, work for the family, be the family. Respect boundaries and space. Start by seeking a family spokesperson.	Journalists
3. Connect what went wrong with systemic failures at every stage.	Journalists
4. See the individual and humanize all parties, no matter what. First, stop. Remind yourself to keep the human element in your story. Breathe. Then write.  Then ask, ‘Does my writing value dignity, respect, and truth?’	Journalists
5. See the issues from all sides, report from all sides, and report all the facts. Ask yourself, ‘Am I telling the whole story, or am I deflecting, distracting, justifying, or inserting my own assumptions, beliefs, religion, or politics?’	Journalists
6. Review for facts—not to please your audience.	Editors

---

Discussion

This article presents standards and patterns for reporting on police violence as articulated by a community focus group in Maple Ridge, B.C. While specific to this study, we believe that many of the reporting patterns and standards that the community members described in this work can bring new perspectives that complement existing standards for reporting on police violence.

While preparing for this study, our team conducted an environmental scan of readily available standards for reporting on police violence. Five key sources were identified in this scan: the American Bar Association (Shenkman & Slade, 2021), Press On (Wallace, 2020), Race Forward (Fuller et al., 2016; Race Forward, 2015), The Associated Press Stylebook (The Associated Press, 2024), and The Sentencing Project (Ghandnoosh, 2023). Each of these sources offers guidelines that are, at least in part, specific to reporting on police violence. While these standards are primarily informed by reporters and industry professionals, there are clear similarities across these recommendations and the patterns and standards produced by our focus group members in this project. For example, the most consistent of recommendations across these standards is to avoid vague language (e.g., “police-involved” shooting) that can obscure accountability when police do harm (The Associated Press, 2024; Ghandnoosh, 2023; Fuller et al., 2016; Race Forward, 2015). This recommendation is reflected in harmful pattern 4a. in our study. The current project complements existing reporting guides by sharing the perspectives of audience members who have experienced police violence. Moreover, this project situates discussions on reporting on police violence through an example in the Canadian setting. This geographic detail is especially important as in Canada, compared to U.S. counterparts (e.g., Associated Press, 2024), news outlets and authorities such as the CBC and the Canadian Press Stylebook do not yet include any recommendations for reporting on police violence.

The focus group members emphasized their desire for a balanced approach to storytelling, noting that this balanced approach can be likened to ideals expressed by authors who are upending ideas of objectivity in journalism and academic spaces. The standards that our focus group members wanted to share with journalists tell of a desire for reporting that is empathetically driven and informed by the family, yet humanizes everyone involved and reliably reports all known facts on the issue from all perspectives. This can be likened to growing discussions on standards for qualitative research in academic spaces. For example, Abo-Zena and colleagues describe their decolonial approach to rigorous research as a form of storytelling that closely resembles the kind of dynamic and factual storytelling our focus group members desired:

What is important is to tell each person’s story from different vantage points: from the standpoint of the person him/her/themselves; from the vantage point of people who love them deeply; from the vantage point of systems and structures and people who they encounter, but do not know them; and from the vantage point of people who do not like or have no investment in them. [BQ] (Abo-Zena et al., 2022, p. 312)

Abo-Zena and colleagues problematize objectivity as a form of Western positivism that enacts epistemic harm by precluding non-Eurocentric knowledge practices. Instead, they reframe subjectivity-objectivity through a commitment to relationality; a commitment that the researcher make “themself and their self-understanding visible in the research” (p. 311), find strength in flexibility, and “cultivate complex notions of personhood and critical compassion” (p. 312). The iterative feedback process in this review is, for example, guided by this relational approach to rigor, which also necessitates that those who inform research through lived experience see “themselves and their experiences complexly, authentically, and resonantly reflected” (Abo-Zena et al., 2022, p. 314) in the research and its knowledge products.

In studies and practices more specific to journalism, we see a similar turn from objectivity that emphasizes factual storytelling from multiple viewpoints. Some journalists and scholars reject objectivity as myth (Wallace, 2023) and, like Abo-Zena and colleagues, do not see it as a prerequisite of rigorous storytelling. Take IndigiNews as an example, where Auger’s 2021 article, which we labelled the most critical, was first published. The editors at IndigiNews have set storytelling intentions that openly reject objectivity (IndigiNews Staff, 2022). Still others suggest a reframing of objectivity. Ward (2010) suggests that objectivity is an important constraint that contributes to clear principles for journalistic activities and instead proposes that traditional views of objectivity be replaced with a pragmatic objectivity, which acknowledges that journalism is an actor in the “active, interpretive, cultural activity” (Ward, 2010, p. 147). Robinson and Culver (2019) describe Ward’s pragmatic objectivity as a movement away from a form of objectivity that strives to present neutral facts and towards an objectivity that strives to present well-supported interpretations of facts. In their case study on White reporters who cover race, Robinson and Culver (2019) argue that pragmatic objectivity “can be judged by how well it includes corroborating evidence, shows coherence with existing expertise and knowledge, frames relevant issues, and incorporates diverse perspectives” (p. 379). Again, the suggested approach values factual reporting and sharing diverse perspectives to engender rigorous journalism.

Limitations

While generating practical tools for engaged journalism stands as a major goal of this research, this research is led by lived experiences of police violence and not lived experiences of reporting on police violence. While our community advisory team and formal advisors included a majority of people who identify as Black or Indigenous, our two project co-leads identify as White settlers. Further, as we discuss in depth in Embedding the DEPICT Model Within an Integrated Arts-Based Knowledge Translation Framework: Exploring the Tensions and Benefits in Community-Engaged Graduate Public Health Research (Blyth et al., 2026), the racial make-up of our community focus group does not reflect the disproportionate harm that Black and Indigenous people in Canada experience at the hands of police, nor Jay’s ancestry. Future research that is led and informed by Black and Indigenous researchers and community members will be vital for grounded projects that address news reporting on police violence. Likewise, not all communities that experience higher rates of police violence were represented (or identified) within the community focus group such as knowledge holders, including those who are Black, transgender, engaged in sex work or who identify as immigrants/migrants and refugees. Beyond this, we acknowledge that the prerequisite to speak English, while vital for this discourse analysis and group discussions, may have silenced key voices from groups who experience disproportionate police violence. Further, our decision to only include participants over the age of 18 limited youth participation, despite the fact that youth are a key group that experience police violence in Canada (Blyth, 2025). Each of these groups has important insights to add to the conversation on engaged journalism and police violence in Canada.

There is strong potential for future collaborations that are led by impacted audiences alongside engaged reporters. In future projects, this leadership would ensure that interventions are informed by practice and experience, such as Duncan McCue’s Decolonizing Journalism: A Guide to Reporting in Indigenous Communities (2022) which offers an excellent example of a resource for journalists that is informed by journalists and perspectives from the communities of impact. Further, when research is led by media institutions, there is an inherent buy-in from those institutions, which increases opportunities for the perspectives garnered from, and relationships established with, communities of impact to influence reporting. In Philadelphia, the work of NPR-affiliate WHYY to produce engaged coverage of Germantown (Malo, 2018) offers a clear example where community and professionals came together to guide news reporting practices. During this event, WHYY brought Germantown residents to unpack an article that WHYY ran on Germantown alongside the author and editor of that article, and WHYY’s vice president of news and civic dialogue. In recounting this event, the organizers at Germantown Info Hub describe the event as “not an event to appease community members but to begin a relationship built on two-way dialogue” (Malo, 2018).

---

Emily R. Blyth (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the nexus of communications and health, a poet, and a cis-White settler. She completed her doctoral degree at Simon Fraser University, as an uninvited guest on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), kʷikʷəƛ̓ əm (Kwikwetlem), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She takes community-engaged and arts-based approaches to research and is interested in exposing the health inequities of police violence and promoting well-being for those impacted by oppressive policing across North America. Institutional Affiliation: Simon Fraser University. Email: emily_blyth@sfu.ca

Mo Korchinski is the Community Co-lead for this work, as well as a public speaker, an author, a filmmaker, and the Executive Director of the Unlocking the Gates Services Society. Mo has a personal history of substance use and incarceration. Her lived history and experiences have shaped Unlocking the Gates into what it is today. Mo has a Bachelor of Social Work from the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. She is an advocate for people involved in the criminal justice system and continues to push for change at the policy level as well as increased supports for her community. Mo feels strongly about the need to address trauma  and support healing for people who experience incarceration. Institutional Affiliation: Unlocking the Gates Services Society. Email: mokorchinski@gmail.com

Lyana Patrick is a director, writer and researcher based in Vancouver, B.C. She is a member of the Stellat’en First Nation and Acadian/Scottish. Lyana brings a collaborative approach to her community-based work that centres Indigenous experiences and honours the principles of respect, responsibility, and reciprocity. She studied film at the University of Washington’s Native Voices Indigenous Documentary Film Program. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University where her work focuses on the intersection of Indigenous community health, Indigenous ecological stewardship, and storytelling. Institutional Affiliation: Simon Fraser University. Email: lyana_patrick@sfu.ca

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we acknowledge the members of our community focus group and the staff members at Unlocking the Gates Services Society who shared their expertise and time in this work. We are also indebted to our formal and informal project advisors for their belief in and support for this work. This work would not be possible without the steady guidance of Paola Gamboa Ardiles and all of the members of Blyth’s supervisory committee. Finally, we would like to thank Maude Comtois-Cabana for her work translating the French portions of this article.

Disclaimers
The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.We acknowledge the support of our funders: University of British Columbia’s Transformative Health and Justice Research Cluster; Office of Community Engagement, Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Community-Engaged Research Initiative; and Michael Smith Health Research BC. We also acknowledge that this article draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Ethics approval was obtained from Simon Fraser University’s Office of Research Ethics on April 23, 2024 (Study number: 30002358). An amendment was approved on November 21, 2024.

Informed verbal consent was obtained from all focus group members following approval of the amendment and prior to our focus group. Ongoing consent was renewed verbally at the beginning of each meeting.

Consent for publication of our research process, outcomes, and photographed artworks was included in the consent to participate obtained from the focus group members.

---

References

Abo-Zena, M. M., Jones, K., & Mattis, J. (2022). Dismantling the master’s house: Decolonizing “rigor” in psychological scholarship. Journal of Social Issues, 78(2), 298–319. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12519

Ardiles Gamboa, P., Damot, H., & Azemoudeh, M. (2025). Digging in, diving deep: Community engaged learning and teaching in health promotion through equity-centered design. In A. Pederson, J. Lapalme, K. L. Frohlich, O. Ferlatte, & S. Dupéré (Eds.), Health promotion in Canada: Towards a well-being society in an accelerating world (5th ed.). Canadian Scholars Press.

The Associated Press. (2024). The Associated Press stylebook (57th ed.).

Auger, O. (2021, July 13). ‘More concern for the dog than for the human’s life that was lost.’ IndigiNews. https://indiginews.com/vancouver-island/jared-lowndes-killed-by-police-remembered-as-loving-uncle-father-friend

Ball, D. P. (2021, July 13). Mother of Wet’suwet’en man killed by Campbell River RCMP seeks answers and an inquest. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-mother-wetsuweten-man-shot-by-police-1.6098800

Boyd, J., Fast, D., & Small, W. (2015). Pathways to criminalization for street-involved youth who use illicit substances. Critical Public Health, 26(5), 530. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2015.1110564

Blyth, E. R. (2025). “We still don’t see a change”: Addressing police violence as a public health inequity in Canada and media exposure as a vicarious harm in impacted communities [Doctoral dissertation, Simon Fraser University]. https://summit.sfu.ca/item/40213

Blyth, E. R., Korchinski, M., Baryluk, J. D., Lindgren, T., Mitchell, J. K., Sinopoli, C., & Thompson, R. (2025). Community voices: A public primer on news reporting on police violence. Simon Fraser University Community-Engaged Research Initiative. https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/ceri/images/Archive/Publications/2025-Publications/community-voices.pdf

Blyth, E.R., Korchinski, M., Young, S., Ardiles, P., Stelkia, K., Ware, S., & Patrick, L. (2026). Embedding the DEPICT model within an integrated arts-based knowledge translation framework: Exploring the tensions and benefits in community-engaged graduate public health research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 25. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069261432480

Canevez, R. N., Karabelnik, M., & Winter, J. S. (2022). Police brutality and racial justice narratives through multi-narrative framing: Reporting and commenting on the George Floyd murder on YouTube. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 99(3), 696–717. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990221108722

CBC News. (2021, July 8). One man, police dog dead following confrontation in Campbell River. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/man-dead-campbell-river-1.6095406

Chu, D. C., & Song, J. H.-L. (2008). Chinese immigrants’ perceptions of the police in Toronto, Canada. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 31(4), 610–630. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510810910599

DeVylder, J., Fedina, L., & Link, B. (2020). Impact of police violence on mental health: A theoretical framework. American Journal of Public Health, 110(11), 1704–1710. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305874

Flicker, S., & Nixon, S. A. (2015). The DEPICT model for participatory qualitative health promotion research analysis piloted in Canada, Zambia and South Africa. Health Promotion International, 30(3), 616–624. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/dat093

Fridkin, K., Wintersieck, A., Courey, J., & Thompson, J. (2017). Race and police brutality: The importance of media framing. International Journal of Communication, 11, 3394–3414.

Fuller, C., Whelan, B., & Espinoza, X. (2016, July). Best practices for journalists reporting on police killings of Black and Brown people. Race Forward. https://www.raceforward.org/press/releases/best-practices-journalists-reporting-police-killings-black-and-brown-people

Ghandnoosh, N. (2023, June 1). Media guide: 10 crime coverage dos and don’ts. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/media-guide-10-crime-coverage-dos-and-donts/

Gitlin, T. (2003). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. University of California Press.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press.

Govender, K. (2021). Equity is safer: Human rights considerations for policing reform in British Columbia. British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. https://bchumanrights.ca/wp-content/uploads/BCOHRC_Nov2021_SCORPA_Equity-is-safer.pdf

Haile, R., Rowell-Cunsolo, T., Hyacinthe, M.-F., & Alang, S. (2023). “We (still) charge genocide”: A systematic review and synthesis of the direct and indirect health consequences of police violence in the United States. Social Science & Medicine, 322, Article 115784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115784

Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language (pp. 51–61). Routledge.

Hawkins, D. S. (2022). “After Philando, I had to take a sick day to recover”: Psychological distress, trauma and police brutality in the Black community. Health Communication, 37(9), 1113–1122. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1913838

Heidi, E. B., Lincoln, A. K., Abdi, S. M., Nimmons, E. A., Issa Osob, & Decker, S. H. (2020). “We all have stories”: Black Muslim immigrants’ experience with the police. Race and Justice, 10(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368718754638

Henderson, L., Tukachinsky Forster, R., Kalili, L., & Guillory, S. (2022). Visual framing effects of news coverage of police use of deadly force on intergroup relationships. Howard Journal of Communications, 33(1), 24–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2021.1927261

IndigiNews Staff. (2022, February 4). Sharing IndigiNews’ storytelling intentions for 2022. Indiginews. https://indiginews.com/okanagan/indiginews-storytelling-intentions-canoe-2022/

Jiwani, Y. (2006). Discourses of denial: Mediations of race, gender, and violence. UBC Press.

Kanani, N. (2011). Race and madness: Locating the experiences of racialized people with psychiatric histories in Canada and the United States. Critical Disability Discourses/Discours Critiques dans le Champ du Handicap, 3. http://cdd.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cdd/article/view/31564

Kouyoumdjian, F. G., Wang, R., Mejia-Lancheros, C., Owusu-Bempah, A., Nisenbaum, R., O’Campo, P., Stergiopoulos, V., & Hwang, S. W. (2019). Interactions between police and persons who experience homelessness and mental illness in Toronto, Canada: Findings from a prospective study. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 64(10), 718–725. https://doi.org/10.1177/0706743719861386

Kukkonen, T., & Cooper, A. (2019). An arts-based knowledge translation (ABKT) planning framework for researchers. Evidence & Policy, 15(2), 293–311. https://doi.org/10.1332/174426417X15006249072134

Malo, C. (2018, December 18). Germantown residents meet with WHYY to discuss local reporting. Germantown Info Hub. https://medium.com/germantown-info-hub/germantown-residents-meet-with-whyy-to-discuss-local-reporting-1edf1d2a0016

Maynard, R. (2017). Policing Black lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present. Fernwood.

McCue, D. (2022). Decolonizing journalism: A guide to reporting in Indigenous communities. Oxford University Press.

Motley, R. O., Jr., Chen, Y.-C., Johnson, C., & Joe, S. (2020). Exposure to community-based violence on social media among Black male emerging adults involved with the criminal justice system. Social Work Research, 44(2), 87–97. https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/svaa002

Mueller, C. O., Forber-Pratt, A. J., & Sriken, J. (2019). Disability: Missing from the conversation of violence. Journal of Social Issues, 75(3), 707–725. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12339

Owusu-Bempah, A., & Wortley, S. (2014). Race, crime, and criminal justice in Canada. In S. M. Bucerius & M. Tonry (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of ethnicity, crime, and immigration (pp. 281–320). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859016.013.020

Passafiume, A. (2024, October 22). Families call for inquiry after nine Indigenous people killed in police interactions. CityNews Ottawa. https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2024/10/22/families-call-for-inquiry-after-nine-indigenous-people-killed-in-police-interactions/

Pasternak, S., Walby, K., & Stadnyk, A. (2022). Disarm, defund, dismantle: Police abolition in Canada. Between the Lines.

Race Forward. (2015). Race reporting guide. https://raceforward.org/reporting-guide

Robinson, S., & Culver, K. B. (2019). When White reporters cover race: News media, objectivity and community (dis)trust. Journalism, 20(3), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916663599

Salerno, A. C., & Schuller, R. A. (2019). A mixed-methods study of police experiences of adults with autism spectrum disorder in Canada. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 64, 18–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2019.01.002

Simckes, M., Willits, D., McFarland, M., McFarland, C., Rowhani-Rahbar, A., & Hajat, A. (2021). The adverse effects of policing on population health: A conceptual model. Social Science & Medicine, 281, Article 114103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114103

Singh, I. (2020, July 23). Deadly force. CBC News. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2020/fatalpoliceencounters/

Shenkman, D., & Slade, K. (2020). Police reports shouldn’t set the news agenda: A guide to avoiding systemic racism in reporting. Communications Lawyer, 36(1), 5–19.

Staggers-Hakim, R. (2016). The nation’s unprotected children and the ghost of Mike Brown, or the impact of national police killings on the health and social development of African American boys. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 26(3–4), 390–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2015.1132864

Tator, C., & Henry, F. (with Smith, C., & Brown, M.). (2006). Racial profiling in Canada: Challenging the myth of ‘a few bad apples.’ University of Toronto Press.

Tracking (In)Justice. (2025). Tracking (In)Justice: A law enforcement and criminal legal data and transparency project. https://trackinginjustice.ca/

Tracking (In)Justice. (n.d.). Findings and analysis. https://trackinginjustice.ca/findings-and-analysis/

Tracking (In)Justice. (2023, February 10). Police-involved deaths are on the rise, as are racial disparities in Canada. Tracking (In)Justice Insight. https://trackinginjustice.ca/analysis-increase-in-deaths-and-racial-disparities/

Wallace, L. (2020, June 1). Ethical reporting on police violence and Black-led resistance: Tips for journalists. Medium. https://medium.com/@lewispants/ethical-reporting-on-police-violence-and-black-led-resistance-tips-for-journalists-e575947cfb71

Wallace, L. R. (2023). The view from somewhere: Undoing the myth of journalistic objectivity. University of Chicago Press.

Ward, S. J. A. (2010). Inventing objectivity: New philosophical foundations. In C. Meyers (Ed.), Journalism ethics: A philosophical approach, Oxford Scholarship Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370805.003.0009

Wenzel, A. (2021). Community-centered journalism: Engaging people, exploring solutions, and building trust. University of Illinois Press.

Wenzel, A. (2022). Engaged journalism. In G.A. Borchard (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism (Vol. 4, 570–573). Sage Publications Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781544391199.n141

---

^[1]        The authors use Jay’s first name throughout, as requested by his family.