91泡芙

by Sharon Mah

Faculty of Health Sciences PhD candidate Emily Blyth has just released the findings from her community-engaged research project 鈥�Community Voices: A Public Primer on News Reporting on Police Violence.鈥�

The report 鈥� co-authored with Mo Korchinski, executive director of the 鈥� concludes that while news reporting on police violence can raise awareness about violent and discriminatory policing, coverage that is uncritical or that lacks input from people experiencing police violence can lead to police being protected from accountability as well as invalidation of the harms experienced by community members during these encounters.

鈥淭he focus specifically on uncritical media coverage of police violence as a source of vicarious harm is at the forefront of public health research on police violence,鈥� says Blyth. She notes that as awareness of police violence grows, health scholars are increasingly turning their attention to understanding how vicarious harms extend into communities through news stories that minimise or exclude community perspectives. 鈥淭he community members in this report have contributed to this important conversation by sharing how reading uncritical articles about police violence impacted their well-being.鈥�

For this project, Blyth and Korchinski engaged a community research team with lived, first hand experience of police violence and incarceration to read and react to published news stories involving police violence. Together, the group then worked on identifying narrative patterns and detailing impacts, as well as developing community-led standards for reporting on these stories, identifying the journalistic practices that actively harmed the well-being of community members and naming the specific approaches that actively helped include and/or validate community perspectives to reduce harm.

Says Blyth: 鈥淢o and I see our role in this project as facilitators who bring our experience and skills from academia and community-engaged research to create and facilitate a research program that might feel meaningful to community members.鈥�

Korchinski observed that involving the community research team was critical to the success of this project as it enabled them to be heard, and to have an empowered voice. 鈥淭o share their stories with their peers helps them feel less alone, and to tell the stories and learn and heal.鈥�

In addition to publishing the findings in their report, Blyth and Korchinski are working with in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver to exhibit artwork created by the community researchers over the course of this research process. 鈥淢o and I [have] a shared belief that creative projects can share the reality of oppression in visceral and impactful ways that are not accessible within public or academic reports,鈥� observes Blyth.

The art exhibit will take place in October 2025, and will include two panels: one focusing on policing and public health to support conversations among health scholars, and one that will engage and encourage local journalists to experience the project.

Blyth and Korchinski hope that the report and art show will offer practical and supportive tools to journalists doing the difficult work of heart-based reporting on police violence. 鈥淲e offer this tool to those who are already involved and/or interested in critical reporting to bring the voices of community into their writing.鈥�

鈥淲e also hope that by outlining the impacts of uncritical reporting, we may influence the standards for reporting on police violence at major [outlets].鈥�

Blyth鈥檚 research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Funding support for this work was also provided by SFU鈥檚 Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi), Michael Smith Health Research BC, and the Transformative Health and Justice Research Cluster at UBC.