Suggestions from a B.C.-based community focus group
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.
Read the full article in the Spring 2026 special issue of Facts and Frictions
Facts and Frictions is published by J-Schools Canada, Canada’s national association for post-secondary journalism research and education. All content is open access and available via J-Source.