J-School prof co-leads Canada’s first research-led guide on reporting in Black communities

Journalism at The Creative School assistant professor Eternity Martis is spearheading Canada’s first research-led guide on reporting in Black communities (external link)  with Carleton assistant professor Nana aba Duncan. The project is currently in conversation with Black news consumers across the country to help develop a comprehensive resource on how to cover Black communities in the media with dignity and care. 

The aim of the guide is to equip journalists with the resources they need to more accurately report on Black communities. The need for a resource arises from a history of negative coverage of Black people in Canadian media, according to the project website.

“It’s really exciting to be able to be in this kind of position to create a guide like this,” Martis said.

The idea for this guide, which Martis said she’s had for about four years now, was closely linked to the course she teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU): Reporting on Race (JRN 333).

“I thought this course is the only one of its kind in Canada. So we should actually have a guide of some kind that helps people, journalists, students and journalism educators report on Black communities in fair and equitable ways.”

In recent months, the first two of four focus groups with Black news consumers were conducted. Martis and Duncan, spoke to Black news consumers in Toronto and Halifax about their experiences reading the news and how they felt about the representation of their communities in the media.

The focus groups are taking the Black emancipatory action research (BEAR) framework, which breaks down barriers between the researcher and the research. The first focus group, hosted at TMU, created a comfortable environment for participants to enter. Martis said they had Caribbean music playing, and African-centric decor and had ordered food from Black caterers for the nearly two-hour-long session.

Following the productive focus group session — where participants identified all sorts of problems in the current Canadian media landscape and had the chance to reflect on their emotions surrounding the news — Martis and Duncan conducted anonymous surveys to determine the efficacy of the research framework.

“The one thing that some folks did say, which did surprise me, was that the kinds of questions we asked… were things in some cases they had never thought about because no one had ever asked them and no one ever asked for input,” Martis said.

Martis also said they noted differences in how respondents answered certain questions, based on their age.

The focus group in Halifax took a similar approach at the start of February. Martis said exploring the relationship Black people in Halifax with the news was particularly intriguing to her — Black people in the city, whether Indigenous Black Canadians or Black immigrants have historic roots — and each of the diverse groups faces their own set of circumstances and possess unique ideals, values and traditions.

The focus group provided the opportunity to better understand the colonial history that has created a “somewhat fragmented relationship” between Black people in Nova Scotia and mainstream media.

During both of the first focus groups, the researchers gained insight into existing problems and the recommendations the community has for steps forward. The next focus groups for their research will take them to Montreal and then to Edmonton.

Martis said she hopes the research will not only hone in on data and numbers but also demonstrate how the representation of Black people in the media impacts them on an emotional level.

“I’m hoping that that emotional piece, in addition to all the other pieces, will allow journalists to say, ‘we've been doing this wrong and let's implement these solutions in our newsroom,’” she said.

Martis said this project is not just looking at creating a guide: in the future, different types of resource tools like workshops, podcasts and conferences will come into place. The goal is to go above “band-aid” solutions to anti-Black racism in the newsroom and to rebuild trust between journalism and Black communities.

“I'm hoping that one of the impacts of this down the road is that we start to see it increase positive representation of Black folks,” she said. “That we see better coverage of Black people, not just in terms of sad or tragic stories, not just in terms of sports, but that Black folks are just everyday folks who are doing great stuff.”

In the coming year, the project will also seek input from non-Black journalists and newsroom leaders to understand what their shortcomings are or the positive practices that they have in their newsrooms already.

For February 2025, the Reporting in Black Communities research project is also looking to put together a seminar, to present their initial findings, so that participants, interested journalists, community members and leaders can come together to think about the best way to shape the guide. 

This project is a part of the Mary Ann Shadd Cary Centre’s (external link)  larger initiative for equity in journalism. Carleton University’s Nana aba Duncan is a co-researcher on the project.

For updates on the guide, follow along at the Reporting in Black Communities (external link)  Instagram page.