Health Justice in Reporting

Public panel with Odette Auger (Sagamok Anishnabek), Meagan Gilmore, and Colin Hastings, hosted by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing

Please join us for the hybrid public talk “Health Justice in Reporting” with Odette Auger (Sagamok Anishnabek), Meagan Gilmore, and Colin Hastings, hosted by Dr. Karen Soldatic, Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing. With opening remarks from Aisha Khan. This event is free of charge and open to the public. It will be followed by a complimentary screening of the documentary Life After.

Abstract: How journalists frame, discuss and report on social issues not only shapes the content of discussions, but has real world implications. The way media stories are narrated influences which social issues are worthy of public discussion and the possibilities for their debate. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, sensationalized reporting on vaccines and public health measures had a global impact on vaccine hesitancy and the targeting of marginalized communities: people with disabilities faced triage discrimination (Scully, 2020), older adults were framed as expendable in ‘herd immunity’ debates (Hazan, 2023), racialized communities were scapegoated for virus spread (Ittefaq et al., 2022), and low-income populations were portrayed as non-compliant with restrictions (Mahabir et al., 2022). Today, coverage of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) is often framed within a legislative context, at times, overlooking systemic failures in care access and leaving out the voices of those directly affected. Such reporting trends highlight how media narratives can deepen stigma or obscure structural inequities in health systems.

How can health journalism rebuild public trust in an era of misinformation, rapid digital consumption, and corporate media pressures—particularly by centering lived experience and ethical framing? What systemic barriers prevent equitable reporting and how can journalists and institutions address them? What concrete practices—from source selection to accountability mechanisms—can ensure reporting upholds health justice and avoids harm to marginalized communities? Speaking from a range of vantage points, our panel of media professionals, researchers, activists and academics, consider health justice in the production of news media and the role of journalism in perpetuating or dismantling health inequities. This discussion will consider how people with lived experience of health issues can contribute to health reporting and to what extent interventions are possible when reporting is deemed unjust or misrepresentative of marginalized communities. Panelists will speak concretely about the work practices of journalists, how the context of their work structures and constraints the kinds of stories they can tell.