{"id":645,"date":"2024-11-17T15:57:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T15:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/?p=645"},"modified":"2024-11-17T23:11:29","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T23:11:29","slug":"indigenous-panelists-push-political-journalists-to-grapple-with-colonialism-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/2024\/11\/17\/indigenous-panelists-push-political-journalists-to-grapple-with-colonialism-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous panelists push political journalists to grapple with colonialism \u2014 past and present"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
A panel on Indigenous perspectives on political journalism featured moderator Rick Harp and panelists Veldon Coburn, Niigaan Sinclair, Pam Palmater, Candis Callison and Brett Forester. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Natasha Baldin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moderator and Indigenous broadcaster Rick Harp opened the panel on \u201cIndigenous Perspectives on Political Journalism\u201d by highlighting the intentional broadness of the title, making space for various interpretations of what political journalism means through an Indigenous lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel discussed how to navigate a mainstream media landscape that, as UBC journalism professor Candis Callison described, is \u201cintent on protecting a settler-colonial social order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Callison challenged some of these representational harms as the co-author of Reckoning: Journalism\u2019s Limits and Possibilities<\/em>. She\u2019s also the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism, media and public discourse at the University of British Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the five years since Reckoning<\/em> was published, Callison and other panelists agreed that many of these realities around Indigenous representation in the media \u2014 and where Indigenous journalists fit into the mainstream media landscape \u2014 have remained unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lawyer,
Lawyer, professor, author and activist Pam Palmater at the Reimagining Political Journalism conference at Carleton University, Nov. 16, 2024. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndigenous journalists, in some ways, are war correspondents,\u201d said Harp. \u201cWe are documenting the war against our peoples and our very existence is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niigaan Sinclair, an Anishinaabe columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press and a professor at the University of Manitoba, said Indigenous journalists are making their contributions in a media landscape that does not take care of them in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the responsibility lies solely on Indigenous journalists to insert \u201cgood news\u201d stories from Indigenous communities \u2014 such as a grandmother teaching beadwork to the next generation \u2014 that mainstream media is not generally interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we create our own content, we demonstrate civility to a country that never practices civility back to us,\u201d said Sinclair, who was recently named winner of the 2024 Governor General\u2019s Literary Award for non-fiction for his book W\u00eenip\u00eak: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Winnipeg Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair discusses Indigenous perspectives on political journalism at Carleton University, Nov. 16, 2024. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Panelists agreed on how mainstream political journalism is not tailored to Indigenous consumers and instead reinforces settler-colonial understandings of Indigeneity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMedia is not a source of facts and knowledge for individuals \u2014 it\u2019s actually just there to sustain belief,\u201d said Veldon Coburn, an associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brett Forester, a reporter and broadcaster with CBC Indigenous, added that mainstream media is \u201ccomplicit in advancing the colonial project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPropaganda is typically what the Canadian media has delivered to the Canadian public with respect to Indigenous people,\u201d he said, echoing Sinclair\u2019s point that negative Indigenous stories are treated as fodder for clickbait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rick
Rick Harp and Veldon Coburn at the Reimagining Political Journalism conference at Carleton University. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Panelists highlighted how coverage of the Idle No More rallies in 2012 was overshadowed in the mainstream media. Infamously, news of a key moment in the historic Indigenous movement was eclipsed when a coat-wearing monkey was released in a Toronto IKEA on the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTens of thousands Indigenous peoples talking about how to make a better country? No. Monkey. Let\u2019s use that!\u201d Sinclair said with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pam Palmater, a Mi\u2019kmaw lawyer and author as well as a professor and chair of Indigenous Governance at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the mainstream media\u2019s vocabulary around Indigenous activism betrays deep-seated biases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use of the term \u201cland defender\u201d has a loaded connotation when used in mainstream news media, she suggested, equating the idea with violent protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmater said the fundamental cultural intentions behind the term are lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur job has always been to protect the territory and all living things in the territory, so in the English language, we translate it as land defender, but to (Indigenous people), it\u2019s not a political commentary at all \u2014 that\u2019s who they are as people,\u201d Palmater said. \u201cWith the term \u2018land defender\u2019 or \u2018protester,\u2019 you\u2019re not going to hear about their beautiful culture and how connected they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat other choice do they have but to live out their culture?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Candis
UBC professor and author Candis Callison during the panel on Indigenous perspectives on political journalism. [Photo \u00a9 Tamara Merritt]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before looking for solutions to reimagine political journalism from an Indigenous perspective, Forester said it\u2019s important to seek a shared understanding and knowledge base between Indigenous and mainstream media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to start from an understanding of our shared reality of the current human rights situation in this country,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause I don\u2019t think we\u2019re there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Natasha Baldin Moderator and Indigenous broadcaster Rick Harp opened the panel on \u201cIndigenous Perspectives on Political Journalism\u201d by highlighting the intentional broadness of the title, making space for various interpretations of what political journalism means through an Indigenous lens. The panel discussed how to navigate a mainstream media landscape that, as UBC journalism professor … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/reimagining-political-journalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}