What it takes for aboriginal people to make the news

Tonight, DuncanMcCuewill be part of a panel in Nanaimo, B.C.,that discusses the role the media plays in shaping the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.This essay was first published on Reporting in Indigenous Communities, a website founded by DuncanMcCueand it emphasizes just how far we have to go in our coverage of Aboriginal Peoples.

An elder once told me the only way an Indian would make it on the news is if he or she wereone of the4Ds: drumming,dancing, drunkor dead.

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Cmon, I said, thats simplistic. I can show you all kinds of different news stories about aboriginal workers running aforestry operation, an aboriginal student winning a scholarship or an aboriginal group repatriating a sacred artifact.

The myth of the drunken Indian has been retired in favour of the legend of the crooked band council.-Stephen Hume, the Vancouver Sun

Butthen I started looking more closely at aboriginal people in the news. Those4Dssure do show up an awful lot (if thatrepatriation event has some drumming and dancinggoinon, the reporter is bound to squeeze both into the story).

In fact, if you take that elders fourDs, and add a W for warrior, you could make it a rule.

TheWD4Rule on how Indians makethe news

1. Be a warrior

Its a photo so iconic, it has a title. Face to Face. A baby-faced soldier staring down a masked warrior.

ShaneyKomulainenssnapshot during theOkaCrisis in 1990 so perfectly captured longstanding racial and national tensionsthat The Beaver magazine named it one of the top five News Photos That Changed Canada.

But consider a different photo, also captured during theOkaCrisis, one that doesnt have a title. Maybe it should. MediaCircus.

It is equally telling, about how media actively shape perceptions about confrontation and conflict between Canada and aboriginal peoples.

Why does direct action by aboriginal groups (such as marches, blockadesor occupations) receive disproportionateattention from news media?

Yes, protests often meet the test of whether a story is newsworthy, because theyre unusual,dramaticor involve conflict.

Yes, aboriginal activists, who understand the medias hunger for drama, also play a role bytailoring protests in ways that guarantee prominent headlines and lead stories.

Butdoes todays front-page news of some traffic disruption in the name of aboriginal land rights actually have its roots ina much older narrative of violent and uncivilized Indians who represent a threat to progress in Canada?

Are attitudesof distrust and fear underlying our decisions to dispatch a crew to the latest aboriginal blockade? Is there no iconic photoofreconciliation, because no one from the newsrooms believes harmony between aboriginal peoples and settlers isnewsworthy?

2. Beat your drum

Its easy to laugh, these days, at those ridiculous Hollywood Indian stereotypes of yesteryear: Indians wearing feathers,grunting in monosyllables, circling the wagons. But contemporary news stories continue to reproduce the mainstay of thoseold Westerns the Indian drums.

Even if youre not a fan of cowboy movies, you probably learned that Indian beat in the schoolyard BMMMbmmmbmmmbmmmBMMMbmmmbmmmbmmmBMMMbmmmbmmmbmmm. Indians about to ride over the hill, on thewarpath. Indians doing arain dance. That sort of thing.

Well, how many broadcast news stories start with aboriginal drumming? Reporters seem entranced by those drums,whether they be aboriginal protests or aboriginal celebrations (if theres no drums around, heaven forbid, then hurry up andfind some flute music for the background track!)

Sure, I get it. You need sound and action to start your piece with a kick. But do you ask the purpose and meaning of the song? Is it an honour song, a prayer song, a memorial song? Do yourequest a translation of the lyrics, or describe it as chanting?

Or do you just let those frozen-in-time Indians beat theirdrums, leaving it to your audience to interpret (I bet many heave a mighty sigh, Oh, drums. Indians on the warpath. What dothey want THIS TIME?)

3. Start dancing

The dancing thing goes hand-in-hand with drumming. Indians in traditional regalia fit a popular but superficial interpretationof Canadian multiculturalism. Please, share your entertaining costumes and dances and, yes, wed love to taste your exoticfood!

Actually, Indiansoutfitted in buckskin and feathers (whether real Indians like Pauline Johnson or fake Indians like Grey Owl)have long been objects of fascination and even admiration.

To many Canadians, an aboriginal person wearing a button blanket or beaded vest represents a bygone era. Dressed-up Indiansare benign, without all those messy contemporary problems suicides and land claims, mouldy houses and taxexemption.

Newsrooms are not immune to this nostalgia for Indians. Why are chiefs so often portrayed wearing traditional regalia(rather than dashing through airports, barking into cellphones?)

How many TV newscasts use an over-the-shoulder graphicof a feather to signify an Indian story? Is it powwow time again get a camera over there!

Trust me. If youre an aboriginal person and you want to make the news, haul out your headdress (or give one to the prime minister).

4. Get drunk

No question, alcohol is at the root of many stories reporters cover in aboriginal communities car accidents, murders,assaults, and the like.

But does that age-old stereotype of the drunken Indian have any basis in reality?

No, asserted the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), after examining several studies that show abstinenceis twice as frequent among Indians as it is in the non-aboriginal community. Heavy drinking is more prevalent among aboriginalpeople than it is in the mainstream, but the proportion of people who drink on a daily basis is seven times higheramong non-aboriginal people than among aboriginal people.

The widely held belief that most aboriginal people consumeexcessive amounts of alcohol on a regular basis appears to be incorrect,RCAPconcluded.

Do the countless stories we cover about aboriginal people involving alcohol help reinforce the myth of the drunken Indian?Ask yourself: is alcohol relevant to the story, and why? The media often stays mum about the drinking habits of notableCanadian politicians would alcohol be part of your story if this was about a non-aboriginal person?

5. Be dead.

Go to news search engines such as Google News and search dead and First Nations (or synonyms such as native orAboriginal). Ill bet my grandmothersdreamcatcheryour cupoverflowethwith news from across the country.

Newsrooms have this thing for death, anywhere it's happening. It bleeds, it leads, right? Sadly, in Canada, theres adisproportionate amount of death happening in aboriginal communities. Maybe that explains why we see so many dead Indiansin the news.

But, what does this constant barrage of dead Indianstell our audiences about aboriginal communities in Canada? That aboriginallife in Canada is, to quote Thomas Hobbes and one infamous judge in British Columbia, nasty, brutal and short?

Or, nefariously, that the only good Indianis a dead Indian?

Read more aboutnews stereotypes of Aboriginal Peoples.