by Lorna Roth
Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World, 1996
Republished with permission

Inclusiveness and Ethical Issues Arising from Daily Journalistic Practices

I think that mainstream media still mostly represent the status quo, middle-ground, middle-class, white, male Canadian reality. Whatever is outside of that seems "other." Newsrooms are changing these days in terms of reporters, but the gatekeepers are still male, white journalists, and the aboriginal world is outside of their reality. Visible minorities in the newsrooms know what's going on in those other communities. To have an accurate reflection of all the layers of a story, you need to have well-trained minorities working in the newsrooms of the nation. If you've never gone to Kahnawake or Kanehsatake, you'll have no idea of what's going on there.

- Loreen Pindera, television interview, October 10, 1993.

 

I would now like to turn to some of the more nitty-gritty aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system; its journalistic practices of objectivity, balance, fairness. Key themes emerged from my interviews.

Inclusiveness meant two things to journalists: inclusion of minorities on staffs at broadcasting institutions, and inclusion of minorities within stories covered by people outside of the community. Journalists tended to adopt the Broadcasting Act's notions of employment equity and fairer portrayal or representational practices. Most of the journalists I spoke with supported the principle of equity to redress existing imbalances in employment opportunities for minorities. They had no problem with Section 3 of the Broadcasting Act (1991), but raised issues of tokenism, reverse discrimination, objectivity, balance, professionalism and organizational-cultural uniqueness. Among the hard realities they identified was the dilemma of implementing equity programs in a climate of economic recession and budgetary constraints. They also identified the classic problem of the "last-hired-first-fired" as an obstacle to progress.

Two other problems also emerged from the letters and interviews: the entry, acceptance and cross-cultural orientation of mainstream journalists covering unfamiliar cultural or racial communities; and the struggle of members of minority constituencies to gain acceptance as journalists, and not as representatives of their cultural or racial communities. Let us turn to the first problem.

Negotiating access can be a difficult and alienating experience, especially if there is inadequate awareness of cultural differences. The experience of Pierre Mignault, a CBC news journalist who often covers Native "beats", can be helpful in this regard. This is a brief summary of his experience and his advice after working within Quebec First Nations communities for many years:

I think that access comes with time and trust. Probably the most difficult story to do is the first one. After that, people will be able to read you a little better. But the idea is that when you go into a community, you should be on Indian time rather than on deadline. Maybe you should actually take time to talk to people.

When I started covering Native affairs, I went into it by accident. I did this sports event where I followed a group of white men cross-country skiing. And the last shot was when they arrived in the community. I went to the community for the arrival, and that's where I met the Inuit and I was just stunned. So I decided to get acquainted with the culture. That was my first real contact with Native culture. From then on, I started getting drawn back in.

At one point, I realized I was only doing news coverage based on spokespeople from the Band council. I went into Indian communities, but the only people I talked to were politicians. And also, I found that my clips were not that good – in terms of what I was used to – because the Natives spoke differently. So my big problem was that I had no idea of the cultural values I was facing there. I just had preconceptions.

In any case, what I did was I dropped out. I took a sabbatical for six months and my only purpose during this time was to try to assimilate as much culture as I could, rather than look for contacts and sources and stories. I went on an archaeological expedition to Nunanguk at the tip of Ungava Bay, a site where Inuit presence goes back three thousand years. The expedition was organized by Avataq, an Inuit cultural organization. We were a group of thirty-five white people, accompanied by three Inuit families. During the day, I shared activities with the Inuit. Then, after this experience, I hitchhiked through the Northern communities with just a plane ticket, living with other families and using my knowledge of networks – civil servants and things like that. And I think the most important thing I learned during those six months was that when you go to visit an Inuk, you just open the door and walk in. They don't knock on doors. Once you've understood that, you've established contact. So, that's what I tried to do.

My whole perspective on how Natives speak has changed, and I can see where the clip is good now, which I couldn't see as well before because I had these preconceptions that they should be just like us. I think that what [journalists] have to do is basically take time...and start being interested in issues that are not necessarily constitutional issues. Just local issues and what people are really thinking about. I think the big thing is to get acquainted, take time...Language is very important when you're covering issues concerning a minority that is already seen with a bias...some words can't be used when you're describing a Native situation. I know I check my language a lot more...if you cover an issue in the Native community and you cover the same issue in a white community, you have to treat it differently. You have to be more cautious, because of the preconceived notions that people have of Natives.

You need careful language when you're dealing with black issues, too, because portrayal of blacks on TV and in newspapers is always associated with crime basically. Again, people have this bias – that's how I'm careful with Natives. Because I've seen the reactions in newsrooms to the stories I've done. People used to call me a moccasin licker. And people ask me often if I'm Native, since I've done stories on Natives, because they associate me with that. So, what I'm saying is that we need to use careful language when we're going to talk to our audience about something that's foreign to them.

What I think, in terms of advice for young people covering Native issues or ethnic minorities, is that they have to know their audience. The real issue is "Who are we talking to?" and "What is the language we have to use so that people will understand the information?" In covering Natives and ethnic communities, you have to take into consideration biases that are already built into your audience, so that you will avoid traps like language.

I think the real answer, and the easy way out for me, is the idea that if you do a story on a white man that's tipsy on the road, people will say, "Oh, you've had a bit too much to drink." But if you do a story of an Indian that's tipsy on the road, people will answer back, "Indians are all alike, Indians are all drunks." So, that's the idea. In order to get across what you are really trying to say, you have to take into account this process, and how your audience will decode information regarding ethnic groups.

Like Pierre Mignault, CBC radio reporter Loreen Pindera has spent a great deal of time working with aboriginal communities. She is very critical of existing practices, especially those of "objective" journalism. Pindera argues that we need to take our time, study a variety of historical perspectives and find a common ground on which to build trust and respect with the people with whom we intend to work – in Canada, those whose lives are guided by behavioral, cultural and ethical codes different from dominant British and French traditions.

From my experience with the justice inquiries in Manitoba, I have learned to listen, wait and watch. In aboriginal communities, we need to do this more than we are used to. So few mainstream journalists have any idea how things work. There is a need for a different time-line and lots of patience. We have to let people...get their anger out before we get to the nitty-gritty of the story. Their point of view has to get out there. We can't use the quick-hit approach. It takes an awful lot more time to re-establish trust with a community after they've been so frequently misrepresented by the mainstream media.

There was an abhorrent lack of response to aboriginal issues by federal government leaders during the (1993) election campaign. Almost no candidates went into Inuit communities in northern Quebec, and this is always the way it is during elections. I spoke with William Tagoona (an Inuk CBC Northern Service reporter) this morning and he told me that the CBC sent out invitations to all leaders to send a tape for their free-time political broadcast. The only one that sent anything in was the Bloc Quebecois. Few cared enough about the Inuit vote to send any stuff. The Inuit and Cree are in separate ridings – therefore they don't have a large enough block of votes to have their interests represented. This is very frustrating to the Inuit I've spoken to. They know that their interests will never be represented. The last time an Inuk was taken seriously in Northern Quebec was when Prime Minister Trudeau named Charlie Watt to the Senate and then he became unavailable to us from then on.

There is a great level of extreme anger about the fact that mainstream media ignore Northern Native issues. This resistance to mainstream media comes back to haunt anyone in the mainstream media who tries to get access to information. It is a long, slow process.

The non-Native journalist's frustration escalates when she or he expresses interest in Native or other minority issues, does appropriate historical research, takes the time to develop political spokespeople and grassroots contacts within the community and then is regarded as somehow having betrayed the tenets of "real" or "objective" journalism. Loreen Pindera, who with Geoffrey York of The Globe and Mail, stayed behind the barricades in Kanehsatake in 1990 after all other non-Native journalists had departed, experienced this consequence quite intensely. Theirs was an extreme case. They were accused of Stockholm Syndrome, in which the hostage identifies with the captors on whom he or she depends for security. From their perspective, Pindera and York were placed in an untenable situation, allowed to get only one side of the story. The Canadian army wouldn't talk to them and they had no access to the other players. Pindera said:

The institution (CBC) had to make a decision – each journalist could only get and tell one side of the story – therefore CBC assigned journalists to one aspect of the whole story. The overall balance could only be achieved through a diversity of opinion from several journalists each getting only one side at a time. If the CBC expected to get the whole story through one journalist's perspective, they were not doing their job, because each was so limited in access to information. CBC reporters would have had to give up their jobs to the PR person at the army.

Because this is not a customary practice of journalists, when York and Pindera failed to bow to pressures for conformity, they were accused of extreme bias. Any outside journalist interested in the actual issues was seen as parti-pris by the majority of the other media. Aboriginal media like CKRK (Radio Kahnawake) or the Eastern Door newspaper in Kahnawake were assumed to represent Mohawk interests. During the crisis, Miles Morrisseau of the aboriginal newspaper Native Beat and Dan David, a freelance journalist, said they could not get their stories on air because they were seen as being too cozy with the Mohawks. As Pindera says:

As soon as journalists do get access to the community, the outside perception is that you are too close to accurately portray the issues. As a specialist on a medical beat, you never get accused of being too close to a story. But on a Native or racial issue, when you become informed and understand the issues, then people begin to slot you as being too sympathetic.

Given the current tendency to accuse journalists of bias and the preoccupation with political correctness, it is no surprise that many try to avoid the complexities of cross-cultural work. Add to this the controversy surrounding the Canada Council's recommendations for equality of access to the arts; of cultural trespassing and appropriation of voice, and it is easy to understand why "white" journalists are afraid of saying the wrong thing on the air, and being accused of racism. In "risky" issues such as gambling in Mohawk communities or factionalism in black or Asian communities, this concern has led to self-censorship. Pindera's approach is to:

Work slowly and patiently. I do bristle at political correctness that prevents us from doing critical stories of certain communities. Journalists fear being labelled racists. These labels are thrown around too easily these days. Look at the coverage of black politics in Montreal. If there's one problem focused on one community, you have to talk about it. Or look at the Mohawks and cigarette smuggling. My biggest concern is that the media wait until violence occurs before covering an issue. This is a story about a million-dollar industry and communities that are changed forever. Yet, when mainstream journalists try to cover it, they are labelled as co-opted and when non-mainstream journalists try to cover it, they fear to tread because of the potential accusation of racism. Alternatively, they do slash and burn stories that place all Mohawks on the same boat and then the Mohawks get upset because they are unjustly labelled as cigarette smugglers. I think all of this has more to do with where newsroom priorities are than overt racism in the newsroom. For example, in Kanehsatake, until it reached a stage of violence, it was not covered seriously. And journalists ended up going into the community without knowing its history. The definition of "what news is" is problematic. News journalists never have time to look at historic factors that dictate how a situation is going to unfold. Some subjects require much advance preparation.

Another example of a problematic issue in Native communities is coverage of the subject of AIDS. Pindera notes, "A few years ago, one chief in Manitoba said about AIDS: `There is no such thing as a gay Indian'." Later on, she remembers watching the first television program on AIDS showing aboriginal victims and two Native politicians. She recalls one saying to the other: "Oh, he must be Ojibway." The other responded to the first one: "NO, he must be Cree!" Who would feel prepared to do backgrounders to these comments, to look critically at the issues behind the statements? As a result of putting herself on the line in the Kanehsatake issue, Pindera considers herself to be:

Much less of a cultural relativist than in the past. Is it possible to be a cultural relativist and a feminist and a journalist all at once? For example, let's look at the issue of underground clitorectomies in Ethiopian and Somalian communities. Without a clitorectomy, women aren't marriageable. These often happen in Ottawa. Stories need to be done on these issues. We need education for women in these communities. We need to come down on the side of unwavering human rights in these issues of cultural conflict. Or the issue of Sikhs wearing turbans in the RCMP or Rastafarians joining the RCMP and smoking dope before going on duty. These are real tough ones. In the name of political correctness and tolerance, we're not touching issues that should be dealt with. It's difficult. We can't be afraid to offend. Sometimes, you have to be prepared to offend. Another difficult case I've heard of lately is domestic violence within the Hassidic community in Montreal. Whose job is it to assure that people are informed of their rights? Do open-minded journalists take sides on these issues?

It is not the aim of this essay to answer these questions but to identify the complexity of cross-cultural journalistic issues. Let us now turn to the second point, the position of the minority journalist in a specialty service or within the mainstream. Particularly within large institutions, the burden of culturally representing an entire community has sometimes been laid on "ethnic" or "Native" journalists. In practice, this has meant that specific journalists are often expected to cover their own community's beat and speak about little else. The question of acceptance as professional journalists – capable of maintaining critical distance from issues, but also struggling around their own cultural conflicts – is a difficult one. Take, for example, the case of Dan David, a Mohawk journalist from Kanehsatake.

As a CBC reporter working out of Regina in the late 1980's, David wanted to become a generalist, covering police, health, labour issues and so on. Initially, he was able to do this. Later, he says he was slotted in as the "Native reporter" and told that if he did not agree to restrict his work to the Native beat, his contract would lapse. Very soon after, he left the CBC to become a freelancer rather than be limited professionally in this way (around 1993).

The interview with Dan David revealed other ethical issues around conflict of interest. For example, he feels that his knowledge of the complexities behind some of the Mohawk controversies has placed him in a particularly vulnerable position when it comes to covering the issues publicly. At what point would he align himself with a political position and at what point would he attempt to cover the issue journalistically, at least from a critical perspective? According to David, his affiliation with Mohawks (himself being one) became so public that mainstream journalists stopped considering him a credible witness to the events in Kanehsatake, his home community. Eventually, he says, he was denied access to mainstream radio because of this assumption of bias. But how would his position in his own community be affected by the fallout of his coverage?

During the crisis of 1990, broadcasters at the radio stations in Kanehsatake and Kahnawake found themselves in similar positions. On many occasions, they had to decide between conventional journalistic practices and their own ethical codes. For example, how much information should be made public, keeping in mind panic levels and journalists' potential ability to help diffuse public tensions? Should names of missing people be broadcast over the air?

What all this tells us is that journalists ought to take a good hard look at their taken-for-granted practices. A crisis, or crossing into new cultural and racial terrain is an opportunity to identify gaps in conventional journalistic practices that should be taken up, deliberated over and resolved in an honest, open and sensitive manner. In the complex context of multiculturalism, the notion of "objectivity" and bipolar thinking makes much less sense now than in the past. Where it is still espoused, I would recommend that the notion of "objectivity" be modified to one of "critical distance," with a recognition that balance and fairness can be attained by comparing and contrasting several perspectives on a single issue. There are multiple facets to any story or event, and the goal of journalists doing cross-cultural reporting should be to get at as many of the complexities as possible without confusing the audience. This does not mean that stories will be "biased," but rather that multiple "situated" accounts can together become part of a coherent whole and provide for a critical balance of the many – not just one or two – existing positions. If journalists do their work well, these positioned accounts should be recognizable to members of minority communities as relevant to their perscectives.

Lorna Roth is a professor of Communications at Concordia University in Montreal.