The "Menace" of Nelson Small Legs Jrs.' Peacepipe
Aquash Murder Case Coverage - Periodical profile published 1977

Publisher:  Content, Canada's National News Media Magazine, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1977
Price:  $0.50   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX212

Two articles discuss the failings of the Canadian press in covering major events in the Native community.

Abstract: 
These two articles give a penetrating "behind the public eye" account of what is and is not reported. In the reporting of the two Alberta leaders' statements to the Berger Inquiry in Calgary, there was great discrepancy between what local reporters had handed in to their papers, the Canadian press version and what was reported in the paper. The whole incident, which went largely unnoticed and, which is a process that is certainly not unusual in the daily workings of most newsrooms, raises serious questions on several counts. These include the thorny issue of where corrections are run and the delicate matter of going with a "mere service" version of an event that one's own paper's staff has covered. The late, sparse, stop and start treatment of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, a Micmac from Antigonish, N.S., would have been more readily identified as news had the victim been a middle class white. An interesting contrast to this lack of coverage was found in the front page headlines of the May 10 issue of the Toronto Globe and Mail -- "99 of 120 Students of Quebec Indian College Treated for Gonorrhoea."