Why Coverage of Indigenous Issues Is So Lousy

Most journalists also said we didn’t bother to cover Indigenous peoples because there was no journalistic payoff. We, reporters, preferred to do stories to improve situations and conditions, by pointing out things that didn’t work properly. We looked for bad guys, stories about corruption or inept business owners, government administrators, politicians, cops, for example. Yet similar stories about Indigenous communities never went anywhere. Things never changed. Also, by telling these stories, we faced accusations of concentrating on the negative.

Most reporters at major news networks and newspapers didn’t see those historical threads, because it’s never been part of their journalistic DNA. They were never taught about these events, social and political developments in their history or poli-sci classes.

READ: Why Coverage of Indigenous Issues Is So Lousy | FAIR