The Differences in Media Coverage of Crimes Against Indigenous Women

Society cottsumes mass information from different sources of news outlets every day. They are heavily relied upon as a news source and as cultural entertainment and are often assumed to be reliable, However. tltis assumption isn’t always exact. as media bias is rampattt across the globe, And because of this. it‘s essential to learn how to coitsume with a more critical eye. While all of this information is an accessible and effective way to Inform. it has a cottstattt shiltittg perspective It is impossible for an individual or outlet to have no biases whatsoever, but some media outlets will take this to the extreme and publish extremely biased contenti Families of missittg and murdered Indigenous women have lottg argued that the media pays less attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women, Media responses have rartged from incorporating tlte criticisnts irtto their coverage to a denial that the problent exists.

The mainstream media feeds ittto a culture’s natural tendencies artd ideals.

Mainstream media include big corporations under corporate umbrellas with trained journalists and vast resources that report on news stories and disseminate stories through a variety of channels: print. video. broadcast. digital. podcasts and live recordings Journalists are constantly trying to alter perspectives with biased information to subject the public to the corporate nornts and ideas. Showing that corporate media ownership stilles independent voices and viewpoints. Nowadays. mainstream tnedia has tlte largest audience. the largest advertising revenues, and the most resources. Because of this, it is intpossible to report everything; selectivity is inevitable, It always ends up in the media being controlled, limited and only a selective version of the information available.

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Many news organizations reflect, or are perceived to reflect in some way. the viewpoint of the geographic. ethnic. attd rtatiottal population they primarily serve which leads to a disparity about wltat real world issues need to be addressed.

Project Censored. an American non-profit media watchdog organization. is working to educate students arid the public about the importance of a free press for democratic sell-government to highlight stories about important issues that are constantly overlooked. Project Uncensored Story: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls According to a ThinkProgress report from August 2019. Indigenous women and girls faced physical abuse with a shocking regularity that amounts to an “epidemic” of violence. including murder. kidnapping. sexual trafficking arid rape. On account of negligence and ineptitude, as well as the intricacy of criminal jurisdiction on tribal grounds. which limits which ollences tribal courts may pursue. law enforcement and the judicial system seldom identify. let alone charge or convict, the perpetrators of these crimes.

Law enforcement and thejudicial system rarely iderttify much less cltarge or convict the perpetrators of these crimes, “I wouldn’t say we‘re more vulnerable.“ Annita Lucchesi. a Southern Cheyenne descendant arid executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute, stated. “I’d say we’re targeted.“ The Urban lndiatt Health Institute (UIHI) found 5712 reports of murdered or missing Indigenous women and girls throughout the United States in 2016, but only 116 were logged in the Department of Justice’s database.However. major media publications such as the Washington Post. Time magazine. and others may have given the idea to US viewers that the epidemic of murdered and missing Indigenous women is solely a Canadian issueAside front coverage of Canada’s National Inquiry, US corporate news outlets ltave offered almost little coverage of ntissirtg attd murdered Indigenous women in the United States.

The cases of missing arid murdered Indigenous women and girls receive little to no mainstream press coverage, with some notewortlty exceptions: one New York Times story on the issue was described as “a tiny acknowledgment in a sea of loss“ in a January 2020 article in the New Republic. Both responses and crises on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) are both grossly underreported. Ultimately, Sovereign Bodies Institute, the Brave Heart Society, and the Urban Indian Health Institute. the influential campaigners, point to systemic racism as a root cause of the crisis. citing the ingrained legacies of settler colonialism. issues with law enforcement. a lack of reliable and comprehensive data. and flawed policymaking. The Mainstream Media: The New Republic Since 1914, The New Republic has been a liberal American magazine of political and art commentary. It was founded by key Progressive Movement leaders in an attempt to strike a balance between progressivism centred on humanitarianism and tnoral intensity.

It, on the other hand, sought a foundation in scientific study of social concerns On January 22, 2020, the New Republic published an article: “The cynical crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.” The author, Nick Martin. writes about the Murdered and Missing Indigneous women’s crisis patterns and the refusal to do what‘s necessary to stop them. In 2017, 5,646 Native women were reported missing in the United States. He states how they each became: a name attached to a statistic. How, “there will be other pieces, more names to leam as the crisis of MMIW drags on. Another native woman killed, another name, another headline and so on goes the cycle.” Manin argues that there are patterns in this crisis. patterns of violent men and extractive industries breeze through land they don’t own to take lives that don’t belong to them. patterns of police dismissals, and patterns of government officials ignoring practical. sovereignty-first reforms and instead hoarding the kind ol power that keeps the crisis alivei “Even from the most unlikely of places, a baseline acknowledgment that something awful is happening has arrived.”

There have been steps made to put an end to the violence States have enacted task forces and financed studies and created six-figure salaries tor investigative experts to help them fill the gaps. Martin explains that it should be clear that a single solution to MMIW will not appear “at the snap of a person‘s fingers,” that in tact, there is no single solution. He shows that the data and stories are so shocking, and skewed against women in Indian countries. that widespread outcry should’ve occurred long ago. The Alternative Media: ThinkProgress Report ThinkProgress is an American political news website With a favourable bias towards liberal causes, ThinkProgress is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization funded by John Podesta, On August 24, 2019. ThinkProgress published an article titled: “Missing and murdered women is a grint, unsolved problem.

Native communities are demanding action.“ In the anicle, author Danielle McLean. wrote of a young woman who experienced this first hand when she was only just walking by the street. Three men got out ol the vehicle and, unprovokingly. started beating her attd her friends. One picked her up and threw her against a car and started to kick her and shattered one of her legs while bystanders did nothing to rectify this. The Native women’s very presence was all the provocation needed for their aggressors, who would often shout racial slurs as they drove or walked by McLean uses this story on the violent acts committed, and the shocking regularity that reflects everyday reality for Native women to provoke an emotional response. She tries to show the lack of media coverage and how it‘s been a part of the problem. How news organizations ltave historically given a disproportionate amount of coverage to white victims because of: lack of newsroom diversity, storylines they believed will generate ratings , and a certairt level of “pure discrimination”

Joshua Benton, director of Harvard University‘s Nietnan Journalism Lab, told TltinkProgress. Danielle McLean exploits emotion in her article to influence readers toward a libertarian perspective on MMIW underrepresentation. Site writes about ltow current laws give understaffed attd under-resourced tribal police little power: the slteer violence against Native women and the abysmal failure by the goverttmettl to adequately address it. In the past, task forces have studied violence against Native women. but members of the indigenous community say it‘s not enough, How legislation has simply scratclted the surface. Current laws give understaffed attd under-resourced tribal police little power to investigate and prosecute non-tribal members who commit such crimes, said Tom Rodgers. acting president of the Global Indigenous Council.

Essentially, the article publislted by TltinkProgress has a pessimistic tone; used expressive words and didn’t show enough facts and tried to convey that the effons made currently with the MMIW issue just aren‘t enough, Comparing the Mainstream and Alternative Media The two articles. published by the New Republic and Thinkngress both bring to focus the underrepresented voices and underreporting of the mi sing and murdered Indigenous women. Both articles agree that sometlting needs to be done about this current issue and that tltere is no one single solution that cart ameliorate this. Yet, the perspective itt which the articles are written vary.

The article published by the New Republic gives the example of the patterns and a refusal to do what’s necessary to stop them, Patterns of violent men and industries. patterns of tribal sovereignty being undermined and pattents of police dismissal. Contraily the article published by ThinkProgress highlights the failures of awareness. in an attempt to bring awareness. The New Republic article is hopeful. descriptive and informational. While the tone of the ThinkProgress article is bleak and opinionated The difference between the two articles is that the New Republic is more informational. such as tlte progression on this issue, to inform the reader while ThinkProgress disregarded arty progress made on this issue and was critical and overall written with a pessimism bias. Conclusion While comparing mainstream and alternative media.

It is clear that information can be manipulated and shaped to portray specific agendas. Despite the fact that botlt news sites focus on the satne issue, the way it was interpreted is different. While the New Republic mainly focused on informing the reader on patterns on the issue, government factors, the ThinkProgress article focused on tlte disregard of this issue in an effort to show awareness Overall, the tone of the New Republic article is informed. rational, and optimistic, but the tone of the ThinkProgress article is pessimistic, skeptical, and opinionated. Showing a perspective shifting bias in journalism. Wltilst journalistic standard is impartiality or “objectivity in any given news article. it is almost impossible to accomplish entirely, These assumptions are nearly always oven and systematic (in order to advance a specific agenda), rather than perceived and unintentional.