Enough already

I believe this event has gotten the ink it deserves for the most part. It is not the place of media take sides. Medias job is to inform. I couldn't care less what repoters' personal feelings are regarding the stories they're covering. Want share your perspective (bias), write a book. Just give us the facts ma'am, please.

I wouldn't really call them Media Elders.

They are the lackeys of the status quo. Not one of the name mentioned in the article would or should be elevated to anything beyond lackey. I know Crawford had to refer to them in some way convenient but all of them are irrelevant, particularly Tom Flanagan. Why the CBC uses him at all boggles the mind.

Vote with your wallets

No need to give a penny to old media, paywalls are easily dodged, subscriptions can be cancelled. Give money to the people telling the whole story. (Like the Tyee)

Excellent points

It's been interesting hearing reporters flounder when they're dealing with a grassroots movement with multiple leaders and voices. Thanks for highlighting the failures of many of these columnists. If you're not involved in the Idle No More movement, it's a great opportunity to listen to the diversity of voices beyond just mainstream media and learn something.

Brownian Motion?

In a "perfect" democracy, political voices can (and perhaps should) be a kind of Brownian Motion of opinions whose random collisions only occasionally coalesce into pattern. Those who seek to control pattern (political parties and government officials, as well as their paid and/or co-opted media flunkies) despise the unpredictability inherent in naturally coalescing mass movements (e.g. Idle No More...environmentalists...social justice activists, etc.).

When it is their self-appointed mission to control the nation (often for the benefit of the few) rather than to be politically directed by the wishes of their electorate, such unpredictability becomes the stuff of nightmares for politicians. Thus they turn to their media supporters for reassurance and for help at manipulating the national herd. You can practically hear the cowboy press 'yipping' as they struggle to prevent a possible stampede! Fortunately, we are not cattle, although sometimes we have behaved as if we are.

Harper has been rabidly stirring the pot to completely remake the Canadian stew ever since he has come to power. The idea that it should bubble over eventually should not surprise him or his supporters. The question is, will he even try to clean up his mess, perhaps best done by altering the recipe?

(Sorry for all the mixed metaphors...)

Couldn't agree more,

Couldn't agree more, Crawford. Great analysis.

I watched one interview where a CBC journalist continually put words in Chief Derek Nepinak's mouth, further compounding the falsity by putting an inflammatory spin on words that he actually never said. But the chief caught her on it and she was somewhat stymied and baffled by his response - as she clearly had never listened intently to what he had said in the first place.

Her whole tone was of someone who wanted everything wrapped up in a week-end and wanted answers 'now' , zippity quick, as to "where it was all going"?

Oh, the hypocrisy of her stance....

I understand that Crawford

I understand that Crawford Kilian may have had to use a collective noun for the individuals he refers to in this article, but " Media Elders " ? And one from The National Post ?

Makes me wonder now about Mr Kilian.

Bleupaon

For me, Mr. Kilian's reference to both "Media Elders" and The National Post has a distinct and very intentional sardonic tone to it...

"No one in the media has

"No one in the media has compared Attwapiskat spending with the Conservatives' squandering of millions on the F-35 while lying to the media ..."

I realize that is a reference to mainstream media, but in alternative media (Twitter) that and many other similar comparisons have been made at the hashtag #Ottawapiskat.

The only mainstream media mentioned in this article that I am surprised has done such a terrible job understanding, analyzing and reporting Idle No More is the CBC.

If you look at the Broadcasting Act, the CBC has certain legislated obligations to the Indigenous Peoples. In my opinion, one of those obligations is to accurately reflect the realities of their lives as part of its mandate to reflect the circumstances and aspirations of all Canadians, including the special place of aboriginal peoples in society, and to "contribute to shared national consciousness and identity" and "reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada".

Also the CBC website states: "The CBC belongs to the people of Canada" and the slogan for CBC's new five-year strategy, 2015 is "Everyone, Every way". But that claim is completely undermined by anti-Indigenous racism on its website, much of it anonymous. For one year now I have written emails and letters to CBC website moderators, the CBC Omudsman, CBC Management, and the CBC President and Board of Directors to point out the growing racism on its website. I was ignored or dismissed as merely having a difference of opinion at every level, despite my warnings that the problem would worsen. No one at CBC was interested in hearing suggestions from me on better ways of informing the public on Indigenous issues other than allowing racist commentary without any meaningful attempt to counter the myths, stereotypes, lies and propaganda it publishes.

I never watched Power & Politics on CBC before, but watched it for the last two weeks. I was quite shocked, not by the overt racism by Tom Flanagan and his ilk since I expect that, but from the sneers, ridicule, dismissiveness and put downs that Crawford mentions above, from several veteran CBC reporters like Terry Mileski (sp?) and Evan Solomon who just seemed to have no historical understanding of what was happening with Idle No More, so instead focused on all the wrong things.

Peter Mansbridge...

I noticed that Peter Mansbridge wasn't mentioned, and I thought his coverage of the issue last week on the At Issues Panel was actually quite good. His main focus was on how this issue is so polarized (and polarizing) when most Canadians are reasonable, sensible folk.

Great article by Mr. Kilian... I'm in 100% agreement.

Following up my previous

Following up my previous comment, thanks to the Tyee for making me aware of the NFB film "The People of the Kattawapiskak River" which "exposes the housing crisis faced by 1,700 Cree in Northern Ontario, a situation that led Attawapiskat’s band chief, Theresa Spence, to ask the Canadian Red Cross for help. With the Idle No More movement making front page headlines, this film provides background and context for one aspect of the growing crisis. This film will stream free of charge until Friday, January 18, 2013."

http://www.nfb.ca/channels/aboriginal_peoples_channel/

There is a very powerful scene where an Indigenous woman, a teacher, talks about the effect reading online racist comments had on her and how she tries to protect her students from that. It is an emotional, heart-breaking interview. I wish the film had been available when I wrote all that correspondence to the CBC because I made it clear in those letters that I have a very personal connection to this. My sister, brother and nine nephews and nieces are all status Indians. I told the CBC President and Directors that I have had to warn my family members not to read online comments on the CBC site related to Indigenous issues, which ought to be a safe site for them to visit as Canadian citizens according to CBC's own propaganda, but it isn't because of all the ignorance and hatred being expressed against them.

Anti-Indigenous bigotry is perhaps to be expected on other media sites, but I expect the CBC ought to be different, and it isn't. Occasionally, the CBC does have some good Aboriginal programming, such as the recent "8th Fire", but look at the board of directors, which ought to reflect Canada's multi-cultural nature, and you can only find, for want of a better word, white people. No visible minorities, let alone Indigenous people. And CBC reporters and pundits are increasingly willing to show their bias, as in openly dismissing or misrepresenting Idle No More.

Non-Aboriginal Canadian Public Also Counts

"There seems to have been a hardening of Canadian public opinion on aboriginal issues,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of public affairs for Ipsos Reid.

1. Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence received just 29 per cent public support.

2. 60 per cent think that most of native peoples’ problems are brought upon by themselves.

3. 66 per cent of respondents think native Canadians get too much support from taxpayers.

2. 81 per cent believe reserves should not get any more money until external auditors review their finances."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-attitudes-hardening-on-aboriginal-issues-new-poll/article7408516/

And if the Idle No More movement begins to blockade Canadians, expect these attitudes to harden further.

I guess the Canadian public is ossified as well!

Maybe a Native CBC radio program?

CBC radio has time for all kinds of doo dah programs and lame humour; too bad they didn't have time for a Native run program. They might have to up their game, and of course would feel uncomfortable sharing broadcast resources with a program called Idle No More. But it would give the natives a voice and we all might get a better idea from sharing ideas with them all, resulting in less accusatory you alls.

#Ottawapiskat on twitter has some gems comparing Chief Harper and his dubious band to other bands across our Home and Native land. Of course you can't really compare levels of corruption with a band which shuts down parliament, lies to its band members, and illegally wins elections by phoning private teepees on election day and telling 'em the election teepee has changed its address.

Nothing New here!

The media hacks did the same with Occupy and the Quebec students. You can always count on them to parrot what their corporate masters want. As for the Ipsos poll, it only goes to show the extent of racism in this country. We shouldn't feel superior to the Yanks. All it takes for the average Canuck to don a bed sheet is two little words "Indian" and "Quebec". Time to grow up folks!

Furthermore

With the kind of numbers they are getting any political group will be taking note that the old strategy of keeping the leadership a band council appeased is not a safe strategy anymore. The grass roots are going to be there long after IdleNoMore has stopped protesting.

It might be a wise strategy for the MSM to start concentrating on why we are at this stage in relations with the FN's. Obviously we have all been asleep at the switch and there will be a reckoning.

Post Media and Pals

Yup these guys got the pulse of the nation. And here I thought these guys knew what they were talking about when Coyne wrote a column the day before election and predicted a Wild Rose Landslide victory. One has to wonder whose pulse Coyne was checking....perhaps Ipsos Reid. Never seen a column disappear(like it never happened, no retraction what so ever) so fast the next day. Wouldn't want Coyne to look like a complete corporate shilling PR specialist. It comes as no surprise what these media elders(oops I just gagged) are spinning to suit their bosses. These so called elders are losing their relevance more and more everyday as people that want to be informed search out honest independent journalism somewhere else.

Nobody with any insight

... reads the media without a huge amount of skepticism, and without first discerning the reporters obvious political leanings and judging the column accordingly.

Whether mainstream or not, there are slants to everyone.

So it seems to me that in the end, you either appreciate how we are getting fcuked by the nation-state and that nothing it says can be believed, and that it is always, always lying; OR you live in some shelter of delusion padded with propaganda, keeping your sanity, by not thinking too much about what is truly going on.

White Canadians.....

"And had they noticed that white Canadians were less than united about all kinds of things?" White Canadians? I thought Canada was multicultural? But these days I'm a white settle colonialist if I don't carry an Idle No More banner at a protest. Just had to point this out.

correction

I think I made a typo in my previous post. I meant "settler colonialist". Don't want to appear illiterate also.

Though the media did hack the Quebec student movement

that movement managed to kick out the Liberal party last September, in return for promises from the new government. The students won.

Help them. Help us.

Idle No More started in direct response to Bill C-45. Only the media portrays them as unfocused.
http://idlenomore.ca/index.php/about-us

Bill C-45, without consultation with Indian leaders changed, among other things, the law on how Native land is governed, how it can be rented or outright given up; giving more power to the Min of Indian Affairs and less power to the Indians. You would be upset too.
But it goes well beyond that, weakening environmental and legal protection on most waterways in Canada. How that will affect BC is it will make it easier for them to weasel that stinking pipeline through to Kitimat. It will further poison the waterways natives depend on for fish and potable water. Or to put it in #Ottawapiskatian - 'Big cf Harper of #Ottawapiskat band poisons treaty negotiations by pissing in Native drinking water.' We should all be pissed off.

Many people feel that we should work together against this government, as described by the below comment from an indigenous site:
"The corporate puppets are happy when Native and non-Native communities are slugging away at each other – divided we will fail, while in concert and cooperation we cannot be defeated.
Non-Native Canadians, when governments are run by corporate puppets like Harper and the Tories, have no legal power to stop them."
But Native bands do in the form of legal treaties protecting their lands and waterways. Help them, Help us. Or don't help them and remember what Fatboy said before he got a majority, 'When I'm finished with this country you won't even recognize it.'

Skywalker

You consistently fail to use the word some instead of they. Not all FNs are protesting for a starters. It seems that the have-not bands are the most vocal and one must wonder just why they 'have naught'.

As far as protecting "their environment" that's great but it doesn't put food in the mouths of those with that particular cause. And further, with the court provided population increase in the FN community any allotted food fishery is going to have to be spread more thinly. More people entitled to dip their nets in the water means less fish for each individual.

And these rules "that once governed them", just whose rules were they and were they written in stone?

For starters, I'm not buying any nonsense from Harper's "spin machine". He'll probably blow it just like all the rest. You may find this difficult to believe but the problems I see with this whole process come from observations made during many contacts in many different circumstances that I have made over the years with FN people all over the province.

I've asked you this before and I'll ask it again just what is the source of your inspiration in these matters, actual contact with many FN individuals or vicariously through the utterings of others?

Willfull Blindness

In a monent of low comedy, a Sun Media reporter was standing in front of a guy holding a HUGE sign that read something like "No Bill C-45!!" and the reporter looked into the camera and told the viewer that what these protesters want is unclear. We all just lost it!

There but for the grace of G*d go I...

Whatever you believe, we as guilty and polite Canadians constantly look for ways of justifying never taking a stand. I, sadly, am one of them. I sit at my computer, peruse the Tyee and the Huff Post, Salon and feel this anger suffusing my face and neck - every day.
When Occupy began, I felt this new sense of hope that finally I can vicariously engage in a form of protest against the political and corporate 'elites'. But I mentally backed away when these people underwent shoddy, sometimes violent treatment by the RCMP, police, the 1%-ers and even by their own economic peers. In the States when an old woman was pepper-sprayed in her face, the world knew about it and we condemned - from our armchairs - such horrible treatment of elders engaging in peaceful protest.
Slowly, over time, the Occupy movement streamed into other directions. (I heard that they are aiding foreclosure victims to occupy their homes etc.) Many of us actually breathed a collective sigh because, in essence, they were a reminder of what we were not doing: taking a physical stand against corruption and its very ill effects.
Then Chief Spence went on a hunger strike and the rhetoric in the media spread like wildfire. But all I could think was, "yes! Another vicarious fight." Then the so- called audit and the racist remarks about 'Indians' needing to stop being 'idle' and stop getting drunk and get off the res and get 'real jobs'. I was horrified, but really not surprised. Thanks to the harpo propaganda machine, we've been divided again by talking factoids. Keep the public at each others' throats and the rest will take care of itself.
We argue from the sidelines in warm and cosy coffee shops then head home to our middle-class homes with running potable water, head to the fridge for beer and abundant food in fridge and cupboard. Then switch on our big, flat screen TV's and watch the world 'out there' at war and the endless global poverty. How lucky we are and we may not voice it guiltily but we know it and perhaps that is our greatest disadvantage to actually, physically standing behind anything of moment and value.
Idle No More has brought the fight closer to home, which is scary and exciting at the same time. We, the 'media elders', politicos and especially the 'elite' know nothing about real, gut-wrenching poverty but if the First Nations were not fighting for us all, for the protection of our waterways against harpo's corporate eco-raiders, perhaps that is what we will be looking at in the very near future.
But the sad thing is, once we are in survival mode,it will take generations before we can look up, take stock and actually begin to really, really take a physical stand.
Keeping the populace ignorant, confused, hungry, at war with other nations and with each other kills conscience and leads to a god-less state of mind and heart. Then by what grace will we go?

Thanks Atlas

I adopt your post in response to the minority represented by Snert.

Media

I think the high percentage of Canadians are fairly racist in terms of how they comment on the "news" sites in terms of FN.

There is I believe, a huge amount of ignorance to FN history in Canada and the Feds ongoing treatment of them.

Its always a blame FN situation when it comes to moneys and accountability and what is rarely mentioned is the Feds FN accountability structure requirements that are often very complicated and also the fact that FN do not receive monies on a regular timeline hence the bands difficulty in budgeting and providing services.

The Feds institutionally make it difficult for the purpose of getting ignorant Canadians to point the finger at FN for the Feds failures. Of course there is some Band mismanagement but thats what happens if the government knowingly allows the FN aristocracy to go against Band wishes.

This serves two purposes: 1} a less than united FN, and 2} Canadians will not be in solidarity with FN. Divide and rule!!!!!

Also Canadians expecting FN people, especially those with horrific pasts/addictions which are generational, to just get on with life and be like ingnorant Canadians is unreasonable. Given that some families problems go back multiple generations to the point of being genetic, WTF do people expect??

A cursory read of the current conditions on the US Pine Ridge reservation will give an accurate pitcure of Canada as well.

The MSM in Canada is a joke just like everywhere else thanks to ZERO interest in actually getting the truth out. Most stories glaringly avoid the elephant in the room.

Here is the deal: Your government does not care, DOESN'T CARE, about FN or you for that matter. To think otherwise is foolish.

Not enough, already!

As the media pumps out racist comments to beat the band while Flathead, who is presently being scolded for his conflicting interests says no time for the rights of Natives or the environment or Canadian waters what the. Especially when there is money to be made by letting everyone and everything go to hell.

Media behaviour sets the tone

Well said, CK. I was shocked a few days ago when a well-educated friend (who should know better) forwarded an article critical of accounting in Attawapiskat. It couldn't have happened if much of the media weren't busily diverting Canadians away from the real issues and hinting at racism. Maybe this is owing to laziness and over-reliance on bumph from the PMO, but maybe not.
Because what is also missing from the media is a serious review of the ideas and career in Canada of Tom Flanagan, Harper's cast-off who was once his mentor. How many Canadians, including journalists and reporters, has Flanagan infected with his made-in-the-US views? This influence should be carefully examined. Before Harper's advent, we were better than that.

media elders

a different way of referring to members of the Old Boys Club

Maudiebones. Flanagan is one

Maudiebones. Flanagan is one of my favourite people to educate "conservative" Canadians about. The dude is an American draft-dodging chickenhawk. He belongs back in the US with Perle, Wolfowitz, Gaffney and the rest of the neo-conservative pond scum.

And no, we won't take Frum back in trade.