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Opinion: Media missed story at Mohawk First Nation
Thursday, May 6, 2004

"In mid-January, Kanehsatake exploded in the national consciousness once more. Looking back at the media coverage of the events, familiar patterns emerge.

Major Canadian news organizations immediately pumped up the volume by resurrecting images of the 1990 Oka crisis, masked Mohawk warriors and all. They soon transformed the story into one of criminals versus a crime-fighting chief. Then journalists painted Kanehsatake as a community with never-ending problems, doomed by petty family squabbles. The Montreal Gazette finally declared the story "a small-town drama or farce." Few journalists, including Aboriginal journalists, looked much deeper into the story or deviated from these easy stereotypes."

Get the Story:
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