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Journalism: a job fit for savages

If it wasn’t such an important part of my job, I think I would have given up reading newspapers a long time ago.
If it wasn’t such an important part of my job, I think I would have given up reading newspapers a long time ago.

There used to be distinct differences between what we called the so-called “responsible” press and “the tabloids” -- those slippery-paged magazines that catch your eye at the grocery checkout counter with headlines that scream “Madonna having Martian’s love child,” or “How to lose 80 pounds on a jelly-bean diet.”

But the competition and cost-cutting have caught up with the press barons, who are now resorting to trying nto outsleaze industry rivals in a desperate effort to stop newspaper sales from spiraling downward at a frightful pace. Canadian media critics have had a penchant for condemning the level of media concentration in this country – too few owners controlling too many paper, radio and television stations. But that’s not the real problem.

An industry insider once told me that -- unlike other businesses -- the quality of newspapers is often inversely proportionate to the level of competition in their marketplace. And the current state of journalism certainly proves him right. Prime minister, pro hockey players, porn stars -- they all get the same star-struck treatment at the hands of reporters more concerned with style than substance.

The pathetic state of affairs becomes more obvious when it comes to dealing with issues that require some knowledge or research, and Native Affairs is one of those areas where a largely-ignorant public would really benefit from a better-informed press.

So when a Canadian V.I.P like Richard Pound tells reporters that this country was nothing but a land of “savages” 400 years ago, you’d like to think at least one of the country's 10,000 working journalists would have enough smarts to set him straight.

Instead, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente – who was weaned on the “Cavalry-charge” attitude towards Indians that prevails in her native United States of America -- pipes up that Pound – a member of the International Olympic Committee and chancellor of McGill University --is actually correct. From her lofty perch in downtown Toronto, Ms Wente writes that North American Native peoples were “Neolithic”, and says that evidence of their savagery is that they “had not developed broader laws or institutions, a written language, evidence-based science, mathematics or advance technologies.” She mocks indigenous traditions and culture as mere romanticism fuelled by white guilt.

Thank goodness her myopic xenophobia was greeted by a flood of outraged responses, many reminding her that Mr. Pound had already apologized for his inappropriate and inaccurate remarks, and others offering specific historic evidence that refutes her theory. (For one thing, there's that little matter of the framers of the U.S. Constitution borrowing their model of state-federal separation of powers from the Iroquois Confederacy.)

That someone can achieve such a prominent position in such an important field with so little background knowledge of such a major topic as Native Affairs is more than a sad commentary on Margaret Wente. It is a terrible indictment of Canada’s media industry, a business which used to produce information respected and relied upon by important pillars of society, but which now amplifies voices that often have nothing meaningful, original or even accurate to say.

One is tempted to adopt 15th Century attitudes and classify journalists as being little better than savages --people who dress funny, do not appear to possess any worthwhile knowledge, and deserve to be kicked out of the spaces they currently occupy.

Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He serves as director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and editor of the Anishinabek News.