Media can be more responsive to missing women’s families

A research project by Holly McKenzie (University of Regina) was undertaken with Pauline Muskego and Gwenda Yuzicappi, the mothers of two missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Muskego is the mother of Daleen Kay Bosse, a Cree woman from Onion Lake First Nation, who disappeared in 2004. Bosse’s remains were found four years later. She had been murdered.
Yuzicappi’s daughter, Amber Tara-Lynn Redman, Dakota Sioux from Standing Buffalo First Nation, disappeared in 2005 and in 2008, was found murdered.

The project looked at how the media can be responsive to families of the missing and murdered women and how they can resist the racism, classism and colonialism pervading Canadian society. They did an analysis of the media coverage of the disappearance of the two women, and after they were found.
The initial media response to Bosse’s disappearance played up the stereotype of Aboriginal women engaging in risky behavior, i.e., drunkenness and partying. The police were presented as actively searching for the women while the efforts of family and friends was presented as secondary.

Later coverage highlighted the families’ search and experiences, but this was largely due to the active engagement with the media on the part of the women’s families. When the women were presented as multi-dimensional, i.e., as mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters, it enabled non-Aboriginal readers, viewers or listeners to relate to them through their shared roles.

Following discovery of the women’s remains, the majority of the media coverage focused on spokespeople from the justice system which had the effect of individualizing the women’s murders. Some journalists drew links between the two women and the wider issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and a few stories linked the wider issue to racism and colonialism.

A number of recommendations are contained in the report and are aimed at mainstream media. These include cultural awareness training for journalists starting in universities.

Journalists can make more efforts to be more sensitive and respectful towards family members when covering stories about missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Journalists should work on building relationships with the Aboriginal community and, at the same time, media outlets need to focus on hiring more Aboriginal journalists.

Another recommendation was to increase funding by the federal government to Aboriginal and alternative media sources to add to the diversity of media coverage about missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

At the same time, Aboriginal organizations, families and allies can keep the media informed about events related to the issue.