Abstract
This article examines the role of the Canadian press as corporate watchdog. A content analysis of Canadian newspapers over a five-year period reveals that human rights abuses perpetrated by Canadian mining companies in Guatemala are under-reported. Sourcing constraints, lack of newsworthiness and other traditional journalism standards help explain why this story is ‘missing’ in the traditional press. Reporting critical of the mining companies was produced principally by individual journalists with a personal interest in the issue; however readership and ownership patterns in the Canadian media detract from the potential influence that this independent reporting may have.
Highlights
This article examines the role of the Canadian press as corporate watchdog
As the conflict over mining in Guatemala is in part an issue of indigenous rights, and an ‘Aboriginal story’, it comes as no surprise that papers that serve First Nations in Canada covered the story differently than mainstream newspapers
The analysis presented in this article has shown that, to a large extent, the Canadian press ignores scandals involving Canadian mines in Guatemala
Summary
2 entrance into Goldcorp mines for a week; Army forcibly evicts hundreds from Skye Resources (HudBay) mine. As the conflict over mining in Guatemala is in part an issue of indigenous rights, and an ‘Aboriginal story’, it comes as no surprise that papers that serve First Nations in Canada covered the story differently than mainstream newspapers. On 21 May 2008, the same Canadian Press newswire report led to two slightly different articles in the business sections of The Edmonton Sun and The Brantford Expositor Both articles described Goldcorp’s annual meeting, during which the company had announced its intentions to expand and protesters spoke out against abuses in Guatemala and Honduras. 10 This hypothesis is supported by Yukon News columnist Michael Dougherty (2009), who writes that one of the reasons the paper is more likely to report on Guatemalan mining conflicts is that ‘It is small, independent and locally owned.’. While it is difficult to measure the effect of this conglomeration on the style of reporting or on content about Canadian mines overseas, the work of Dyck and Zingales (2002) implies that Canada’s large media chains might have something to do with the shortage of articles that take a critical look at the practices of the country’s mining firms
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