How Did the Media Report the Mining Industry’s Initial Response to COVID-19 in Inuit Nunangat? A Newspaper Review

Matthew Pike,Amreen Babujee,Ashlee Cunsolo,Andrew Papadopoulos,Sherilee L Harper

doi:10.3390/ijerph182111266

Abstract

Mining in Inuit Nunangat relies on a southern Canada fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) and local workforce. The FIFO workforce, combined with existing social determinants of health, can create health risks to Inuit Nunangat. These risks were increased with COVID-19. As newspaper reporting can shape public opinion and policy actions regarding these COVID-19 risks, we systematically searched databases to identify newspaper articles during the initial phase of COVID-19 (i.e., articles published from 1 January to 30 June 2020). Descriptive statistics and qualitative thematic analysis were used to analyze the nature, range, and extent of included articles. Most included articles were published by Inuit Nunangat-based newspapers. Half the sources quoted were mining companies and most reported reactions to their initial response were negative. The most frequent topic was concern that an infected FIFO employee could transmit COVID-19 to a worksite and subsequently infect Inuit employees and communities. Inuit Nunangat-based newspapers were crucial in shaping the narrative of the initial response. National newspapers mainly focused on the takeover of TMAC™ during the pandemic, while Inuit Nunangat-based newspapers provided timely and locally-relevant pandemic information. Without Inuit Nunangat-based newspapers, the reporting would be from national and southern newspapers, which was less in-depth, less frequent, and less relevant to Inuit.

Highlights

While this paper focuses on the media’s reporting of the mining industry’s initial response to COVID-19 in Inuit Nunangat, this study can be applicable to future research of understanding the media’s reporting of other crises in Inuit Nunangat [27] and how the Government or Industry proponent response was covered by the media
This review suggests InuitNunangat-based newspaper coverage was instrumental in shaping the narrative of the mining industry’s initial response to COVID-19
This finding is consistent with another newspaper study focusing on northern Canada which found that when reviewing general issues impacting the North, local media such as Northern News Services Limited (NNSL) and Nunatsiaq News provided the majority of relevant articles when national and southern Canadian regional newspapers were included in the search [27]

Summary

Introduction

Indigenous Peoples have been the natural stewards of their traditional lands since time immemorial, relying on the lands and waters for sustenance, livelihoods, cultural connections, ceremony, and wellbeing [1]. Since the advent of the ‘Age of Exploration’ [2], and processes of global colonization, Indigenous lands and waters have been the site of often-forced large-scale resource development and extraction projects, including oil and gas development [3], hydroelectric projects [4], deforestation [5], industrial development [4], and mining [5]. Extractive industries globally, such as mining, have been recognized as the “greatest threat” to Indigenous Peoples, as their traditional lands are often confiscated, leading to impacts on Indigenous cultures, health, food sovereignty and languages [1]. In many cases, mining operations rely heavily on fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) workers, leading to an influx of people from diverse backgrounds and geographies entering into Indigenous lands, and often having contact with the local workforce and populations [6]

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