By Kelly Skjerven
Tina Fontaine. (Image from NOW magazine)
On Jan. 31, 2018, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs penned a letter to the editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail.
In the letter, Grand Chief Arlen Dumas expressed his disappointment over a headline in a recent story regarding Tina Fontaine, a 15-year-old Anicinabe girl from Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. She was found murdered in 2014. On Feb. 22, 2018, Raymond Cormier was found not guilty in her death.
The headline The Globe and Mail used on Jan. 30th, 2018 read, “Tina Fontaine had drugs, alcohol in system when she was killed: toxicologist.”
Dumas calls this choice of headline “victim-blaming,” and “yet another negative stereotype of First Nations citizens.”
As a young journalist, I was also disappointed when I read this letter and later found two other major news outlets that chose to use a similar headline and lede in their story. For those who don’t know, a lede is the first paragraph or few lines in an article that essentially explain the most interesting information of a story.
Or what the reporter and editor believe is the most interesting part of the story.
In this case, the reporters thought that the victims possible intoxication when she was murdered should be the most important.
Whether it was intentional or not, I agree that this is a classic case of victim-blaming.
This letter should serve as a guide to all news outlets to treat all victims with respect. It’s our job to tell the right story and report the facts in a respectful manner.
An important concept to take into consideration as journalists and human beings for that matter is the idea of implicit bias. Implicit bias being the attitudes and stereotypes that unconsciously affect our choices, understanding, and actions.
In this case, we must question why the writer and editor thought that intoxication of a young First Nations women was the most important part of the story. This is not just about respect to victims in general, but about re-evaluating our ideas and implicit bias about marginalized communities.
Dumas finishes his letter with a very powerful statement.
“I would strongly encourage The Globe and Mail to think twice about the headlines your editors write and consider the reconciliation conversation going on in Canada. It is the media that sets the non-Indigenous public opinion and while the media is still writing victim-blaming headlines and putting Tina Fontaine on trial instead of her alleged killer Raymond Cormier, we as First Nations will always be seen as lesser than.”
I would argue that a headline such as this is insinuating that Fontaine did something wrong, and that she is the one on trial. She’s not on trial. Raymond Cormier is. Fontaine should be honoured and stories should focus their attention on the life she lived, and the injustice of her murder as well as thousands of other missing and murdered women, girls, and two-spirit people.
Huffington Post reports that The Globe and Mail changed the headline later on. It now reads “Expert tells Winnipeg murder trial he could not determine cause of Tina Fontaine’s death.” I can only hope that it was the impact of Dumas’ letter that led the editors and Globe and Mail to realize how problematic the previous headline was.
As a journalism student I’ve learned that words and language have more power than we think they do. The language we choose to use can have a ripple effect on communities and the way the public perceives them. By using headlines and centering stories around a victims possible intoxication, we are only further perpetuating the negative stereotype surrounding indigenous communities and substance abuse.
Most importantly we need to recognize our implicit bias, and we need to acknowledge that it exists whether we’d like to admit it or not. It’s ingrained through negative stereotypes about communities that we have been around for decades, and it’s time we fight back against our own complacency.