“Reconciliation is Dead”: News Coverage of the Wet'suwet'en Land Defense

This chapter analyzes news coverage of the Wet’suwet’en land defense and solidary protests that unfolded in 2020. The case is an important litmus tests as to whether there has been a meaningful change in how news media cover Indigenous land-based activism hinging on the recognition of hard Indigenous rights. Compared to the study of the TMX presented in Chapter 5 , the Wet’suwet’en land defense allows for a consideration of whether hard rights framing differs based on whether those rights are claimed within or outside the formal structures of the state. Upon analyzing national news coverage from three Canadian newspapers, the analysis shows that the land defense was largely framed in a manner that elided or negatively portrayed the exercise of hard rights by Indigenous Peoples. While acknowledging the presence of counternarratives that unpacked the Indigenous rights issues at the center of the land defense, the analysis demonstrates that journalists and editorialists largely refrained from offering a deep historical contextualization of the Wet’suwet’en land defense.