Abstract
Coauthors Candis Callison and Mary Lynn Young are associate professors at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism and former journalists. Callison’s academic background lies in anthropology and her scholarly interests include developments in media practices and platforms, journalism ethics, the role of social movements in public discourse, as well as related issues in science and technology. Young’s background falls within journalism studies and her research focuses on gender and the media, representations of crime, data and computational journalism, and newsroom sociology.
In this, their recent book, Reckoning: Journalism’s Limits and Possibilities, Callison and Young draw on their respective fields of expertise to offer a critical appraisal of multiple journalisms by exploring issues of power and social justice. This involves questioning dominant crisis narratives with respect to media industry failure in North America and investigating a racialized, gendered media landscape. Although the coauthors refer to various ethnic minorities throughout this book, their main interest clearly lies with Indigenous peoples from an intersectional perspective, both in terms of media portrayal and audiences. More specifically, Callison and Young focus on representations of and by Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, drawing on ethnography as a form of inquiry and employing semi-structured interviews, content analysis, and social media analytics. By adopting an intersectional approach and integrating feminist and post-settler-colonial critique, Callison and Young seek to challenge deeply entrenched settler-colonialism within the norms of legacy media.
This book is divided into six chapters. The progression of arguments is not immediately clear from the chapter headings. Chapter 1, “Reckoning with the ‘View from Nowhere’,” describes the conceptual and interdisciplinary frameworks that underpin the book as a whole. In particular, Callison and Young take issue with the notion of objectivity in North American journalism practice. They argue that this “view from nowhere” serves as a flawed facade behind which journalists are able to ignore a racialized and gendered media landscape that erases and misrepresents Indigenous peoples. Chapter 2, “Battling for the Story,” focuses on social media responses to the inherent failings of legacy media that contribute to a reckoning for mainstream journalism by changing its relationship with audiences and by factoring in gender, race, and colonialism. To this end, the coauthors analyze three recent cases of Twitter hashtag conversations that have facilitated story-telling concerning murdered Indigenous youth, gender discrimination, and sexual abuse. They maintain that these instances empower hitherto unheard voices to articulate social justice themes that, in turn, shed light on larger systemic failures of journalism performance. Chapter 3, “‘Speculative’ Memoir Fragments and Existential Dilemmas,” moves on to the personal reckoning experienced by journalists who are questioning their own professional identity and perceived authority through narrative modes such as speculative memoir, quit lit, and stand-point journalism. Callison and Young examine such narratives in the context of digital journalism organizations and conclude that their moral dilemmas regarding subjectivity, truth-telling, and social justice are still being framed at an individual level rather than a systemic level.
Chapter 4, “Dominant Crisis Narratives and Changing,” focuses on reckonings in the case of the Canadian legacy media organization, The Toronto Star, more specifically on its attempts to deal with and overcome intersecting economic, structural, and technological crises. Callison and Young find that systemic inequities and the “view from nowhere” hinder progress in its development of multiple journalisms, as indicated in part by the exclusion of Indigenous and other minority journalists from key media policy debates. Chapter 5, “Startup Life,” examines a technologically innovative and women-led journalism startup based in Canada, The Discourse, which is presented as an alternative to legacy media and committed to repair in the context of settler-colonialism. Callison and Young highlight the startup’s collaborative and community orientated approaches, as well as its ability to recognize the subjectivity and locatedness of journalistic professional identity and performance. They raise the question of whether this emerging model may constitute a replicable business model for local journalism elsewhere. Chapter 6, “Indigenous Journalisms,” draws on the work of Indigenous journalists in Canada and the United States who are countering media misrepresentation and erasure by redefining relational frameworks, navigating institutions with a history of settler colonialism, and locating their own journalistic identity and performance.
Throughout this book, Callison and Young do not hesitate to grapple with complex issues that have no single solution, including ethics in journalism practice, the real and/or perceived impact of story-telling on audiences, and the nature and authority of professional journalism. Yet despite repeated references to historic injustices with respect to Indigenous peoples and power relations, the coauthors give surprisingly little deep context. Explanations are often relegated to end-notes and no relevant maps or timelines are provided. The coauthors appear to assume that readers are already familiar with media systems in Canada and the United States, as well as the history and location of Indigenous peoples. Differences and similarities are only fleetingly explored, despite the light that more detailed explanations would shine on this discussion of journalism’s limits and possibilities. Allusions are made to the impact of increasingly global media systems and audiences, along with what is vaguely described as the European context, but no detailed comparative analyses are provided.
Callison and Young make a vigorous argument for proportional representation in North American media structures, improved education and training of Indigenous journalists, as well as experimentation and support of multiple journalisms. However, their proposals would benefit from being situated in broader debates concerning identity politics, employment equity, and affirmative action. Despite these issues and concerns, this book is a welcome contribution to debates among academics and practitioners in the field of Indigenous journalism culture.