Just out of curiosity, I did a quick survey of major media in Canada on Nov. 4, using the Southam database (which is a complete record of all Southam newspapers) and web sites for the CBC and Globe and Mail (which are not complete records). Here are my results:
CBC: no coverage of anything related to the Quito negotiations on the Web site. That would include radio and TV.
Globe and Mail: no coverage, at least on the Web site, in the past week. I don’t have InfoGlobe (database) access so there might have been coverage in the paper that didn’t get posted on the Web site.
Southam papers:
Ottawa Citizen - Story on negotiations in Quito as if no protests happened. [The Citizen and all Southam papers would have had access to a Gazette story, that ran page one in the Gazette, on the demo of 10,000 people in Montreal, which also mentions one in Ottawa. But the Citizen ran not one word about any of these, including the Montreal and Ottawa protests.
National Post - Three stories mention the Quito ministers’ negotiations, but not a word about student protests in Canada or outside the meetings in Ecuador.
Montreal Gazette - big story page A1, on Oct. 31 demo, including an advancer. But no mention of Quito. Nothing on the trade negotiations going on in Quito or local resistance to them in Ecuador, or in any other countries. Oct. 31 story did say that protests were also held in Sherbrooke, the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region and in Ottawa (of which there’s no mention in the Ottawa paper).
Vancouver Sun: There is a partial, buried story on a small demo there (which hints that there might have been more in Vancouver but doesn’t go to the other location mentioned) and it being part of “hemispheric” day of protests. But the story was focused on B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and his budget cuts, with the demo mentioned in the second half of a the story because there were about 60 anti-FTAA protesters outside Clark’s speech in downtown Vancouver. There was a photo of the demonstrators with the Campbell story, though, which gave them visibility even if they were in the second half of the story.
PEI and Ontario -- Charlottetown and some Ontario papers ran an AP-CP story (in other words, a combined story from two wire services, Associated Press and Canadian Press) highlighting resistance from South American leaders to the FTAA. The story led with the fact meetings took place “under tight security and threats of protests” on Nov. 1, but versions I saw didn’t say anything about the Oct. 31 protests (it might have been cut out of the stories). The protests were the night before, so it’s possible foreign reporters might not have been there yet. Actually, Canadian media did not send reporters, I couldn’t find one story in which a Canadian reporter had been there. Even the Canadian Press (wire service) story was written by an Ottawa-based repoter. All the Canadian media did was a conference call on the weekend with International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who was in Quito. This is sort of like covering a council meeting by calling ONE of the councillors who was there; it's a bad way to do journalism. Another PEI paper had a short advancer on students planning a Halloween protest with costumes against FTAA. It ran a few days ahead and was about four paragraphs long. The evidently didn’t cover whatever protest might have resulted.
The Orillia Packet and Times ran a photo and caption only, of the Thursday night protests: Entry in the database says: Photo: Dolores Ochoa, Associated Press / CLASHES PRECEDE MEETING: Ecuadorean police protect themselves from demonstrators throwing stones during a protest against the upcoming meeting of the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA), in Quito, Thursday. The FTAA, scheduled to take effect in 2005, is a hemisphere-wide trade zone that would group some 34 nations into the world's biggest common market. The Cornwall Standard-Freeholder ran a similar photo, again without a full story.
The West: Several Southam papers ran a Monday story featuring a teleconference call with Pierre Pettigrew reporting on the talks, with no mention of demonstrators in Quito or Canada, but some discussion of South American countries unhappy with the FTAA. These stories focused on four countries who are negotiating bilateral trade deals with Canada, because they don’t expect to benefit from the FTAA.
The Calgary Herald mentioned the Quito demonstrations, but said they were on Wednesday (it was Thursday) in Quito by indigenous people. This was a couple of paragraphs in a weekend Observer piece on South American unrest and dissatisfaction with the pace of economic progress. It did not focus on the FTAA or the Quito talks per se.
The Regina Leader-Post did run on Saturday, the Associated Press (wire service) story that led with tight security and threats of protests at the Friday talks, that ran in several eastern papers.
Edmonton Journal ran a photo and caption only, about the protests, the following day.
The Kamloops BC paper was the only BC paper to run a story mentioning the Quito talks. It’s a Canadian Press story from Ottawa by Louise Elliott, and it doesn’t mention protests
Thus, the Vancouver story that talks about protesters in second half of a story focused on BC Premier Gordon Campbell, is the only story mentioning protests about the FTAA in any BC paper, during the past week.
That's my very quick summary. I didn't have time for more but I was really curious, and I plan to use this in a paper I'm writing for a course.
Regards,
Carrie Buchanan
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.