News Media and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Journalism for Reconciliation and Justice

This research article examines news reporting on the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Canada. First, the UNDRIP legislation is introduced and briefly situated in relation to a wider legacy of news discourses about Indigenous peoples and reconciliation in Canadian journalism. My next step is to develop analysis of salient news discourses and journalistic practices that characterize the limited reporting on UNDRIP that occurred over a two-year period after the Royal Assent of Bill C-15 in 2021. Drawing on examples of journalistic practices in this UNDRIP news sample, I conclude by arguing that robust, situated and relational approaches to Indigenous journalism can support the advancement of reconciliation and ongoing struggles to decolonize Canada’s dominant legal frameworks.