I have recently completed a research project that examined the media coverage of the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff in British Columbia. This standoff marked the largest Royal Canadain Mounted Police (RCMP) operation in the history of Canada—and the top national news story for nearly a month. The resolution of the conflict did not alter the British Columbia treaty process, or result in changes of ownership of contested land. However, the media coverage was extreme in its misinformation about the conflict and the characterizations of the people involved. In order to make policy recommendations I had to get "insider knowledge" of the media event. I did this by tracing the media processes and their relations with their most important source of information during the event, the RCMP.
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Spring 2001
