ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: May 2008

Sealing protest & media response

 

Conventional activist wisdom is that confrontation attracts publicity, which builds opposition to a grievance. An ANIMAL PEOPLE analysis of Atlantic Canadian seal hunt coverage, however, shows a low yield from ongoing efforts to confront and document the activities of sealers on the ice, the chief protest tactic since the 1970s.

The New York Times during the first two weeks of the 2008 sealing season published just one brief article about it, and since 1981 has published an average of just 1.4 articles per year about the hunt. The New York Times total of 39 articles about Atlantic Canadian seal hunting and related protest contrasts with 312 articles about Japanese research whaling published in the same years.

The 2,064 U.S. newspapers, plus five from Canada, whose archives are searchable at NewsLibrary.com have published an average of just 0.7 articles per year about Atlantic Canadian sealing, half as much as the New York Times. Coverage in 2008, however, rose to the New York Times average. Japanese research whaling has received more than four times as much coverage.

Searches of Canada.com, including the archives of 14 Canadian daily newspapers and 10 TV channels, but for 2008 only, indicate that Canadian news media produced an average of 2.5 items apiece about the seal hunt, from January 1 through the first two weeks of the 2008 sealing season. Japanese research whaling had received only one item per newspaper or channel.

Of the 1,546 total items of seal hunt coverage that ANIMAL PEOPLE found, 22% mentioned Greenpeace, not even involved in anti-seal hunt protest in the past 25 years. Ten percent mentioned Brigitte Bardot. Prominent in seal hunt protest before the offshore hunt was suspended in 1984-1995, Bardot has returned to Canada just
once since the offshore hunt resumed.

Nine percent of seal hunt coverage mentioned the International Fund for Animal Welfare; 7% mentioned Rebecca Aldworth, who initially represented IFAW and now represents the Humane Society of the U.S.; 6% mentioned the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society; 5% mentioned Paul Watson; and 2% mentioned IFAW founder Brian Davies.

No other opponent of sealing was mentioned in even 1% of the coverage.