The fighting frame: did journalists help drive a group of monks out of Nova Scotia? [Nova Nada]

The monks of Nova Nada are hermits, who for a quarter of a century had been leading a spartan, contemplative existence in a retreat in southwestern Nova Scotia. In 1996, Irving began harvesting wood on land next to the monastery and the noise disrupted the monks' way of life. The monks asked for a 3.2-kilometre buffer zone around the monastery. Over the course of the dispute, Irving twice offered a compromise. The monks maintained throughout that the 3.2-kilometre zone was the least they could live with. As is often the case in news reporting, journalists relied on human interest to tell the story of this dispute. Readers, viewers and listeners got to know Mother Tessa Bielecki, the key spokesperson for the monks for much of the year. Each news story examined included at least two and often three or more quotations from Nova Nada players. Irving spokeswoman [Mary Keith] was a regular but inconsistent presence in the news, she was relegated to a less significant role, and frequently she was paraphrased. The result is that news coverage wasn't much about "what happened;" it was more about "what people said." As is often the case, particularly with stories about conflict, the language both reporters and official sources used throughout this dispute contributed to the overall tenor of the story. It is understandably tempting to describe the disagreement so that one side is "pitted" against the other. And the journalists covering this story could not resist the temptation. They spoke of the David-vs-Goliath scenario, in which the monks were "fighting for their survival" in a "struggle for silence." The were frequent references to the "logjam" or the "battleground." Until the final round of stories, when the monks held a news conference to announce they were leaving Nova Nada, if journalists travelled at all to cover the story, they went to the monastery, not to the Irving sawmill. Because journalists were so comfortable with the A-vs-B approach to their news reporting, an exploration of the root causes of this dispute, and its wider dimensions, did not occur. In none of the news stories we surveyed did journalists address issues such as the relationship between the Nova Nada monks and the previous owner of the forested land; the degree to which Irving's offers of compromise might be somewhat affected by concerns over precedent; the relative value of the trees in the disputed territory; the growing concerns of the pace of clear-cutting in Nova Scotia forests; th