Native American students get taste of journalism

Cheryl Arvidson
The Freedom Forum Online

04.28.00

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	At left, advisers Doris Giago, South Dakota State University; Matt Kelley, Associated Press; and Cedric Bryant, Gannett Co.; teach students during conference.

CUSTER, S.D. — In the shadow of a massive mountain carving-in-progress of the Indian warrior Crazy Horse, 80 Native American high school and college students gathered here yesterday and today to get a taste of the life of a journalist — in hopes that they'll be encouraged to consider careers as newspaper reporters.

The first-ever Native American Newspaper Career Conference, a joint venture of several professional organizations and The Freedom Forum Neuharth Center, offered many of the young people their first exposure to journalism. By the end of the day-and-a-half-long conference, the novice reporters and photographers, most of whom live on reservations in western South Dakota, will have produced a special publication for the Internet, consisting of their own stories and pictures.

Their crash course in journalism was an initiative spawned by the serious lack of Native Americans in the nation's newsrooms. Fewer than 200 Native Americans work for daily or weekly newspapers. That is less than 1% of the total employment, making Native Americans the least-represented minority in newspaper newsrooms.

Arnold Garson, publisher of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and one of the conference planners, said the reason many Native Americans do not pursue newspaper careers is that they grow up on reservations and have very little contact with journalism of any sort.

To overcome that lack of familiarity, conference planners assembled a high-powered "faculty" of reporters, editors, academics and photographers to give the students an overview of life as a journalist, from how they got started in the business to how a newsperson can make a difference.

The faculty members, including a number of Native American journalists, also worked with the students as mentors to teach them the basics of interviewing, story writing and news photography, and to help with the stories and photographs that will appear in the conference publication, the Native Journal.

	Students Sammie Bordeaux, left, and Judi Buckley interview Seattle Times columnist Mark Trahant.

"My job at the Argus Leader is different every day, and that is probably what I love most about it," Val Hoeppner, assistant photo chief at the paper, told the students. "My day is never, ever the same. I can be sitting at home eating noodles one minute and be in a plane heading to the Payne Stewart plane crash the next."

"You have a voice," said Mark Trahant, a Native American journalist who is now a columnist for The Seattle Times. "Once you see how your voice shows up in print, it's really exciting."

"The power of one person … is significant," Trahant said. "One person can change a lot of things, and a good newspaper helps you get there."

Many of the faculty stressed that until more Native Americans and other people of color move into reporting and editing positions, newspapers will not present an accurate picture of their communities and their cultures.

Tim Giago, editor and publisher of the Lakota Nation Journal, said he founded his first Native American publication, Indian Country Today, because the mainstream media were offering only negative news about Native Americans. "The good things weren't making the news, only the bad things," he said.

Cedric Bryant, who handles college recruiting for the newspaper company Gannett Co. Inc., said it was that same lack of adequate coverage of African-Americans in his hometown of Ashville, N.C., that drew him to journalism.

"When I was growing up, I never saw anybody who looked like me in the paper," Bryant said, except for stories about crime or people in trouble. "The only way that you can reflect the community is to have people who relate to that community on your staff."

Matt Kelley, a Native American reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, said he enjoyed journalism because a reporter can "help people understand what's going on in the world around them," and he or she can also break down misperceptions with facts.

"We desperately need to have more people telling our own stories," Kelley said. "There aren't nearly enough Indian people in newspapers today."

"When you are an Indian reporter, you know things non-Indians don't know," said Doris Giago, a Native American who is a journalism professor at South Dakota State University. "Non-Indians, if they don't understand ... are going to be critical (or) be negative about it. You could teach them (about traditions and what they mean), and that could help race relations."

Jodi Rave, who covers Native American issues for the Lee Newspapers chain in the Midwest, said she viewed her role as one of helping to educate people. Dennis McAuliffe, a Native American and former foreign desk editor at The Washington Post, agreed.

"You will find you will probably be the only Native person in the newsroom," McAuliffe said, "but your mere presence is going to change the institution. In this little way, you can start very quickly making a difference."

In addition to an intensive series of discussions and training sessions, the students also took part in a news conference with Ruth Ziolkowski, chairman of the board of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, who is carrying on her late husband's dream of carving the huge tribute to Crazy Horse and all Indian people in a mountainside in the Black Hills outside Custer. Korczak Ziolkowski, a sculptor, began the project in 1948, and worked on it until his death in 1982, when his wife and work partner took over the project with the help of seven of the couple's 10 children.

Late in the day, the students hopped into pickup trucks and vans and were transported to the top of Crazy Horse Mountain for an up-close look at the sculpture, which when completed will be the largest mountain carving in the world. Already, the face of Crazy Horse, which took 50 years to complete, is a third again larger than each of the four presidential faces on nearby Mount Rushmore, and the entire Rushmore carving would fit on the side of Crazy Horse's head when the sculpture is complete.

The conference was co-sponsored by the South Dakota Newspaper Association, the Native American Journalists Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the South Dakota State University Journalism Department and The Freedom Forum Neuharth Center at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, the alma mater of Freedom Forum founder Allen H. Neuharth.

Neuharth, a South Dakota native, is scheduled to address the students at the conference's closing lunch today.

Conference planners said they hoped to make the Native American Newspaper Career Conference an annual event. "This is just a beginning," said Jack Marsh, head of the Neuharth Center.