Thursday, April 18, 2002

Native American Journalists Association announces move to South Dakota

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) has announced it will relocate its national headquarters to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion next year.

The Freedom Forum, which will open a newly renovated Al Neuharth Media Center on the university campus in mid-2003, and the university have invited NAJA to share office space.

NAJA sees the move as an opportunity to further its mission of increasing the number of Native Americans in journalism, said Mary Annette Pember, NAJA president.

"The Freedom Forum is committed to reaching out to Native Americans with programs such as its annual American Indian Journalism Institute, which gives Natives a chance to experience journalism," Pember said. "We share the same mission with our student news internship projects and our scholarship program."

Pember said the move will strengthen NAJA's commitment to journalism education, the promotion of more Native journalists into mainstream newspapers and the support of tribal press.

"NAJA and the Freedom Forum have a shared goal of attracting and retaining more Native Americans in journalism," said Jack Marsh, Neuharth Center director. "We welcome NAJA's move to South Dakota and see it as the start of an important new partnership."

The Al Neuharth Media Center, a $4 million project funded by the Freedom Forum and the University of South Dakota (USD) Foundation, is scheduled for completion by April 2003. The center is named for Al Neuharth, a 1950 USD grad who led Gannett Co., Inc., and founded USA TODAY and the Freedom Forum.

In addition to NAJA and Freedom Forum offices, the Al Neuharth Media Center will house a conference center, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, the USD Department of Contemporary Media and Journalism and all USD student media, including the Volante student newspaper.

NAJA was formed in 1984 at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The organization has been headquartered in Minneapolis since 1990.