Diversity Diaries: David Ledford
By David Ledford
Executive Editor
The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.
09.28.04
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| David Ledford
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I want to start my story in the Pacific Northwest, where as a young reporter for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane I covered a group of neo-Nazis called The Order, who wanted to create a separate homeland for whites in northern Idaho.
There were days — the armored-car robberies, the shootings of police officers, the public cross burnings — that the adrenaline began pumping.
Big stories. Yet I grew weary of this paranoid bigotry.
And fortunately for me, I had editors smart enough, courageous enough, to tell those stories of hatred while at once celebrating the richness of diversity in the region — often on the same page.
I later took my first editing job in Idaho, moved on to New Jersey, then spent almost eight years as managing editor of The Salt Lake Tribune before taking my first top editor's job at the Argus Leader on the prairie of South Dakota, where my moment of inspiration slammed into me like a bull buffalo.
A white guy was dragged behind a car by two Native Americans and we, like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, jumped on the story.
Native American leaders were enraged. Sure this was a heinous crime. But why didn't we cover heinous crimes committed by whites when Indians were the victims?
They insisted that there was a double standard of justice in South Dakota — one for whites, one for Indians — and they challenged the Argus Leader to find the truth, be part of the solution.
We dug in.
Our reporting brought the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to the state, and its members scolded South Dakota law-enforcement officials for unfair treatment of Native Americans.
During this time the annual Native American Newspaper Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial was born. Then came the American Indian Journalism Institute at the University of South Dakota, both of which have helped produce journalists.
It's great to make a difference. Yet, for me, there was so much more to learn.
My colleague Marty Two Bulls of the Argus Leader helped me understand the sacred ceremony of the Sundance. I was privileged to meet and know his family, to ride horses with his father on the family farm in the Black Hills.
Jim Abourezk, a former U.S. senator of Lebanese descent, not only took me to the Middle East to meet the presidents of Lebanon and Syria, but also introduced me to his family and friends in Damascus and Aleppo — and, most importantly, in Sioux Falls.
I tell you this because in many ways I learned more from breaking bread with the Two Bulls and the Abourezks than I did in guiding the reporting on people of their ethnicity, people struggling with crime and poverty, or never-ceasing violence.
Better yet, my family also benefited from these and other lessons. Today my three teen-age sons understand that life — like the news products we produce — is richer and more relevant with a diverse menu. My message is: Make a new friend. Learn a new culture. It will make you a better journalist.