We Are All on Native Land – Next City
We Are All on Native Land – Next City
We Are All on Native Land
With three news bureaus nationwide and a partnership with the Associated Press, Indian Country Today brings Native voices to mainstream media.
STORY BY
Valerie Vande PanneTwitter
PUBLISHED ON
Nov 11, 2019
Indian Country Today — a media outlet covering Indian Country that was on hiatus less than two years ago — has roared back to life, opening bureaus in Anchorage, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C., in addition to a partnership with the Associated Press.
Although Native Americans make up 2 percent of the total U.S. population, currently Native Americans working in mainstream media make up less than one-half of one percent of all newsroom employees. When Indian Country Today’s Anchorage bureau is fully staffed, Mark Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, editor of Indian Country Today, says their publication alone is likely to have met, if not exceed, that overall number.
Each of Indian Country Today’s three bureaus is in a city strategically located to cover key issues and developments in Indian Country. (Indian Country is the common and general reference for communities of Native Americans and all tribal governments in the United States.) The outlet lives in the digital realm and is cultivating a strong video and television presence via strategic PBS partnerships. It receives half a million unique visitors monthly; the majority of those visitors are between 24 and 35 years old.
Solid metrics aside, Indian Country Today is doing something with their AP partnership that, arguably, has not happened in the history of the United States — and throughout the colonial recorded history of the land’s occupation before the country was formed: It chronicles Native America, by Native Americans, for Native Americans, and amplifies those articles directly into the Western mainstream.
That Native American perspective has been absent from the contemporary Western mindset. For example, take a moment to Google Image search “American Indian.” The results indicate that many people in the United States believe Native Americans to be one homogenized group, whose members still live in the 19th century.
Twenty years into the 21st Century, the visibility versus invisibility of Native Americans is very much an issue. Casinos, gambling and mascots make up most of the damaging and dehumanizing impressions people see of Native Americans. Indian Country Today is now positioned to play an important role in bringing nuance, complexity and depth of understanding to issues and narratives that might otherwise remain unacknowledged, unexplored or absent from the national consciousness. Native Americans are everywhere — and everyone in the United States lives on Native land.
Mark Trahant interviews Montana Governor Steve Bullock, the first time a presidential candidate has visited a Native newsroom. (Photo Courtesy Indian Country Today)
The federal government recognizes 573 tribes in the United States. Still others are unrecognized, and yet their people still exist and remember where they came from.
We Are All on Native Land
With three news bureaus nationwide and a partnership with the Associated Press, Indian Country Today brings Native voices to mainstream media.
STORY BY
Valerie Vande PanneTwitter
PUBLISHED ON
Nov 11, 2019
Indian Country Today — a media outlet covering Indian Country that was on hiatus less than two years ago — has roared back to life, opening bureaus in Anchorage, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C., in addition to a partnership with the Associated Press.
Although Native Americans make up 2 percent of the total U.S. population, currently Native Americans working in mainstream media make up less than one-half of one percent of all newsroom employees. When Indian Country Today’s Anchorage bureau is fully staffed, Mark Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, editor of Indian Country Today, says their publication alone is likely to have met, if not exceed, that overall number.
Each of Indian Country Today’s three bureaus is in a city strategically located to cover key issues and developments in Indian Country. (Indian Country is the common and general reference for communities of Native Americans and all tribal governments in the United States.) The outlet lives in the digital realm and is cultivating a strong video and television presence via strategic PBS partnerships. It receives half a million unique visitors monthly; the majority of those visitors are between 24 and 35 years old.
Solid metrics aside, Indian Country Today is doing something with their AP partnership that, arguably, has not happened in the history of the United States — and throughout the colonial recorded history of the land’s occupation before the country was formed: It chronicles Native America, by Native Americans, for Native Americans, and amplifies those articles directly into the Western mainstream.
That Native American perspective has been absent from the contemporary Western mindset. For example, take a moment to Google Image search “American Indian.” The results indicate that many people in the United States believe Native Americans to be one homogenized group, whose members still live in the 19th century.
Twenty years into the 21st Century, the visibility versus invisibility of Native Americans is very much an issue. Casinos, gambling and mascots make up most of the damaging and dehumanizing impressions people see of Native Americans. Indian Country Today is now positioned to play an important role in bringing nuance, complexity and depth of understanding to issues and narratives that might otherwise remain unacknowledged, unexplored or absent from the national consciousness. Native Americans are everywhere — and everyone in the United States lives on Native land.
Mark Trahant interviews Montana Governor Steve Bullock, the first time a presidential candidate has visited a Native newsroom. (Photo Courtesy Indian Country Today)
The federal government recognizes 573 tribes in the United States. Still others are unrecognized, and yet their people still exist and remember where they came from.
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