Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Press Coverage of American Indians

From 1970 to 1973, I served two stints in the Washington, D.C. —the Oz of print reporting; one as editor of the Legislative Review, a publication reporting on national legislation affecting American Indians, and the other as executive director of the American Indian Press Association a copy service to Indian newspapers and other print publications nationwide.
The first noticeable trouble began when Senate and House press tables were filled with “mainstream” press people who sometimes politely, sometimes not, advised our reporters that the tables were reserved for the press. After a while, it became routine to flash our press cards and a disdainful look at the hacks at the table. They would rather be covering the White House, and we were rubbing that in with our presence. There were, after all, no Indians in the White House press corps in the early 1970s.
If daring to share a press table with our betters was not insult enough to them, they were forced from time to time to call us up and ask background questions to get them into some story on Indians that was just too big to keep out of the paper or media.
It is now twenty years since the “occupation” of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. But shortly after February 27, 1973 when Federal military forces were called to the closest thing to a war inside the U.S. borders, the telephones at the press association and my publication began ringing off their hooks. All of the national newspapers, dozens of locals, all of the networks and many news services and local stations called. It was jokingly estimated that the staff spent more time answering the questions of the “majority” press during the early days of the siege than doing the work of turning out the news.
Careful not to become newsmakers, the staff worked hard to educate the laughably ignorant press and media, while directing them to sources for quotes. It was the most clear and compelling argument the staff had ever experienced -- the white press had not a clue about American Indians-- and up to that point had neither an interest nor any experience in reporting on the one segment of the population that has a legal, historical, treaty-based relationship with the United States government.
Even journalists of color had the impression that because Indians are U.S. citizens--conferred by the U.S. without being asked in 1924--we were just another minority. That made Wounded Knee doubly hard for them to understand. Some even said, “you guys lost the war; what’s the beef, now?”
Least of all could they understand why some Indians would not want to be U.S. citizens.

Twenty years later, is anything different? Yes and no. Since the 1974 report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing on the Set, which found virtually no Indians working in the mainstream media, there has been progress. But some problems remain. Because Indians lack the numbers of other people of color, statistical information is more difficult to come by. Stories on people of color tend to discuss blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Political figures seldom mention Indians. Other people of color seldom mention Indians. The appearance of invisibility is an issue.
On the other hand, most people in the country have heard of Indian casinos. And the press is paying more attention. It used to be common to look for Minneapolis Indian stories next to the obituaries. It was a joke in the Indian community. “Our section” was op the obits. Now, casinos have forced newspapers to cover Indian related stories in the more respectable business sections and, occasionally, the front of the newspaper
But with casino clout has come journalistic and societal “high sticking,” to borrow a hockey term. Everyone from Minnesota legislator Charlie Berg, to foundation staff, to reporters for City Business and City Pages think they can hard ball Indian questions without race-checking themselves, in the name of tough but honest coverage.
The questions always come down to, “why don’t the casinos fund the Indian programs?” The variations are, “why don’t they fund them more?” And, “don’t you think the casinos should fund the Indian programs?”
Because casinos are Indian owned, and more significantly, owned by sovereign tribal governments, other questions vary from, “why won’t they reveal their profits?” to “is this wealth increasing Indian alcoholism?”
Some might say this is just part of what comes with success and the spotlight. But as little children from the Prairie Island reservation have experienced, they are no longer called “dirty little Indians” in the school yards. They are now taunted as “dirty little rich Indians.”
To the credit of the press, there is not nearly the level of malevolence such as Senator Charlie Berg exhibits, nor the outright racism of the trunk-stuffing Minneapolis cops who tucked two intoxicated Indians in the far back of their police car before driving them around, eventually getting them help. But ignorance and misunderstanding still prevail. The days are probably over when the news director at Minnesota Public Radio would slough off a proposed Indian story on the basis that it did not affect many people. But the dual negative image of Indians as the lurching drunk or the money grubbing entrepreneur prevails in a press that plays to the suburban peanut gallery.
Numbers will never be the coverage attention-getter for the Indian population. The Indian strategy has always been to produce a home grown press. There is a thriving radio station affiliate group around the country. However, coverage in the majority press and media is still vitally important. The danger, many feel, is more that of press silence and inattention than of blithering sensationalism. Except for casinos and Indian fishing rights, the stories come few and far between. But when they do come, they should be from an educated press.

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