“Native American Print and Electronic Media,” in Guy T. Meiss and Alice Tait, Ethnic Media in America: Building a System of Their Own. In press (2004)  Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

By Way of Context

     In the United States today, more than 550 federally recognized tribes live on 100 million acres. According to the 2000 U. S Census reports, about 60% of the 2.5 million Native Americans live in non-reservation communities.  If the number of persons exercising the option of stating mixed ethnicity is used, the total claiming Native-American descent is 4.1 million (Goodwin, 2001). The second largest group lives on reservations in 33 states, or in more than 225 federally recognized Alaska-Native tribes and villages. In addition, the census counted 874,000 Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, about half living in Hawaii and California. In Native communities, large and small, rural and reservation or urban and somewhat assimilated, communication media have long been important. Since 1828, when the first newspaper produced by America’s indigenous people appeared in New Echota, Georgia, tribal peoples have used the mass media to inform and advocate for their communities

     This chapter examines the work of the print and electronic media in Indian Country and describes major highpoints and challenges in their history and current operations, looking in some detail at selected media and their leaders.  By way of clarification, the terms “Indian,” “American Indian” and “Native American” will be used interchangeably, since different uses are preferred among the media people themselves, and since different terms have been favored across the 175 years of Native-American press history (Rolo, 2000). The term “First Nations” is also sometimes used, although this usage is more often found in Canada. The term “Indian Country” refers to “land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government,” according to the 18 USC 1151 definition. Some current newspapers have very recent origins. Others, like the Cherokee Phoenix, publishing today in Oklahoma, trace their origins to pre-Civil War years. Regardless of their histories, they do the work of building community, championing Native-American rights, correcting mistakes and misinterpretations by mainstream media and preserving important traditions.

Journalism Education: Whence and Whereto - a Reprise, in A Heretic in American Journalism Education and Research: Malcolm S. MacLean, Jr., Revisited. Stephenson Research Center, University of Missouri, 2001

The news and information media in the United States are key elementsin the democratic life and well being of the country. Advances in technology and in the uses of technology for the gathering and dissemination of news, entertainment and opinion should be putting those media within reach of all Americans.

At the same time, there is challenge, to traditional journalists and media managers, to accept, embrace, develop and adapt to those new technologies and new media. With the new come opportunities: we can indeed become a world community, a global village. The education and preparation of the new generation of journalists is vitally important in that process. This chapter addresses key questions in journalism and mass communication education.