Brenda Norrell censored?

Brenda Norrell is a non-Native journalist who's been writing left-leaning articles about Natives for decades. I've met her before and she's obviously passionate about her cause.

But in September 2006, she was terminated from her position at Indian Country Today. You can read the whole story in her blog, but here are the key paragraphs:

Censored in the USA:  Hush wordsIn Indian country news, there are also hush words, words to be used sparingly, if at all. For editors, those words include two names "Russell Means" and "Leonard Peltier." Also, in Indian country, reporters know it is unlikely that editors will publish any serious criticism of the war in Iraq or the Bush administration. Reporters also know it is unlikely that their articles will be published if they point out how the elected American Indian tribal councils sell out their people and their land, air and water for energy royalties and energy leases. At the same time, those councilmen and tribal chairmen give voice to the need to protect sacred Mother Earth.And:At ICT, I was terminated after one of my articles was rewritten, turning the exposure of Donald Rumsfeld profiteering from the bird flu's Tamiflu into a near advertisement for the product. Also before I was terminated, I was instructed to never write about, or even investigate, the fact that the Navajo commercial farm, Navajo Agricultural Products Industries, has a Raytheon Missile factory on the same land where it grows potatoes, corn and other commercial crops. The Navajo Nation owned NAPI also boasts that it uses genetically-modified seeds; seeds leading to widespread misery for the world's Indigenous Peoples.

I was also told I could not publish a news probe into whether Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell was actually Portuguese or Northern Cheyenne.Comment:  Norrell notes that she was fired without a reason. She does give one example of a paragraph in a Longest Walk article that another newspaper "censored." Here it is before:It was in Greensburg, Kansas, that another dimension of the west opened up, the force of a tornado to rip out a town. The debris was still piled high nearly one year after the tornado of May 4, 2007. I could only think of the billions of dollars going to rebuild Iraq, after the US bombed it; the billions going to the corporate friends of the Bush family. Still, there was hope and abundant love in this town as the people were rebuilding green, focused on solar and wind power and sustainable gardening.And after:It was in Greensburg, Kan., that another dimension of the West opened up to the group--the force of a tornado to rip apart a town. Debris was still piled high nearly one year after the tornado struck on May 4, 2007. Still, there was hope and abundant love in this town as the people were rebuilding “green,” focusing on solar and wind power.Even though the article was a personal essay, I could see deleting the Bush remarks. They were kind of out of place. The article was supposed to be an overview of the Longest Walk, not a critique of Bush. If it had been an analysis of how we're underfunding necessary Indian services or our national parks and forests, then the Bush-bashing would've been appropriate.

It's possible to imagine why Norrell got fired. Her articles are a little "out there" for a mainstream publication. What does Rumsfeld profiteering from Tamiflu have to do with Native issues, for instance?

Still, she keeps fighting the good fight in various publications and on her blog. And we post her articles on PECHANGA.net to give them wider exposure. You go, Brenda!

For more on the subject, see Native Journalism:  To Tell the Truth.