Flawed reporting on Desert Rock

Leaders Disguise a Deep Tribal Dispute

Since when did journalists rely on official press releases for news? Coverage of a recent ban on environmental groups in Navajo Country misses what's happened and what's happening.

By Mary Annette PemberPresident Shirley, already angry with environmentalists for opposing the $2.5 billion Desert Rock Energy Project on the Navajo Reservation, has made news when he threw his support behind the Hopi Council’s efforts to ban environmentalists from their reservation.

For American Indian journalists, however, the real story of this particular event is the revelation of mainstream journalists lack of experience in covering Indian Country.

“Can you imagine journalists simply reporting verbatim a press release from President Obama without doing some sort of background on the information presented in the document?” asks Marley Shebala, Navajo and Zuni reporter for the Navajo Times.

Shebala says that the mainstream press too often resorts to this kind of superficial reporting in handling stories from Indian Country. Journalists forget that tribal politicians, while Navajo or Hopi, or whatever, are still politicians trying to put their motivations, projects and government leadership in the best possible light.

“There is a big difference between elected leadership and traditional leadership in Indian Country; reporters need to know this and dig deeper into the community when reporting on political issues,” Shebala points out. Journalists would never assume that the mayor of a city or governor of a state speaks for the entire population. Journalists should use that same level of skepticism when covering tribes, she says.Comment:  Good point that we shouldn't assume a government speaks for its people. I know the Bush government didn't speak for me.

On the other hand, we shouldn't assume the opposite: that a government is bought and paid for by corporate interests. That a tribal council is corrupt because it wants to provide economic opportunities for its people.

We also shouldn't assume that a few activists speak for the tribe's people. Unless someone polls the tribe's members, it's difficult to be sure who's speaking for them.

For more on this conflict, see Hopi and Navajo vs. Tribal Councils, Navajo vs. Environmentalists, and Hopi vs. Environmentalists. For more on the subject, in general, see Native Journalism:  To Tell the Truth.

Below:  A scary gash in the earth. "Peabody Coal's Kayenta Mine sends coal via conveyor belt and rail to the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona." (Doc Searls)