News from Indian Country
Encyclopedia
News From Indian Country is a nationwide, privately owned newspaper
, published twice a month, founded by Paul DeMain in 1986, who is the managing editor and an owner. It is the oldest continuing, nationally distributed publication that is not owned by a tribal government. It offers national, cultural and regional sections, and "the most up-to-date pow-wow
directory in the United States and Canada," according to its website. The newspaper is offered both in print and electronic form and has subscribers throughout the United States, Canada and 17 foreign countries.
Due to the independence and persistence of DeMain and the paper in covering controversial topics in Indian Country since 2002, including investigations of the murders of Anna Mae Aquash
and others at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
from 1973-1975, he and the paper have been honored with major awards from the Native American Journalists Association
(NAJA) and the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism
from the University of Oregon
.
. He had worked as Indian Affairs Advisor for Wisconsin governor Tony Earl
, who used him as a liaison in his outreach with Native Americans.
DeMain had previously worked for the Lac Courte Oreille tribe as its public information officer from 1978 to 1982; he published the tribe's newspaper, then the LCO Journal. He is Managing Editor and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Country Communications. The newspaper has been published since 1987 by Indian Country Communications, Inc, (ICC) a state-of-Wisconsin registered stock corporation. As of 2007, seven Native Americans are registered as stock holders of the privately owned company. The offices of ICC are located on Highway K, near the tribe's business district, on the Lac Courte Oreilles
Ojibwe Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin
.
Nationwide attention to jurisdictional conflicts over tribal treaty rights
in Wisconsin
and Minnesota
helped the new publication spread its reach, while a rapidly spreading Indian gaming industry provided a source of advertising revenue in its earlier years. Owners have capitalized on emerging desk-top publishing and information management technology to keep up with an expanding market.
For 20 years Pat Calliotte, one of the founding members, was the Associate Editor, up until her death on November 17, 2006. Kimberlie R. Acosta
(aka Kimberlie R. Hall) has worked with the paper since 1991; she is the advertising director, and is best known for her photography of Native musicians throughout Indian Country over the past decade.
in South Dakota. These include American Indian Movement
activist Anna Mae Aquash
, whose maiden and legal name at the time of her death was Annie Mae Pictou, in December 1975; FBI Special Agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack Coler earlier in 1975; and Black civil rights
activist Perry Ray Robinson, who had disappeared during the Wounded Knee Incident
in 1973 and was believed to have been murdered by AIM activists.
The paper's coverage contributed to federal investigations and attracted controversy for its implication of AIM leadership in the murder of Aquash, the highest-ranking woman in AIM. In January 2003 the US government began a grand jury hearing in Rapid City on the murder of Aquash. Based on the information he had learned, in March 2003 DeMain wrote editorials in which he withdrew his previous support of clemency for Leonard Peltier. Soon after, a former AIM member, Ka-Mook Nichols, told DeMain that she had witnessed Peltier bragging about shooting the FBI agents. In March 2003 the US government indicted two men for the murder of Aquash.
DeMain and News From Indian Country were sued for libel by Peltier in May 2003. Some considered this an attempt to expose Nichols (whom DeMain had relied on in 2002 as one of three confidential sources of information) prior to her public testimony during the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud in 2004 for the murder of Aquash. Peltier dropped the lawsuit against News From Indian Country shortly after Looking Cloud's trial, with a settlement out of court.
Looking Cloud was tried and convicted in 2004. Witnesses in the trial testified to believing that AIM leaders had ordered the murder of Aquash because of fear that she was an FBI informer (she was interrogated at gunpoint) and would tell about having heard Peltier confess to the murders of Williams and Coler. John Graham was tried by the state of South Dakota in 2010 after extradition from Canada and convicted in 2010 of felony murder of Aquash. Indicted with Graham, Tracy Rios, a Lakota activist, made a plea bargain and pled guilty to charges as an accessory to the kidnapping of Aquash. A third man, Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall, bodyguard to AIM leader Russell Means
in 1975, was indicted in 2008 for aiding and abetting the murder by providing the murder weapon, but was acquitted in 2010.
News From Indian Country is the oldest nationally distributed Native publication which is independent and not owned by a tribal government. Columnists for NFIC range from Mohawk author Doug George-Kanentiio from Akwesasne
, New York to the award-winning Canadian writer Richard Wagamese, an Ojibwe now residing in Kamloops, British Columbia.
News From Indian Country has broken new ground online with IndianCountryTV, which began in 2008. IndianCountryTV brings the Native community to the world on a grassroots level, sharing interviews, news stories and music videos. IndianCountryTV is the creator of RezStyle, with host Kimberlie Acosta, and the Native News Update, with anchors Paul DeMain and Kimberlie R. Acosta.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
, published twice a month, founded by Paul DeMain in 1986, who is the managing editor and an owner. It is the oldest continuing, nationally distributed publication that is not owned by a tribal government. It offers national, cultural and regional sections, and "the most up-to-date pow-wow
Pow-wow
A pow-wow is a gathering of North America's Native people. The word derives from the Narragansett word powwaw, meaning "spiritual leader". A modern pow-wow is a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American...
directory in the United States and Canada," according to its website. The newspaper is offered both in print and electronic form and has subscribers throughout the United States, Canada and 17 foreign countries.
Due to the independence and persistence of DeMain and the paper in covering controversial topics in Indian Country since 2002, including investigations of the murders of Anna Mae Aquash
Anna Mae Aquash
Anna Mae Aquash was a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, Canada who became the highest-ranking woman in the American Indian Movement in the United States during the mid-1970s.Aquash...
and others at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
from 1973-1975, he and the paper have been honored with major awards from the Native American Journalists Association
Native American Journalists Association
The Native American Journalists Association, based in Norman, Oklahoma on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, is dedicated to supporting Native Americans in journalism, and focuses on improving communications among Native peoples, and between Native Americans and the general public...
(NAJA) and the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism
Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism
The Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism were created at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communications in 1999. In the words of the school's dean, Tim Gleason, the awards were created "to honor the journalist of integrity and character who reports with insight and clarity in...
from the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
.
Background
Paul DeMain (Ojibwe/Oneida) founded the newspaper in 1986 after returning to the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation (LCO) from Madison, WisconsinMadison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
. He had worked as Indian Affairs Advisor for Wisconsin governor Tony Earl
Tony Earl
Anthony Scully Earl is a United States politician and a member of the Democratic party and served as the 41st Governor of Wisconsin from 1983 until 1987. He graduated from Michigan State University and earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago...
, who used him as a liaison in his outreach with Native Americans.
DeMain had previously worked for the Lac Courte Oreille tribe as its public information officer from 1978 to 1982; he published the tribe's newspaper, then the LCO Journal. He is Managing Editor and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Country Communications. The newspaper has been published since 1987 by Indian Country Communications, Inc, (ICC) a state-of-Wisconsin registered stock corporation. As of 2007, seven Native Americans are registered as stock holders of the privately owned company. The offices of ICC are located on Highway K, near the tribe's business district, on the Lac Courte Oreilles
Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians
The Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe are one of seven federally recognized Wisconsin bands of Ojibwa. The band is based at the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation, at in northwestern Wisconsin, which surrounds Lac Courte Oreilles...
Ojibwe Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin
Hayward, Wisconsin
Hayward is a city in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, United States, next to the Namekagon River. The population was 2,129 at the 2000 census. The city is surrounded by the Town of Hayward.-Transportation:U.S...
.
Nationwide attention to jurisdictional conflicts over tribal treaty rights
Tribal sovereignty
Tribal sovereignty in the United States refers to the inherent authority of indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States of America. The federal government recognizes tribal nations as "domestic dependent nations" and has established a number of laws attempting to...
in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
helped the new publication spread its reach, while a rapidly spreading Indian gaming industry provided a source of advertising revenue in its earlier years. Owners have capitalized on emerging desk-top publishing and information management technology to keep up with an expanding market.
For 20 years Pat Calliotte, one of the founding members, was the Associate Editor, up until her death on November 17, 2006. Kimberlie R. Acosta
Kimberlie R. Acosta
Kimberlie R. Acosta is a well known photographer in Indian Country. She has the most comprehensive collection of Native Musician photography archives available from the past decade. She has taken pictures of the likes of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Loretta Lynn, Jana, Tina Turner, Joanne Shenandoah, and...
(aka Kimberlie R. Hall) has worked with the paper since 1991; she is the advertising director, and is best known for her photography of Native musicians throughout Indian Country over the past decade.
Independent journalism
Since 2002, News From Indian Country has broken stories related to the investigation of murders during the 1970s at the Oglala Sioux Tribe Pine Ridge Indian ReservationPine Ridge Indian Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
in South Dakota. These include American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
activist Anna Mae Aquash
Anna Mae Aquash
Anna Mae Aquash was a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, Canada who became the highest-ranking woman in the American Indian Movement in the United States during the mid-1970s.Aquash...
, whose maiden and legal name at the time of her death was Annie Mae Pictou, in December 1975; FBI Special Agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack Coler earlier in 1975; and Black civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist Perry Ray Robinson, who had disappeared during the Wounded Knee Incident
Wounded Knee Incident
The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...
in 1973 and was believed to have been murdered by AIM activists.
The paper's coverage contributed to federal investigations and attracted controversy for its implication of AIM leadership in the murder of Aquash, the highest-ranking woman in AIM. In January 2003 the US government began a grand jury hearing in Rapid City on the murder of Aquash. Based on the information he had learned, in March 2003 DeMain wrote editorials in which he withdrew his previous support of clemency for Leonard Peltier. Soon after, a former AIM member, Ka-Mook Nichols, told DeMain that she had witnessed Peltier bragging about shooting the FBI agents. In March 2003 the US government indicted two men for the murder of Aquash.
DeMain and News From Indian Country were sued for libel by Peltier in May 2003. Some considered this an attempt to expose Nichols (whom DeMain had relied on in 2002 as one of three confidential sources of information) prior to her public testimony during the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud in 2004 for the murder of Aquash. Peltier dropped the lawsuit against News From Indian Country shortly after Looking Cloud's trial, with a settlement out of court.
Looking Cloud was tried and convicted in 2004. Witnesses in the trial testified to believing that AIM leaders had ordered the murder of Aquash because of fear that she was an FBI informer (she was interrogated at gunpoint) and would tell about having heard Peltier confess to the murders of Williams and Coler. John Graham was tried by the state of South Dakota in 2010 after extradition from Canada and convicted in 2010 of felony murder of Aquash. Indicted with Graham, Tracy Rios, a Lakota activist, made a plea bargain and pled guilty to charges as an accessory to the kidnapping of Aquash. A third man, Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall, bodyguard to AIM leader Russell Means
Russell Means
Russell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
in 1975, was indicted in 2008 for aiding and abetting the murder by providing the murder weapon, but was acquitted in 2010.
News From Indian Country is the oldest nationally distributed Native publication which is independent and not owned by a tribal government. Columnists for NFIC range from Mohawk author Doug George-Kanentiio from Akwesasne
Akwesasne
The Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne is a Mohawk Nation territory that straddles the intersection of international and provincial borders on both banks of the Saint Lawrence River. Most of the land is in what is otherwise the United States...
, New York to the award-winning Canadian writer Richard Wagamese, an Ojibwe now residing in Kamloops, British Columbia.
News From Indian Country has broken new ground online with IndianCountryTV, which began in 2008. IndianCountryTV brings the Native community to the world on a grassroots level, sharing interviews, news stories and music videos. IndianCountryTV is the creator of RezStyle, with host Kimberlie Acosta, and the Native News Update, with anchors Paul DeMain and Kimberlie R. Acosta.
Honors
- 2002, Paul DeMain was given the Wassaja Award, for courage by journalists covering Indian country. It was awarded by the Native American Journalists AssociationNative American Journalists AssociationThe Native American Journalists Association, based in Norman, Oklahoma on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, is dedicated to supporting Native Americans in journalism, and focuses on improving communications among Native peoples, and between Native Americans and the general public...
Board of Directors for his reporting on imprisoned activist Leonard PeltierLeonard PeltierLeonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
and the murder of Pictou-Aquash. - 2003, DeMain was honored with the Payne Award for Ethics in JournalismPayne Award for Ethics in JournalismThe Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism were created at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communications in 1999. In the words of the school's dean, Tim Gleason, the awards were created "to honor the journalist of integrity and character who reports with insight and clarity in...
by the University of OregonUniversity of Oregon-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
for his editorials in News From Indian Country editorials indicating a withdrawal of his previous support of clemency for Leonard Peltier.