Juanita Gardipee’s venture into journalism is just beginning. But whether the young Native woman has a meaningful, lasting career in journalism remains to be seen.
Right now, the 15-year-old says she’s hooked. It’s a small miracle that Juanita sees herself being a reporter at all. After all, few Native role models exist in the print or broadcast business. Native reporters, copy editors and photographers remain vastly under-represented in newsrooms across the country.
But if the news industry is lucky, Juanita will stick around. The Gros Ventre and Cherokee teenager is what newspapers and TV stations need.
Numbers in Decline
The 2005 ASNE diversity report shows Natives as the only minority group to have its newsroom numbers slip between 2004 and 2005. It leaves a paltry 295 Natives to take a stand in the mainstream press.
Those numbers include anyone who self-identifies as Native. That means they’re Native if they say so. It doesn’t mean they have a meaningful cultural affiliation, or belong to a federally recognized tribe.
This is what makes a teenager like Gardipee a gold mine. She knows her culture. She knows what she wants to do in the news business. Political reporting fascinates her. She also has an opinion about local and national issues. That makes it likely she’ll share her Native perspective when needed in the newsroom.
So how did Juanita find her way to journalism?
It was part luck. But it had more to do with the Missoulian (Missoula, Mont.) newspaper’s partnership with the Western Montana Fair Board. The Missoulian actively sought teenagers who were interested in writing for the paper’s weeklong special fair section, the Midway Dispatch.
Lynn Schwanke, the Missoulian’s youth editor, uses the section as a way to get teens interested in journalism. It also gives subscribers the opportunity to read news from the youth perspective. And it gives teenagers a venue to be heard.
Each year, the paper hires a half-dozen youths –- four reporters and two photographers -– to do interviews, write stories, take photos and turn them around for publication in the Missoulian‘s special section the next day.
Youths from local high schools are encouraged to apply for a position. And they get paid, too.
“It ended up kind of cool,” Juanita said. “What really got me interested is it would be in the Missoulian.”
The news job bolstered her confidence to let others know she exists as a Native teenager. “I’m not just someone out there,” she said. “I’m good at something. I want people to know that.”
The Missoulian encourages Fair reporters to continue working for the paper’s weekly teen section called Represent, the high school voice of western Montana. Juanita enjoyed the reporting experience.
So, when the sophomore returned back to school at the end of summer, she agreed to write for Represent. Prior to her Missoulian experience, Juanita had begun to flex her voice as a columnist for her high school newspaper last January. The high school newspaper door opened after Juanita signed up for a reporting course.
Juanita’s belief she could have a career in journalism might not exist if she didn’t get the chance to see her work printed in the local paper. “When she took that journalism class, it was just a fluke,” said Flo Gardipee, the girl’s mother. “But it’s blossomed into something she wants a career in.”
Juanita’s belief she could have a career in journalism might not exist if she didn’t get the chance to see her work printed in the local paper.
Now, it looks like she’s on a promising path to the newsroom. A lesson could be learned here for other newspaper and TV stations whose diversity efforts are lagging.
Schwanke, who also worked as the Missoulian’s Newspaper in Education director, understands the need to connect young people to the paper.
The collaboration with the Fair board gets the community involved. The Fair itself sparks student’s interest. It’s a good combination.
Potential partners: newsrooms, communities & students
The news industry would be better served if similar partnerships among newsrooms, communities and students took place. Plenty of opportunities exist to make this happen. For example, many Native communities around the country typically sponsor an annual rodeo, fair, powwow or educational event.
These communities exist across the United States in reservation and urban settings. If it seems they don’t — think again.
In 2002, David Yarnold, then executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, was at Columbia University
to accept a leadership award, a rightly deserved recognition. Three national studies have cited the Mercury News as one of the nation’s best-practice newspapers on the issue of diversity in hiring, values and news coverage.
The opportunities abound when it comes to recruiting more Natives. Indian Country is filled with enthusiastic youths like Juanita Gardipee. But when asked about his approaches to Native news coverage and hiring practices, Yarnold told a room full of journalism professionals attending the Columbia workshop that his paper didn’t actively pursue Native journalists or their stories because most Natives were in northern or southern California, not in his neck of the woods. Well, the Bay Area was — and remains — home to one of the largest urban Indian populations in the country.
Asked Thursday about his 2002 comments, Yarnold responded by e-mail: “That was a teachable moment. While our definition of diversity was always inclusive of all groups, my mistake was pointed out to me and it changed my view about the need to more assertively recruit Native Americans, as well.”
The opportunities abound when it comes to recruiting more Natives. Indian Country is filled with enthusiastic youths like Juanita Gardipee.
So who’s going to introduce them to the news business?
Jodi Rave reports on Native issues for Lee Enterprises, which owns the Missoulian.
