American Indian newspapers are thriving, with more than 50 new tribal publications having started up in the past decade. But while the business of the press is flourishing in American Indian regions, financed in large part by gambling revenues, the sale of natural resources and the cash settlements from land disputes, freedom of the press is not.
The problem is that almost all of the 300 or so tribal papers across the United States are owned and financed by the tribal governments. American Indian journalists who are employed by the tribal councils often face the choice of working as public relations agents or writing tough, probing articles that cast their employers in a poor light and put careers at risk."I'm fighting a constant battle here," said Tom Arviso Jr., the editor of The Navajo Times, the weekly newspaper of the Navajo nation. The tribal government wants the paper as a mouthpiece, Arviso said, "but as an editor serving the largest Indian nation in the world, I have to stand up and say we're not going to be sheep."
In September, the newspaper, which is based here in northeastern Arizona, published a series of articles detailing questionable spending practices by the the Navajo nation's president, Albert Hale.
The articles prompted an investigation by the tribal council, which in late October indefinitely tabled a motion to suspend Hale. But Arviso said that after the articles were published, powerful figures within the council and the office of the president threatened him with the loss of his job and budget cuts.
Other American Indian editors and reporters are closely watching the battle for control of The Navajo Times, which was founded more than 35 years ago and serves the 160,000 residents of the Navajo nation here in the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah.
"I respect what Tommy Arviso is doing," said Keith Skenandore, the editor of Kalihwisaks, the paper of the Oneida nation of Wisconsin. "In terms of freedom of the Indian press, he's really pushing the envelope. A lot of people on the reservation think you should be part of the tribal government and supporting of it. But there are those of us who think the only way to make the government better is to make it accountable."
American Indian journalists often face tribal government censorship or self-censorship for the sake of their jobs. Editors say they sometimes first leak the news to the mainstream media, then pursue it with follow-up articles. But many journalists acknowledged that a tribal-owned paper is only as free as the tribal government allows.
In 1994, the editor and staff of Hopi Tutuvehni, a tribal paper serving 10,000 people on the Arizona Hopi reservation, were dismissed. The bimonthly paper was shut down when the tribal council erased its budget, complaining that it was not presenting balanced news, said Jennifer Joseph, a current reporter at Tutuwehni. It reopened last year, after the election of a new chairman and council, yet censorship still prevails, Joseph said.
"We were forced to edit a column that satirized a council member," she said. "An offending paragraph was removed after he threatened to vote against our budget."
Phone calls to the council member were not returned.