Red Lake: A view from afar

By Daniel B. Zukowski

Freelance Writer

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- With the electronic media’s seeming inability to cover more than one story at a time, the recent school shooting in Red Lake, Minnesota, has already been all but forgotten in most of the United States. Although Minnesota media and some national print journalists have continued to follow the story, other high-profile events have dominated the television news in recent weeks. The broadcast media obsessed over the Terri Schiavo story and the death of Pope John Paul II, reducing coverage for all other news to a slow crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Most Americans rely on television for a large portion of their news diet, especially during high-interest events, according to a Pew Research Center study conducted last year. The result is that broadcast media control the national conversation, or as Pope John Paul II reportedly said, “If it’s not on television, it didn’t happen.”

The evidence is clear: there are about six times as many online news items relating to Terri Schiavo or Pope John Paul II as compared with the Red Lake story, and a search of blog posts shows a similar disparity. Here in California, the state with the largest Native American population (630,000), media coverage has been weak at best. San Diego County has more Indian reservations than any other county in the United States. Los Angeles, Orange County and Riverside-San Bernardino are three of the top 10 areas with the largest Native American populations. Yet, in the Los Angeles Times, stories mentioning Terri Schiavo or Pope John Paul II outnumber Red Lake stories by at least seven to one; in the San Diego Union-Tribune, it is more than 20 to one.

While some have ascribed the lack of coverage to the remote location of the Red Lake reservation, that is an all-too easy explanation that avoids discussion of more influential factors. Just 295 Native Americans are in managerial or editorial positions at daily newspapers in the United States, according to the 2005 survey just released by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Moreover, prejudice against Native Americans may be the only remaining acceptable prejudice in the United States. It is glorified in the names of professional and college sports teams and the chants of their fans, and is ingrained in the lack of knowledge most of us non-Indians, including myself, have about the true history, traditions and values of Native Americans.

Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, speaking at the National Indian Gaming Association kickoff festival in San Diego, said, “The time has come to share our past with non-Indian people.” It is also time for non-Indian people to open up to the culture and spirit of Native Americans.

At this event, I was struck by the dichotomy of pain and perseverance, of openness and doubt, of history and hope. America encourages and values those who assimilate into its culture, and for most immigrant groups, this has been the goal. But for Native Americans who wish to “follow the red road”, assimilation can mean abandonment of culture and beliefs, a fact not understood by non-Natives.    

As President Bush seeks to extend the reach of democracy around the world, we should remember, as the U.S. Senate acknowledged in 1988, that the principles of our form of government are in part drawn from the democratic institutions of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. And, as millions hailed a Pope who reached out across religious lines, American mainstream media must be willing to reach out and listen to the stories that are being told by the original inhabitants of this land.

Daniel B. Zukowski is a freelance writer, strategic communications consultant and co-owner of a video production company. His byline has appeared in Newsday, the San Jose Mercury News, The Roanoke Times, and in the San Francisco Chronicle.