Jarrette Werk was a pre-med student at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2016 when videos of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests began flooding his social media feed. He could not find them anywhere in the press. “I just kept wondering, why am I not seeing this on the news,” he said.
The following semester he took a journalism elective.
“The Dakota Access Pipeline, throughout that whole entire semester, became my beat,” he said. “And I basically educated my entire journalism school on what was happening.”
That same semester, Werk — a member of the Aaniiih and Nakoda Nations of the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana — secured a last-minute spot in the Native American Journalists Association’s (NAJA) student fellowship program. He jumped at the chance.
“This organization found me when I needed it the most,” he said.
Now known as the Indigenous Journalists Association (IJA), the organization helped shape Werk’s path from student fellow to award-winning reporter at Underscore Native News in Portland, Oregon. Werk said he entered journalism with an early interest in storytelling — his mother had given him a camera when he was young. But frustration with the lack of mainstream coverage of an important story compelled him to tell Indigenous stories more fully. Werk has covered the success of the Klamath basin tribes in Oregon to remove a dam from the river and how it inspired other Indigenous communities around the world, as well as Native protests at a Thacker Pack Lithium mine in Nevada.
“A big component of the work that I do is, you know, documenting our stories of success and our stories of joy and those opportunities that we get to celebrate. Growing up in Montana, the only time I saw Native people in the news was tragedy, or when we’re dominating in sports. And there’s so much more that’s being left out,” he said.
Rooted in purpose
In 1983 Lakota journalist Tim Giago convened more than two dozen Indigenous reporters at Penn State University to determine whether an Indigenous press organization was viable. They formed what would become the Native American Press Association — later the Native American Journalists Association, and in 2023, it was rebranded as the Indigenous Journalists Association.
“IJA was founded primarily because of tribal media,” said Francine Compton, the organization's associate director and former president, a citizen of Sandy Bay Ojibwe First Nation in Canada. “They needed to protect their own press from their own tribes. That was first and foremost.”
The change from NAJA to IJA was approved at the 2023 gathering in Winnipeg after a more than year-long process Compton led as president. Member surveys and virtual town halls preceded the vote at the annual conference, which was intentionally held in Canada to underscore the shift.
“It was a long road to get there, and I haven’t even thought back on it in the way I’m thinking about it now, but it was emotional then, and it’s emotional now — because I did hear from people ‘North of the Medicine Line’ who said they didn’t think NAJA was for them because of the word American in the name,” said Compton.
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, IJA’s executive director and a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, framed the reasoning more broadly. “Indigenous people are not just here in the U.S. They’re not just in Canada. These lines were drawn to divide Indigenous lands. We exist as Indigenous peoples globally.”
The guiding question, she said, was: “Where do we want to go in the next 40 years?”
Serving the community
Tribal sovereignty means the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution does not apply on tribal lands. Of the 575 federally recognized tribes in the United States only five have enacted press-freedom protections.
In Canada, where Compton was raised and where her father, Jim Compton, was among the first visibly Indigenous television reporters, the situation is similar. “I cannot name one First Nation in Canada that has any free press laws,” she said. Of 634 recognized First Nations, only a handful have government-funded media outlets. “Our actual communities need their own media.”
Landsberry-Baker describes press freedom as central to “our IJA DNA.”
More than 40 years later, she said, threats have continued on and off reservations, including major losses in federal funding for tribal media, including rural radio stations. “It is really very scary to think that press freedom can be threatened at all of these levels.”
But press freedom is only one side of the challenge.
Sunnie Clahchischiligi, IJA president and Indigenous affairs editor at High Country News, said the organization also works to improve coverage of Indigenous communities more broadly. “There are not very many of us out there who can help other people — non-Indigenous journalists — understand best practices of covering indigenous communities,” she said.
Clahchischiligi, who is Diné from the Navajo Nation in Arizona, points to a frequently cited statistic: Indigenous journalists remain less than 1% of the profession worldwide. “We are the experts in what we do,” she said, “and we recognize that people are still going to do this work. The best thing we can do is provide resources.”
IJA’s programs reflect that mission: reporting guides, newsroom cohorts with the Solutions Journalism Network, workshops with IWMF, and a media literacy program, Share Your Story, with Grist, which has trained more than 200 Indigenous leaders on how to engage with the press.
Another IJA collaboration, led by Kiowa Tribe journalist Tristan Ahtone, editor-at-large at Grist, and Cherokee Nation journalist Bryan Pollard of The Associated Press — who is also IJA’s senior manager for philanthropic development — produces the Global Indigenous Journalism Convening, which for the past three years has brought together reporters from Indigenous outlets across four countries to report on climate change and land rights.
A gathering vested in community
Today, IJA counts more than 700 members and has drawn more than 400 attendees annually since 2022. This year’s gathering in Portland will be supported by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
“To have a tribe back us in that way is incredibly meaningful,” Clahchischiligi said.
The gathering reflects the organization’s broader philosophy. Landsberry-Baker said IJA intentionally creates space not only for Indigenous journalists, but also for non-Indigenous reporters covering Indigenous communities. “We have so many members who are not Indigenous journalists, who may be covering Indigenous communities,” she said. “That is such an important part of who we are as an organization.” Members often describe the gathering as more family reunion than journalism conference. Central to it is a fully in-person student newsroom, where fellows produce live coverage as part of IJA’s flagship fellowship program.
For many, the fellowship is an entry point into journalism and community.
Sarah Liese received her first IJA fellowship in 2017 as a sophomore at the University of Mississippi. Now an Indigenous affairs reporter at KOSU public radio in Oklahoma, Liese is Diné and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, far from both tribal communities.
IJA, she said, has been “an anchor” throughout her career. Her mentor, Victoria LaPoe, later became her thesis chair at Ohio University, where Liese produced a documentary on Two-Spirit identity. Liese has since received three IJA awards in 2025 and the Bruce T. Fisher Award from the Oklahoma Historical Society for reporting on tribal sovereignty.
“I wouldn't be where I am today without my experience at IJA. That’s because of the mentors, fellowship and opportunities. … Rebecca Landsberry-Baker trusted me to be a producer on a short film for the organization’s anniversary,” explained Liese. “It’s given me the confidence to do this work and carry on this legacy of Indigenous storytelling.”
Liese is a mentor to a current IJA fellow this year.
Jarrette Werk said at his first IJA conference Patty Talahongva, a Hopi journalist and former IJA president, took him around the conference floor with his resumé and made introductions.
“I’ve never had somebody do that with me before,” he said. “Patty believed in me before she even really knew who I was.” Years later, they collaborated on coverage of the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz.
Werk has since won a national Hearst Journalism Award, a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists, and now mentors IJA fellows.
Together, Liese and Werk are organizing Indigiqueer programming. Liese, who identifies as Two-Spirit, said their panel’s focus is intentional. “How can we tell more Indigiqueer stories?” she said. “How can we do that where we’re also fostering joy?”
A dinner and gathering open to Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ members and allies will follow. “I want people to know that you still matter. You’re part of our community,” Liese said. “And we want allies to feel welcomed, as well.”
Werk, whose newsroom at Underscore is majority queer, framed the work in terms of the current political climate. “It's important to provide a safe space for our queer relatives that are within this media, especially under this administration.”
Before announcing the venue for this year’s conference, Clahchischiligi said the organization researched Indigenous place names and histories and incorporated that language into the public announcement itself. Programming follows the same approach, including local Indigenous performers and panels focused on Pacific Northwest tribal issues, as well as a guide to Indigiqueer-owned businesses.
“Our approach to how we bring community in,” she said, “is really just how we approach journalism as Indigenous journalists in general.”
Landsberry-Baker describes the Indigenous Media Conference as “the only space in the world” focused on Indigenous press freedom. “Coming to the IMC and having a place to be heard and for your struggles to be recognized is something that’s very important to our journalists,” she said. “Some of them have been coming for more than 40 years.”
For Clahchischiligi, that continuity is the point.
“I don't even want to say it’s a choice at this point,” she said. “It’s just inherent for us — if it’s related to our communities, it’s a responsibility that we feel, and that we come into the work doing.”
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the caption for the photo of Sunnie Clahchischiligi incorrectly identified her as also a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. E&P regrets the error.
Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com.
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