A training guide for reporters and media when writing or reporting about Native Americans or their culture.

1. Media Orientation: Cultural
Sensitivity & Accuracy Training
Angelo Baca & Alastair Lee Bitsóí
Utah Diné Bikéyah Cultural Resources Coordinator & Communications Director

2. Journalism and Storytelling: Which is which?
• What matters in telling your story? How can you view the context of
story differently? What impacts does your storytelling have?

3. Correcting an organizational misperception
• To clarify, UDB is not a
tribe
• Tribes have a federal
process of recognition
often including treaties
• UDB is an Indigenous-led,
non-profit entity

4. Issues of Representation and Self-
Representation
• Representation: from inside
vs. outside views
• What does that “look” like?
• How can you tell the
difference?
• Why is it important to be
able to tell what kinds of
representations matter?

5. Issues of Representation and Self-
Representation
• Narratives and visual images
directly influence perceptions
of the public and each other
• Our preference is self-
representation because no
one does a better job or
knows our stories like the
Native communities
themselves!

6. Media Orientation
Guide
• Common mistakes/issues: incorrect spelling on
tribes, names, clans, etc.
• Engage and write about the five Tribes of the
Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and our
ancestral ties.
• Don’t use terms such as “Indian,” “ruin,” or
“myth”
• Engage with Native American peoples,
including the importance of reciprocity,
respect, cultural knowledge, and awareness of
issues.

7. Media Orientation Guide
Any storytellers: press, scholars, filmmakers, artists, etc
mandatory for reporters before Bears Ears Gathering
Other Press and Reporting Outlets (over 40 reporters):
• Salt Lake City Tribune
• National Geographic
• Reuters
• Voice of America
• Al Jazeera
• CNN
• Center for Investigative Reporting
• Indian Country Today
• LA Times
• NY Times
• NBC Universal, etc.

8. Example of poor reporting
• The issue was calling Candace Bear not by her official title as a Chairwoman
for the Skull Valley Band of Goshute in the cutline of Deseret News article

9. Example of good reporting
• SL Tribune – features story on traditional oral stories to Bears Ears

10. “The President Stole Your Land”
• These lands are Indigenous lands: Can you really steal “protected
land” already stolen?

11. “The President Stole Your Land”
• Changing the narrative – How?
• Why is that important here?
• What can be learned and applied?
• Let’s break this down:
• ”The President” implies that the leader of this nation is doing something
wrong and illegal. However, our experience with Presidents in Indigenous
communities is that they usually do something wrong and illegal
regularly.
• Why this President and not others? Is there implication that some
Presidents are better than others? By whose and what metric do we
measure that?

12. Largest Protected “Land Grab”?
• 1777: co-option of lands by the 13
Colonies (new founding of the United
States)
• Louisiana Purchase (1803) land deal
between the United States and France,
U.S. acquired approximately 827,000
square miles of land west of the
Mississippi River for $15 million.
• The California Gold Rush began on
January 24, 1848, when gold was found
by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in
Coloma, California. The news of gold
brought approximately 300,000 people
to California from the rest of the
United States and abroad.

13. Patagonia Blog: Media Course Corrections-
November 2018

14. 2,000 Year Old Tattoo Needle in Bears Ears:
March 2019 – SLC Tribune
• Utah Diné Bikéyah staff
quotes used in article
• Ahjani Yepa: “proof that this
was a practice that was lost
and possibly can be
reclaimed”
• Angelo Baca: “It’s really about
putting traditional knowledge
and Western knowledge on
equal, respectful ground.”

15. Social Media Presence & Using Memes:
HB 93 Defeated & Elevating Native Women

16. Collaboration is the Key
• IF you don’t know, ask
• Owning your ignorance
• Basic Education: not everyone has it
• Tribal sovereignty vs. federal policy:
getting it right
• We are NOT special interest groups:
we have Treaties still legally binding
• Learning – improving: how to work
with each other
• More generous you are, the more
generous we will be
• The best is yet to come for our
stories, representations, and shared
collaborations!