Covering Indian Country Blog

About the Blog

The Covering Indian Country Blog is dedicated to fostering excellence in media coverage of Native American issues, communities and cultures through the sharing of resources, stories, viewpoints and journalism tips. The materials and commentary included here are an outgrowth of a traveling seminar sponsored by the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and held from March 6-13, 2005. The information is designed to illustrate and promote best practices for media coverage of “Indian Country” by highlighting examples of well written or effectively produced stories and discussing issues that affect Native Americans. The authors of this Web site offer our own opinions, ideas and reflections about our individual experiences in Indian Country and the various stories we highlight. We hope visitors will engage in lively discussion with us and each other to generate new story ideas and to explore the meaning of best practices. The Web site is sponsored by the Western Knight Center.

About the Editor

Victor Merina is a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism. He also is an editor for reznetnews.org that showcases stories and photo essays about Native Americans. A former Los Angeles Times reporter, he was a member of the paper's investigative projects team that was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for its series "And Justice for Some: Homicides in Los Angeles County.” He also shared in the paper’s 1993 Pulitzer for spot news coverage of the L.A. riots following the Rodney King verdict. A former fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Merina has led writing workshops in South Africa and taught at the American Indian Journalism Institute in South Dakota, as well as the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute in Nashville. Merina has spoken at the Harvard Nieman Narrative Writing Conference and at various National Writers Workshops and journalism conventions including those organized by the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the UNITY consortium of minority journalist organizations. He also was a teaching fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a University of California Regents Lecturer. He has presented at the University of Hawaii, University of Alaska at Anchorage, the University of Missouri, Columbia University and other colleges. Merina writes occasionally for the Los Angeles Times Magazine and Sunday Opinion section. He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association. He has a B.A. in political science from UCLA and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

About the Bloggers

The speakers and fellows of the Covering Native Americans in the 21st Century seminar may be posting to this blog.

About the Photographer

Many of the photographs used in the blog are taken by Lee Marmon.