Awardwinning journalist to visit IAIA
Monet cites need for more indigenous reporters
This year marks the 20th year of the start of Jenni Monet’s journalism career. But several years ago, around 2010, the awardwinning reporter says she strongly considered leaving the profession.
Working in commercial newsroom settings, the desire to tell urgent stories about indigenous communities felt like a “lost cause.”
“I got told ‘no’ a lot,” Monet, a citizen of Laguna Pueblo, said in a recent phone interview. “Very rarely did I get a green light to cover stories from tribal communities.”
She described her decision to become an independent reporter as a deliberate career move toward telling stories not addressed by the established press — or not being told fully.
“To tell the American story is to tell the indigenous narrative,” she said. “And that is often a second thought, if (thought of) at all.”
Monet, whose work has been featured by the PBS Newshour, Indian Country Today, Al Jazeera and the Center for Investigative Reporting, is scheduled to speak today at the Institute of American Indian Arts, covering topics including the Standing Rock protests, gender violence in Indian Country and the challenges that come with being an indigenous investigative reporter.
She is also in town for a fundraising dinner for the Santa Fe Council of International Relation’s
“Journalism Under Fire” summit that will take place in December, according to council executive director Sandy Campbell. The organization is co-hosting Monet’s talk tonight.
Monet described visiting New Mexico as a homecoming of sorts. She was born in Albuquerque. Her mom was a registered nurse for the Indian Health Service, working mostly between Oklahoma and New Mexico.
“We grew up pretty much anywhere there was a tribal clinic,” she said. “I bounced around all over Indian Country.” Her first reporting jobs were at Albuquerque’s KRQE and the station’s Four Corners Bureau in Durango, Colo.
Her early exposure to various tribal communities, she said, has proven relevant to the work she does today. It showed her from a young age that there are similarities among different parts of Indian Country, “but also the real distinctions that really represent that Indian Country is not a monolith.”
Monet has been recognized for her work covering Standing Rock and the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, receiving several awards last year, including the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism’s Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award and Journalist of the Year from the Newswomen’s Club of New York.
During Standing Rock, for that moment in time, tribal communities had the world’s attention, she said. Everyday issues for Native communities, things like treaty rights that she said are often trivialized or deemed too complicated or complex for news consumers, were being discussed.
Even though established news outlets eventually latched on to the story, that didn’t mean there weren’t flaws with that coverage, Monet said. She described the news stories as often delayed, and displaying a lack of knowledge of Native issues and history.
She said she used to be more optimistic that Americans’ understanding of indigenous issues would advance after Standing Rock. “Now, I just hope we sustain that awareness,” Monet added. “Let’s not let that needle go backward, because we can’t afford that.”
“TO TELL THE AMERICAN STORY IS TO TELL THE INDIGENOUS NARRATIVE. AND THAT IS OFTEN A SECOND THOUGHT, IF (THOUGHT OF) AT ALL. JENNI MONET AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST ”
Trespass charge acquittal
In June, Monet was acquitted of a criminal trespassing charge after being arrested the year before while reporting at a DAPL protest camp. Despite showing her press credentials, she said, she was booked because she was viewed as looking “like one of the protesters” who were being rounded up.
“This is the climate we’re all grappling and dealing with today,” she said
She described the verdict in her case as a huge relief, as well as one that upholds the First Amendment and the right to report on marginalized communities.
“Really, at the end of the day, I had to prove my professionalism, and that’s what rolled out of that courtroom,” she said.
Since January, and with support from organizations like Marquette University’s O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism and the Fund for Investigative Reporters and Editors, Monet has been gathering data and visiting tribal communities to investigate the higher rates of violence and murder experienced by Native women, girls and transgender people.
“Like many stories that stem from Indian Country, they’re not simple to unpack,” she said of the issues involved. The coverage requires long-term work and an understanding of the data gaps that exist.
“What you get as a result may be very simplified versions of the story,” she said. Many of the narratives about violence against indigenous women, Monet points out, are based on the activism surrounding the problem.
“My concern is that is where is the reporting will end and that will be a media consumer’s notion of what this movement, what this problem, what this public health crisis, is all about.”
A main reason Monet does talks like the one tonight in Santa Fe is to discuss the need for more indigenous journalists. She said journalistic representation is required as a way to keep Native people and their stories part of the mainstream conversation. “Journalism, the power of legitimate storytelling, is a resource like anything else,” she said. “It’s a tool.”
Monet emphasized the separation between journalism and advocacy, which she said is an important line to toe for reporters from marginalized communities.
She said activism can be an important resource. But in her own reporting, she feels at times like she almost “overcompensates” to distinguish her role as a reporter.
There’s a need for indigenous reporters who understand the dynamics and differences of their communities, Monet said.
“People who understand our indigenous communities, they don’t need to be told or (have) that taught to them,” she said. “And I think that’s what makes the need for indigenous journalists a priority.”