“Over the course of nearly 40 years, a growing band of Lakota journalists has worked to fill a void left by the regional and national media. Few stories in mainstream publications emerge from on-the-ground reporting on reservations, and the rare stories that do typically focus on one of two themes: extreme poverty or chronic crime. For the Lakota press, the mission has been to give voice to those who had been long stereotyped, silenced, or dismissed.”
 
For CJR’s spring issue, Jenni Monet—who previously detailed her extensive reporting and her arrest at Standing Rock—examines the history and hardship that set Lakota newspapers apart from the mainstream media and its coverage of stories like those at Standing Rock.
 
“After the dog attacks, much of the mainstream coverage during the months-long demonstration was tonally lopsided,” writes Monet. “Protesters were described as ‘unlawful.’ The unasked question was, according to whose laws?” The owner of Native Sun News Today told Monet, “There’s a lot of things that white people don’t want to talk about. We remind them of things they’d rather forget.” Read Monet’s full story and more from our local news issue at CJR.org.

Be sure to read these new stories from CJR and correspondents to the United States Project:

• “You probably haven’t heard of us because we’re slow to the internet.” The arrest of a Public News Service journalist, set against the backdrop of a White House war with media, made headlines far and wide. Until the arrest, however, many may have never heard of the news outlet for which he was reporting.
   
• What to do with public TV’s ‘spectrum auction’ windfall: Now that the auction results are in, there’s a real danger that some of the biggest winners won’t use the money for local journalism or anything else in keeping with public media’s mission.
   
• Where have all the black digital publishers gone? The internet offers a host of African-American publishers who write national blogs, celebrity news, and lifestyle articles, writes Glenn H. Burkins. However, far fewer have chosen the difficult road that leads to community-based journalism.