"Fifteen years ago, a University of Montana journalism dean decided to create a news course dedicated to Native American issues. Professor Carol Van Valkenburg stood ready to teach it.

Since then, Van Valkenburg has readily dispatched journalism students to the far corners of Montana's seven Indian reservations to broaden their perspectives and put them in contact with cultures and languages unfamiliar to most of them.

The students report stories of the state's indigenous people -- the Chippewa, Cree, Crow, Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Yanktonai Sioux, Little Shell, Northern Cheyenne, Salish and Kootenai. A typical class project compiles enough news to fill a 36-page tabloid, which gets distributed throughout the state.

The Native News Honors Project earned a recent payoff."

Get the Story:
Reporting on the Reservation (Poynter.Org 6/1)

Relevant Links:
Jodi Rave Lee - http://www.missoulian.com/jodirave

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