"I was finishing lunch with my husband on the patio outside the newsroom recently, when I mentioned that I had to go back inside and finish a column on Oprah Winfrey's recent visit to the Navajo Nation.

"Oprah visited the Navajo Nation?" he asked.

Frankie is usually on top of the news. But long work hours -- he's a senior engineer on an Interstate construction project in Oregon -- have kept him from his normal online news sources.

"Yes," I said.

I told him I was writing about how Oprah had asked the Navajo to stage a powwow when she and a film crew arrived in Window Rock, Ariz.

"What the hell?" said Frankie, a Navajo who grew up in the Four Corners area of the sprawling 17-million-acre Navajo reservation land base that reaches into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

His reaction to Oprah's powwow request isn't lost on many Navajos."

Get the Story:
Jodi Rave: Keeping It Real: Accurate Coverage of Native Culture (Poynter Online 8/10)

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

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