Reservations,
casinos and federal Indian policies, over the past year, have become front page
and prime time in many areas of the nation. Attention to and coverage of tribal
designation claims, reservation and casino corruption and the hopeless quagmire
of the U.S. bureaucracy responsible for administering government policies with
respect to American Indians, are no longer “best kept secrets” among
domestic issues.
Since
late in 2001, the Wall Street Journal has editorialized or front-paged accounts
of abuse in the many aspects of Indian tribe activities. TIME magazine most
recently devoted two back-to-back issues and the talents of two Pulitzer
Prize-winning investigative reporters to publicize the massive gambling industry
that is being imposed on many states and what this is doing to many communities
and states from Connecticut to California and Wisconsin to Texas.
Newspaper
probes of Indian policies and the entire recognition process are “works in
progress” at the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the
Hartford Courant and the Seattle Times, plus dozens of papers in up-state New
York, Oregon and Washington.
Indian issues are also being addressed on national radio and television talk
shows such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News commentators, mainstream network news
broadcasts and syndicated columns and newsletters throughout the country.
Some credit for this has to go to a few courageous Indian editors such as Bill
Lawrence of the Ojibwe News in Minnesota and to organizations such as CERA that
have spent years trying to keep Americans informed.
But much credit may be given a project begun at the instigation of the late
James Mitchell of New Mexico, a longtime leader and chairman of CERA. In
September, 2001, prior to his regrettable passing a short time later, Jim
persuaded John Fulton Lewis, a Virginia based editor and TV producer to develop
a newsletter that might greatly enhance public awareness. Lewis had produced
several television documentaries about Indian reservation problems in the
mid-1990s for the 20 one-hour programs in the “One if by land…” series on
property rights.
Lewis persuaded Jim that rather than produce another journal for the public, it
might be more effective to provide a news-alert service to the prime
organizations and personalities of the national news media; that the
“letter” should provide leads to potentially good story material to trigger
the interest of news professionals, hoping they could then do what they do best:
uncover the facts for the information of the U.S. general public. Thus was
founded the monthly “Reservation
Report” compiled and coordinated by Lewis with the aid of, initially,
five and now seven editorial advisors with varying degrees of expertise in the
subject. Lewis prepares each issue, the advisors are given 24 hours to review it
and once corrections or changes are made, it goes into the mail to 400
mainstream media outlets. Since Jim’s death, Charlotte Mitchell has continued
funding the printing and mailing of Reservation Report and contributions from
others help reimburse Lewis for some of his research and editing effort.
The “Reservation Report” can be accessed from the “Web Links” section of our website