montanajournalism Feature, guests, J-School, Student

Standing Rock Reporting Trip Gets Big Attention

MJR students and J-School Professor Jason Begay on the road to Standing Rock.
Montana Journalism Review (MJR) students and J-School Professor Jason Begay on the road to Standing Rock.

Following a five-day trip to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, a team of journalism students and a professor have been at the center of a lot of media attention, a sign that coverage of the intertribal stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline is both sorely lacking but also highly sought after.

During Labor Day weekend, Associate Professor Jason Begay and three students—grad students Matt Roberts and Lailani Upham, and undergrad senior Olivia Vanni—drove to the North Dakota campsite where an estimated 250 tribes have gathered to stand against a massive oil pipeline project.

“The Journalism School faculty thought it made sense that we have a student presence at Standing Rock, since we consider ourselves to be leaders in Native American journalism,” said Begay, who teaches the Native News reporting teams to the Montana’s seven reservations every spring. “But I don’t think we anticipated the kid of attention we eventually found.”

The students were reporting for the Montana Journalism Review (MJR) and were looking to research how the media was covering the Standing Rock camp. Standing Rock Sioux tribal members have been camping at the site since May, as they challenge the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would pump nearly 1,200 barrels of oil from the Eastern North Dakota to Illinois.

Although the pipeline wouldn’t go into tribal lands, it would cross the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock reservation, including through an area sacred to the tribe.

The campsite has been billed as a non-violent demonstration by participants, but during the MJR reporting trip, violence rocked the area as tribal supporters and pipeline employees and security guards clashed over the construction site.

“It wasn’t overt, but we could sense a shift in tone at the camp after that event,” Begay said. “Everyone was just a little more cautious about who to talk to and why so many media reps had finally showed up.”

Media attention increased exponentially for both the campsite and the reporting team. Before the team left North Dakota, they were interviewed for stories by both a Missoula TV and radio station. Begay was invited to write a story for the Butte Standard. Other programs that featured interviews and photos from the team include Public Radio International, Native America Calling and the Navajo Times.

Begay was also invited to talk about the trip on two panels at the Excellence in Journalism conference in New Orleans in mid-September.

“News media is really starved for any kind of on-the-ground coverage of the Standing Rock camp,” Begay said. “Most of the media present at the site have been either local to the Bismarck area or the big outlets. Smaller, regional news companies really seem interested, but lack the resources to send their own people.”

The Montana Journalism Review team is posting content from the trip on its Medium page and is expected to feature a longer story and media analysis

of the trip in its 2016 edition, due out later this year.

montanajournalism Awards, Feature, J-School, Student

Behind the Lens, Bronte Wittpenn Wins Hearst Award; Captures Story of Generations

The Bakken oil boom brought more than just economy to northeastern Montana, it also increased the amount of human trafficking on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Bronte Wittpenn, a current senior, realized this when she took Native News last spring and wanted to try to tell that story. However, her research revealed that the trafficking was related to the larger issue of domestic and sexual violence, which had been prominent on Fort Peck for generations.

Bronte Wittpenn sits atop her car preparing to take a picture.
Photo by Jesse Flickinger.

Wittpenn’s resulting multimedia story, “A Brutal Tradition,” recently won 9th in the Hearst Awards’ Multimedia II and News category. Her video and photos accompanied a written piece produced by her reporting partner Jesse Flickinger, who traveled with her to Fort Peck. During interviews, they had to ask their characters challenging questions, asking to them to talk about personal experiences with sexual assault.

“It was something we’d never done before on a journalistic level — it was very intense,” Wittpenn said. “But it was also like, wow, this woman is so strong. She’s letting us in because she wants to use this traumatic event as a tool to help heal people and to advocate for victims.”

Wittpenn discovered the story’s main character, Toni Plummer-Alvernaz, when she was working for the Montana Native Women’s Coalition and trying to generate more awareness of the issues and resources for the victims. Plummer-Alvernaz’s mother, also a victim of domestic abuse, supported her emotionally but didn’t enter the activism arena. The story of three generations came together with Plummer-Alvernaz’s daughter, who has been following in her footsteps, determined to break the tradition of abuse.

“Bronte and Jesse conducted good interviews and did a great job connecting the dots,” said associate professor Jeremy Lurgio, who co-teaches Native News with assistant professor Jason Begay.

Flickinger’s written piece was a finalist in the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards for the in-depth reporting category. And while Wittpenn’s excited to receive recognition for her multimedia piece in the Hearst Awards, she appreciated the enthusiasm of Plummer-Alvernaz and her daughter once they saw the finished project.

“Toni even said that the multimedia piece allowed for some donations to come through the coalition,” Wittpenn said. “So I’m under the impression that the piece did some good, and as a student, as a journalist, that makes me feel good.”

“Bronte has a good talent for visual narratives,” Lurgio said. “She built a strong story from something that wasn’t inherently a visual story and made it compelling.”

Wittpenn’s most recent multimedia project, “Living Under A Lawsuit,” has been entered into next years Hearst Awards competition. She produced the story as part of the Pollner Seminar, taught by experienced editor and photojournalist Sally Stapleton.

“I think that the critiques you get from the professors here are really valuable,” Wittpenn said. “Really intimate critiques, sitting down eye-to-eye, is something that I realize gets harder and harder to get once you graduate.”

After graduation in May, Wittpenn hopes to get her EMT license and volunteer locally before taking her camera on a South American adventure in the fall. Her previous travels include Morocco, France and a year abroad in Barcelona, Spain. Wittpenn said those experiences have helped her become a better journalist by making her feel comfortable adapting to situations where things don’t go as planned.

“In your heart, know that it’s okay for things to change,” Bronte said with a laugh. “You gotta go with the flow!”

Follow the latest stories behind Bronte Wittpenn’s lens via Instagram and Twitter, or check out her full multimedia portfolio on her website.

By Jana Wiegand
montanajournalism Events, Graduate, J-School, Student

Reporting On Reservations: Native News Sends Students Into The Field

Landscape photo with a sign in the foreground that reads "Welcome to Blackfeet Indian Country."
J-school students divide into teams and travel to visit different reservations across the state. Photo by Courtney Gerard.

After weeks of planning and preparation, UM journalism students in the class Native News are spending spring break reporting on their stories. The students work in teams of two that pair photojournalists with print reporters to create a complete multimedia story.

With the upcoming presidential election in November, Native News professors Jeremy Lurgio and Jason Begay decided this year’s project should focus on politics. “The President has a lot of influence over Indian country,” Begay said.

Yet Begay said the theme is not just about seeing how people on reservations vote. He posed the question, “What do they consider when thinking about politics?”

“Voting on reservations tends to be less bipartisan, especially when it comes to internal politics,” Lurgio said.

However, the reporting teams have chosen stories that dig into the specific political issues that impact their designated reservations, instead of covering the national influence. The students reporting on the Crow Reservation recently followed tribal leader Darrin Old Coyote to the 2016 Montana Energy Convention in Billings to hear him speak about how coal affected jobs on his reservation.

On Fort Belknap, Sophie Tsairis and Lenny Peppers are investigating access to voting and the satellite voting offices on the reservation. Tsairis has been posting reporting updates from Fort Belknap on Instagram.

On the Blackfeet Reservation, Courtney Gerard and Peter Friesen are digging into constitution reform. However, their trip also aligns with the arrival of 88 bison from Elk Island in Canada returning to the reservation, as part of a cultural and ecological relocation effort. To see live updates from the Blackfeet, follow Gerard’s posts on Instagram.

When the students return from the reservations, the pairs will start synthesizing their individual stories into a collaborative, multimedia piece. The final projects from each team will appear on the Native News website in May and circulate the state in the annual print edition.

Native News photographer Sophie Tsairis lays in the middle of a deserted highway to snap a photo of the landscape.
Native News photographer Sophie Tsairis tries to find the best angle to capture a spectacular landscape to illustrate her story. Photo by Lenny Peppers .

To catch the latest updates from the Native News reporting teams, follow their accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

By Jana Wiegand