Transcripts

DIANA JENSEN: If you have two people over here talking and another two people in a different corner talking, and they never get together, they never have common goals, there's no way they can be strong. And in order for the Indian people to be strong, they have to be united, and this is one of the ways we can do it.

LEIF ENGER: Diana Jensen is talking about the press and its value to a people she describes as just now, coming into freedom. For hundreds of Indian readers in Northern Minnesota, this basement office in Bemidji is the press. It's where Jensen, who is not Indian herself, compiles the Ojibwe News. She is its editor and secretary. She sells the ads. She calls stories from the wire services and from several part time reporters. Diana Jensen is proud that the news is independent, not owned by a tribe like most native papers.

DIANA JENSEN: We're not controlled by anybody, and we can say the truth. We could probably have a lot more advertisement if Red Lake sponsored us. But there'd be things we wouldn't be able to print, political things, things that they wouldn't want the people to know. Before we came, the people were victims. They knew what Roger Jourdain wanted them to know and nothing more.

LEIF ENGER: Roger Jourdain is the former chairman of the Red Lake tribal council. It's the seat of almost absolute power on the reservation, the seat he lost last spring after more than 30 years in office. The defeat came after years of complaints of corruption and financial deceit in tribal government, and after months of editorial attack by the fledgling Ojibwe News, it was the news' role in that election that has won the paper both admirers and skeptics. Publisher William Lawrence broke all appearance of objectivity by declaring himself a candidate for chairman against Jourdain.

WILLIAM LAWRENCE: The object of when we started the paper was to use it as an instrument to make social change at Red Lake on the reservation. You don't have a democracy without a free press, and we became that instrument.

LEIF ENGER: Lawrence's candidacy didn't last. He was declared ineligible because he didn't live on the reservation, even now, though, he makes no apologies for his use of his paper, he points to legitimate stories covered in the news, stories of fraud at the Indian Health Service in Bemidji, of Jourdain's tax trial, even coverage of reservation sports events unlikely to get ink in other papers. But all of this doesn't comfort some proponents of the native press. Ruth Denny is editor of the circle, an American Indian paper based in Minneapolis.

DIANA JENSEN: I think a newspaper should be a newspaper, and its function should be to report what's going on in the Indian community, whether it be the Red Lake Community or some other Indian community. If you're going to be running for a position, an elected position, I think you should take yourself out of the position of being a newspaper because it puts you in a position where you can't be objective.

LEIF ENGER: On the reservation itself, it's hard to gauge sentiment for the Ojibwe News. Several local residents said they read the paper regularly, but would not comment on it, apparently for fear of reprisals. The news is understandably unpopular with the old guard of tribal politics. Still, the cashier at this Red Lake grocery store told me each shipment of 200 newspapers sells out within hours. Down in the Soda Pop aisle, a young man named Dean is thumbing his copy of the news.

DEAN: That's a pretty interesting story. That's what the public know what's happening anyways. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. You can't believe everything you read, though.

[CHATTER]

Yeah, know what would be a good [INAUDIBLE].

LEIF ENGER: A few of Dean's friends have gathered around us now. They're careful, noncommittal.

DEAN: Mr. Ballinger, come here, buddy. What do you think about The Ojibwe Times? Well, we're interviewing the wrong guy. What about you?

LEIF ENGER: Objective or not, fair or not, The Ojibwe News is getting read in Red Lake. For many, it's the first time in memory that information has become available, which varies from official tribal rhetoric. If the paper sometimes goes too far in its attempts to discredit tribal government, Diana Jensen says, maybe that's a natural reaction.

DIANA JENSEN: Truth frees people. It makes them-- it lets them make decisions that they couldn't make before because they had no information to make it with. People can only be held down so long, and these people are ready to be freed.

LEIF ENGER: Diana Jensen of The Ojibwe news. This is Leif Enger.