Need for More Voices in Journalism Is Topic of Upcoming Lecture

The Dean Stone Lecture at the University of Montana is named for the founder of the journalism program at the Missoula campus. Each year, a speaker is brought onto the campus to talk about one of the varied aspects of reporting and news writing.

This year, the April 7th talk will be presented by Mark Trahant, editor-at-large of Indian Country Today, an online daily news site covering American Indians throughout the country. The platform has over 800,000 readers. It was a print publication in 1981, and was shrinking slowly, but found new audiences when it became a "digital-first" website in 2017. And now, it's on television in about 30 markets.

Trahant's April 7th talk is called "Crafting a Narrative of Indigenous Excellence," stressing the need for more voices in journalism, especially covering the indigenous world of American Indians, Alaska Natives and First Nation people. For instance, he has been studying how tribes have contributed to local economies. The speech, at the University Center Theater, will begin at 7 p.m.

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Trahant's career has included editorial page editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and he's written for the Arizona Republic, the Salt Lake Tribune, The Seattle Times, the Navajo Times Today and the Sho-Ban News. He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes. He has been on PBS "Frontline," including his story "The Silence," concerning sexual abuse by priests in an Alaska Native village.

The night after Trahant's talk, the School of Journalism will have its annual Dean Stone Scholarship and Awards Banquet. This year, over $200,000 in journalism scholarships will be awarded to current and incoming students.