ICT continues to grow and establish a foundation of people who are committed to telling Indigenous stories and perspectives. One of them will be joining in the coming months as a fellow.
Chris Lomahquahu, citizen of the Gila River Indian Community, as well as Akimel O’otham, Hopi, Ottawa and Mohawk, was awarded the second annual fellowship under the Native American Journalists Association, Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and ICT. He received his bachelor’s in fine art in drawing and a masters in social work in policy, administration and community practice.
He has been working as a journalist for nine years and currently works as a senior reporter for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. He previously worked at Gila River Indian News for seven years.
The fellowship will last 10 months from late August 2023 to May 2024. Lomahquahu will be pursuing a masters in investigative journalism at the university’s journalism school. As part of the fellowship he will also commit to 15 hours a week for ICT.
Lomahquahu said he was always missing the core foundation of journalism due to learning mostly through on the job experience and sees going back to school as a way to gain that.
“Particularly in journalism, I just feel I want to get those core fundamentals and see what else I could do in terms of advancing the area of Indigenous journalism,” he said.
He said he has expressed interest in ICT in the past and it’s been on his radar.
“When this opportunity came along with ASU, I thought well here’s a chance for me to take that opportunity there and see where it takes me,” Lomahquahu said. “Just know (ICT) is really growing and I see a lot of branching out in different areas, especially their own camera presence, online presence, social media.”
He said working with tribal communities, as he has been for nine years, can mean working within a scope and he hopes working with ICT will expand that.
“There’s other communities that have different priorities, different types of things they want to focus on. Through this as a conduit of that through ICT, I hope to get a broader idea of what are the pressing issues for most tribes,” he said.
The inaugural fellow for the graduate partnership was Noel Lyn Smith, Diné.
Two broadcast interns are currently working with “ICT Newscast with Aliyah Chavez.” Nick Parks, who will be graduating in May 2024, said he hopes to gain production experience and produce some stories that are important to the community and are of interest to him.
“I think ICT is giving a voice to Indigenous communities and creating more awareness about Native people by telling personal and community stories in a very connective fashion by being mostly guest interviews for the show,” he said.
This isn’t Park’s first time working with ICT. He has previously helped the broadcast team in the mornings with the shows.
“I like the message and the people of the organization and think it’s a great cause with a lot of community,” he said.
Taylor Ens is the second broadcast intern who is expected to graduate this fall. He said he hopes to learn as much as he can and contribute to the ICT’s work.
“I think that by telling Indigenous stories ICT is building on a community of Indigenous people not only in the US but across the world. Just the existence of ICT as a central hub for Indigenous people to find news and information for people like them is so cool to me,” Ens said.
He decided to join the organization because through the initial interview process he liked how the work environment was described.
“There was a huge emphasis put on collaboration and learning by doing which I appreciated a lot,” he said.
JoVonne Wagner, Blackfeet Nation, first joined ICT as a legislative fellow in a partnership with the Montana Free Press in late January. She covered the Montana American Indian Caucus during Montana’s legislative session for three months from Helena.
“I thought ICT as ‘this is the epitome of Indigenous journalism and it’s going to take me forever to get a place where I would be maybe even considered to report for them’ so when the fellowship came up and I got it…it opened my eyes of ‘wow I did it.’ It was a goal for me to work one day for a publication like ICT or for ICT,” she said.
Wagner joined ICT again in June as an intern for the digital team under the Scripps Howard Fund Summer Internship Program that will last for 20 weeks and end in October. She said the timing of ICT opening a Mountain Bureau in Missoula, Montana, and her looking for a job after the fellowship worked perfectly for her.
“It made me happy because I could continue to cover the communities that I’m very passionate about covering, which are Montana’s Indigenous communities whether that’s urban settings or reservations,” she said. “I have this platform to share these stories that aren’t necessarily based in the legislature, not necessarily based within that political framework, so that can also broaden up my story ideas.”
Wagner majored in journalism and graduated from the University of Montana in December 2022.
ICT has further solidified with three full-time employees joining as well.
Daniel Herrera joined ICT as an employee as a newscast editor on May 8. He said he wanted to join to give people a voice that makes an impact and empowers others.
“I want to grow the newscast and increase our visibility to a wider, broader audience to shine light on Indigenous topics and culture,” he said.
Stewart Huntington also joined ICT as an employee in early February and has freelanced for organization since 2020. Nika Bartoo-Smith, a descendant of the Osage and Oneida Nations, also joined in ICT this year as part of their partnership with Underscore News for the shared reporter position. Read more here.
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