The Indigenous-led news organization has brought on more talent in the last couple of months.
ICT’s latest hire for the digital team was in partnership with Underscore News for the shared reporter position, a partnership nearly two years old.
The two organizations hired Nika Bartoo-Smith, a descendant of the Osage and Oneida Nations, to work from Portland, Oregon, the home base for Underscore.
“I chose to work at Underscore + ICT because of each organization’s commitment to telling meaningful stories, centered on Indigenous communities, that are often left out of the mainstream media,” she said. “Both newsrooms show a clear commitment to community-based journalism, which is important to me.”
Bartoo-Smith previously worked as the health and social services reporter at The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington. She also brings experience from her time as an intern at The News-Review in Roseburg, Oregon.
She graduated magna cum laude with a journalism degree from the University of Oregon in 2022.
“We are thrilled to add Nika to both teams,” said ICT Editor Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, Diné. “Her skills and experience build the much-needed coverage we need in the Pacific Northwest.”
The “ICT Newscast with Aliyah Chavez,” a product of IndiJ Public Media, also brought on a producer, video editor, and newscast director since February.
Virginia Rigney, Chickasaw from Oklahoma, joins the broadcast team as a newscast editor, one of the many important jobs that helps bring the show to more than 75 million households across the country.
Rigney was previously a videographer and multimedia specialist for Healthcare Outcomes Performance Company in Phoenix.
Stewart Huntington hit the ground running at the beginning of February when he covered the 50th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Occupation in South Dakota. Huntington has freelanced for ICT since 2020.
He’s been in the business since 1979 when he landed his first newspaper job. From there, he reported from California, Kansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Minnesota. Huntington brings lots of experience when he covered Indigenous communities for KOTA TV in western South Dakota and his time as press secretary for the South Dakota Attorney General.
“Sometimes people ask me why, as a non-Native, I work in Indian Country,” Huntington said, who is based in Colorado. “I have four answers: First, it’s all Indian Country. Second, the history of the treatment of Natives by the United States is so relentlessly horrific that it demands remediation. Third, our best hope for surviving the Anthropocene is to foreground, spread and celebrate Aboriginal values. And, fourth, it’s fun.”
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