News Release
Indian Country Today
When Indian Country Today airs its weekday broadcast in early January, Aliyah Chavez will be the sole anchor delivering the news.
“ICT Newscast with Aliyah Chavez” is the new name of the half-hour broadcast, featuring the Kewa Pueblo journalist who worked her way up from a reporter-producer at Indian Country Today.
“As a young girl growing up on the rez, I never dreamed this would be possible,” said Chavez, who earned a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University and started her career at Indian Country Today in 2018. “But I dreamt and worked — and here we are.”
Mark Trahant, the Indian Country Today editor who transformed the brand Indian Country Today to a nonprofit multiplatform news operation with an international audience, said the newscast is changing the public perceptions about Indigenous peoples and government, and Chavez has been part of it.
“Turn on any channel and there are dozens of such voices” talking about politics and its impact, he said, “but none reflecting Indigenous communities. Until now.”
Trahant said he expects the newscast to expand its reach with Chavez as the permanent anchor. He said Chavez will connect with a younger audience and appeal to more Indigenous communities.
Arizona PBS recognized Chavez’s talent and asked her to co-host “Break It Down,” a daily 10-minute segment with conversations on news, politics, and pop culture.
Arizona PBS is the producing partner, and the show is recorded every morning from its studios in Phoenix.
The half-hour broadcast starts with a five-minute headline news block, followed by interviews with elected tribal officials, Indigenous newsmakers, social media influencers, and features from staff and freelance journalists. Both Democrat and Republican commentators make regular appearances, providing analysis on federal, state and tribal government actions.
The daily newscast launched in April 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It grew exponentially under the leadership of its initial co-anchors: Trahant, Shoshone-Bannock, and Executive Producer Patty Talahongva, Hopi. The newscast airs on multiple PBS stations nationwide, parts of Canada and Australia, and the FNX network, which reaches over 75 million households across the country.
The program is delivered Monday through Friday by 5:30 p.m. ET, streamed from the digital news site www.indiancountrytoday.com, which features many more stories by an award-winning team of Indigenous reporters.
An audio version is available to NPR and tribal radio stations through SoundCloud.
Indian Country Today (ICT) is an independent nonprofit, multimedia news enterprise. Indian Country Today is owned by IndiJ Public Media, a 501 (c)(3) public charity, under federal law that sustains itself with funding from members, donors, foundations, and supporters worldwide.
