Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

October 8, 2014

In the news today: Navajo Times

Photo by Robyn Jackson, Dine', Censored News
Rolling Stone featured this scene in its top photos, is Navajo Times censoring it?

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Why does Navajo Times have this article, 'Groundbreaking, Hawaiian blessing for telescope' -- instead of an article about the Native Hawaiian protest over the telescope desecrating the sacred mountain Mauna Kea? http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2014/10/native-hawaiians-protest-telescope-on.html
Navajo Times posted an AP article on this serious issue of desecrating the sacred mountain. As usual, AP is promoting the government and corporate interests instead of Indigenous rights and protection of Mauna Kea. By reposting AP's US and corporate spin, Navajo Times becomes part of the violation of the sacred mountain.
I was looking at Navajo Times to see if they covered the Dine' women who were featured in Rolling Stone and on Democracy Now at Flood Wall Street in New York. I don't see anything about Navajos at Flood Wall Street or the Climate March in New York. But I do see that Navajo Times has a non-Indian reporter covering the Longest Walk and prison camp, 'Hwéeldi at 150.' 
Why is this? There are so many unemployed Navajo and Native American reporters, why does Navajo Times continue to employ non-Indian reporters? Besides the ethics of this, it is a violation of Navajo Preference in Employment law.
The Dine' women at Flood Wall Street and the Climate March in New York in September took a bold stand against the dirty coal industry and the violators in their homeland: Peabody Coal and dirty coal-fired power plants.
Is Navajo Times censoring the fact that the Navajo Generating Station, on the Navajo Nation, is one of the top polluters in the world? It is easy to fill a newspaper with political turmoil, a good way to distract readers from what is really happening as a result of the dirty coal power plants on the Navajo Nation.

Update: Protesters halt telescope groundbreaking

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20141007_Groundbreaking_delayed_for_Hawaii_telescope.html

Brenda Norrell is publisher of Censored News and served as a staff writer at Navajo Times and stringer for AP in the 1980s. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years and has been a news reporter for 32 years.

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