Features

In small, forgotten towns of the Gulf Coast, a reporter tells the stories she heard amid the hurricane’s devastation.

‘The first step is admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know.’

‘Class and race are inextricably bound up in New Orleans, and trying to make sense of it was as hard as trying to get accurate information.’

‘The human element was accentuated, and the best of the writing was impressionistic.’

‘I often reflect on my work as a journalist and wonder if I’ve some inherent genetic code that comes from this time-honored practice.’

Some reporters didn’t understand the implications of tribal sovereignty when they went to the Red Lake Indian Reservation to report this story.

‘… access would be easier to achieve if reporters had been there to cover some of the more routine stories that had taken place on the reservation.’

A reporter returns home—to a troubled reservation—to write about what happened to its land and people.

In a journalism class at the University of Montana, students report from the state’s Indian Country, and their words and images are published.

To report this story meant ‘immersing ourselves in a system of government and a way of life that, shamefully, we knew little about.’