Fort Peck Journal

The "Fort Peck Journal" is a weekly newspaper on the Fort Peck Reservation. It is based in Poplar, Montana and it is one of four newspapers on the Fort Peck Reservation.

Though it is not officially tribal media, it is Native American owned and covers the affairs of the Fort Peck Tribes and its surrounding entities. It has a circulation of 1,600 in five communities in eastern Montana and western North Dakota.

The Journal was founded April 2006, after Bonnie Red Elk, editor of the Fort Peck Tribes weekly newspaper the "Wotanin Wowapi", was fired for questioning the tribal chairman using tribal dollars for personal travels to Florida.

History of the Journal

The story of the Fort Peck Journal starts in March 2006.

Fort Peck Tribal newspaper editor Bonnie Red Elk called the tribal chairman John Morales when he was in Florida for a story about him conducting business in the Sunshine State, as tribal documents were sent overnight for him to review. Morales warned Red Elk that there were going to be changes at the tribal newspaper when he got back to Montana.

Two days later, the Wotanin ran a story about the chairman conducting tribal business from Florida. Morales returned and immediately rumors began circulating that Red Elk was going to be fired for questioning the chairman.

On March 28 during the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board meeting, Morales officially fired Red Elk. Several TEB members, the governing body on the Fort Peck Reservation, spoke up against her firing but it did no good. Morales terminated Red Elk for failing a drug test. He immediately appointed Iris Allrunner and Lois Red Elk Reed, two of his staunchest political supporters, to the editorship of the paper. The doors to the office were barricaded and the locks were changed.

Like somebody died

The night she was fired, people began showing up at her house. Cars were parked around the houses, which is a common sight in Poplar when somebody dies. Red Elk herself said that people were coming by and giving condolences and sending food for her children.

Many of the reporters also walked out when Red Elk was fired, all of them viewing it as "dictatorship."

When life hands you lemons, you make beef stew

Within a week of being fired, Red Elk had started the Fort Peck Journal, which proclaims on their flag as being "a new independent voice on the Fort Peck Reservation."

The first issue was a sell out, every copy sold by the following day. They soon switched to a tabloid sized paper, which is part of its uniqueness today as the other area newspapers are broadsheet.

The first edition of the paper was published out of a tiny print shop in Nashua, an hour away from Poplar. Word of mouth got about fast, and Red Elk and the advertising representative Marian Montclair were greeted by eager people who wanted to see the new paper.

The first issue was sold for 50 cents. The next week the price was bumped up to $1.00 to meet the overwhelming demand for the paper, and people still bought it.

The week after that, the Journal printed its first tabloid sized sheet. The employees at the beginning had no office so the paper was put together on Red Elks kitchen table. Reporters worked for free in the beginning, until enough money could be built up to pay regular employees.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/472px-First FPJ.jpg]

Wotanin suffers

As the Journal grew in size and readership, the former popularity of the Wotanin Wowapi began to fall. Everywhere across the reservation there were large stacks of Wotanins. Journals sold out at every site they were sold.

There was also a noticeable change in the way news was presented in the Wotanin under the new editors. Everything negative about Morales or the tribal government was not printed. The chairman would go into the office every Wednesday before it was printed and would tell the reporters and typesetters what he wanted on the front page.

The police blatter, which regularly ran the names of people who were charged with crimes in tribal court, began to be censored. No names were published of any offenders.

The new editors were also accused of slanting news to make Morales look like saint.

TEB member resigns

In May, TEB member AT Stafnie resigned from the tribal executive board for health reasons. The Fort Peck Tribal constitution states that when a TEB seat is open, it is to be filled with the next highest vote getter, which was Rick Kirn. Morales refused to allow Kirn to fill the seat because of personal differences.

The Journal covered the story fairly, while the Wotanin treated it like it was nothing important. Coverage they did give of the issue told only the chairmans side of the story.

All of the events that followed resulted in months of coverage leading up to a general council, which acts like a supreme court on the Fort Peck Reservation.

During a general council, all enrolled tribal members gather and they will vote on issues that can't be decided by the TEB. Though the constitution says that the seat has to be filled with the next highest vote getter, Morales refused to allow Kirn to fill the seat and the TEB were afraid of him and didn't speak up to defend the constitution.

Every front page from the time Stafne retired had stories about the constitutional crisis on Fort Peck. Each issue had at least one mention of a general council that was called for by Morales and his supporters.

Media war

Aside from the war between the chairman and his supporters and supporters of the constitution, there was also a media war going on between the two newspapers in Poplar.

Coverage of events and tribal government news varied greatly between the two papers. General news stories were hardly ever done. There were virtually no spot news photos, and much of their news was just press release.

The two Wotanin editors were spreading rumors about the Fort Peck Journal, at one point saying that if anyone bought the Journal they were supporting drugs. They called it the "drug journal" and did everything in their power to try to discredit the paper.

In July, Morales issued a memo saying that all tribal programs that had advertisements or news releases had to take them ONLY to the Wotanin. He ordered all of the Fort Peck Tribal police officers to not speak with any outside media without his approval.

Yet despite all the opposition, the paper continued to grow. More and more people were subscribing and more and more people were pulling their advertisements from the Wotanin and taking them to the Journal.

At this time, the main focus of all the media attention was the general council called for by Morales. Each paper covered it differently, and the outcome of the media war was going to be at the general council.

Awarded for press freedom

On August 12, Journal owners Bonnie Red Elk and Marian Montclair were given the 'Wassajia Award' during the Native American Journalists Association annual conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The award was given to them in recognition of "courageous dedication to the citizens of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal Community and the rights of those citizens to a free and uncensored press."

The Wassajia Award is the highest honor bestowed from NAJA.

The final showdown

On August 27, the general council called for by Morales and his supporters was scheduled to happen that afternoon. It was here where all of the coverage by both papers would pay off, either the constitution would win or Morales would win.

Hundreds of people showed up from all across the reservation and during the gathering, everyone overwhelmingly voted NO to all of the items on the agenda.

On the main issue, weather to seat Rick Kirn, the people voted to have him fill the vacancy. A loud roar of applause, war whoops, and cheering filled the arena as the votes were read off. The election results were widely contributed to the dedicated and fair coverage of the issue in the pages of the Journal in the previous months.

Going digital

Near the end of September, the Journal waved good bye to manual layout with glue and cut up paper and went to a program that helped make layout 100 times faster.

Recently the Journal turned a year old and launched a new website to coincide with the one year anniversary.

[http://fpj.sarteck.com Fort Peck Journal Online]