[imgbelt img=Digital-Sub-monitor-pdf.jpg]
Rob Capriccioso is a reporter for Indian Country Today, the mainline paper covering American tribes and tribal land. He covers Washington, D.C. Trouble is, he can’t get press credentials to cover Congress. “Not because the powers that be say we’re advocacy-oriented, but because they flat out equate tribes as foreign governments and/or lobbyists. No exceptions,” Capriccioso writes. “Because the paper I work for is owned by a company that’s owned by a tribe, somehow that means our journalism is tainted.”
It’s weird. These day’s anybody can open a web site and become a “reporters,” of course. But Indian Country Today is established. It is now owned by the Oneida Nation of New York.
Capriccioso is being denied credentials because of who owns his newspaper — because it is owned by a Native American tribe.