Suzette Brewer (Cherokee), an award-winning writer who has extensively covered the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), environmental issues on Indian reservations, the opioid crisis, and violence against Native women and children, will advise students and attendees about best practices when reporting on ICWA and other issues of sensitivity in Native communities.

Her keynote address will be followed by a panel discussion of students, local journalists and other experts who will examine and discuss the issues and their importance to both Native and non-Native audiences.

Admission to the symposium is free to all NAJA, SPJ, and PEN America members.

6 p.m., Thursday, February 28

Gaylord Hall

University of Oklahoma

Norman, Oklahoma

The event will be preceded by a Videography Basics workshop lead by Cheyenne and Arapaho TV producer and host Darren Brown (Cochiti Pueblo / Choctaw). His workshop will cater to current professionals who want to introduce or advance video shooting and publishing into their media outlet. The workshop will teach the basics of producing short video news packages for publishing to the web or social media. The workshop is free to NAJA members.

Videography Basics

Instructor: Darren Brown

3 – 5 p.m.

Gaylord Hall

About Suzette Brewer: Brewer is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and an award-winning writer specializing in several areas of federal Indian law, including the Indian Child Welfare Act, environmental issues on Indian reservations, the opioid crisis, and violence against Native women and children. She has written for The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, the Denver Business Journal, among others. Her published books include Real Indians: Portraits of Contemporary Native Americans and America’s Tribal Colleges;Sovereign: An Oral History of Indian Gaming in America. She is the 2015 recipient of the NAJA Richard LaCourse-Gannett Foundation Al Neuharth Investigative Journalism Award for her work on the Indian Child Welfare Act. She is also a 2018 John Jay/Tow Juvenile Justice Reporting Fellow.