Professor Azocar Discusses Media Coverage of Major Native American Protest

THE ROOT -- In 2002 and 2003, Cristina L. Azocar, a member of the Upper Mattaponi tribe who now chairs the Journalism Department at San Francisco State University, conducted the Native American Journalists Association’s first “Reading Red” reports examining mainstream news coverage of American Indians. Both reports documented the poor job often done by large mainstream media outlets at covering Native topics. Azocar told Journal-isms on Wednesday that was still the case. About the pipeline protest, she said, “Almost all of the news I’ve had about it was through social media and points to Native news sites until today. After Lawrence O’Donnell covered it, it seemed to gain some steam.” O’Donnell delivered a commentary August 25 on his “The Last Word” on MSNBC.