VERMILLION, S.D.- In the middle of the night, a plane crash introduced the world to the Navajo Times.
A military jet crash awoke a small community on the Navajo Nation in Arizona. And Mark Trahant, the tribal newspaper editor, joined his reporter and photographer as the first journalists on the scene. A roadblock and FBI agents did not stop them from taking the only photos of the crash.
"One day a little paper found its way to be excellent," said Trahant, a Freedom Forum trustee and head of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.
Trahant spoke Monday at the University of South Dakota before an audience comprised largely of students from the Freedom Forum-sponsored American Indian Journalism Institute and high school students from another program, the Math and Science Initiative Program.
In relating his plane crash story, Trahant told his dinner audience that the Associated Press and Arizona Republic used the photos taken by the Navajo Times staffers. And he knew that his small daily newspaper had found its light and a meaningful lesson.
"On any one day, a newspaper can be the best newspaper in the world," said Trahant, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe of Idaho.
As he spoke of his own experiences in the mainstream and tribal media, Trahant urged students to consider working for smaller newspapers and underscored the power that tribal newspapers have.
"I love community newspapers," said Trahant, who talked of the differences between writing for a tribal newspaper and mainstream media.
"When you write about someone on the reservation, you have to have coffee with them the next day," Trahant said. He encouraged students to strive to establish a tribal newspaper on their reservations. "It's going to be tough road but do it anyway."
A former columnist at the Seattle Times, Trahant explained why he resigned more than a year and a half ago from what he thought was the best job he ever had. As a columnist, he wrote on a variety of issues concerning the west but could not avoid being caught in the middle of a newspaper strike. Unwilling to cross the picket line at his newspaper, he also could not bring himself to join the strikers.
"I thought the union was wrong so I resigned," said Trahant, author of "Pictures of Our Nobler Selves," a book about Native American journalism.
Asked about a key issue that will face journalists in the near future, Trahant mentioned Native American water rights and added that the issue is nothing new. In 1977, Trahant had the opportunity to attend his first national news conference and asked then-Vice President Walter Mondale a question about water rights.
As a young reporter for a tribal paper, Trahant said, he had to push to make himself heard above the national media accompanying Mondale, and he described how he purchased an overcoat to hide the casual clothes he was wearing at the news conference. But when Mondale dodged his question about water rights, Trahant told Monday's audience he was disappointed.
"Damn," Trahant said. "I bought a rain coat and he didn't even answer my question."