Beyond Fires & Floods, Pt 3
MEDIA INDIGENA 368 // Synopsis
Part 3 of Beyond Fires and Floods (BFF) features the opening portion of ‘Storytellers Without Borders,’ the first in our second day’s sessions, where we discuss what and whom climate change stories currently serve—to what extent is what we’re experiencing global change or continuity? As inheritors of a world wrought by centuries of extraction and colonialism, the deeply globalized structures and systems we now live in and with are the consequence of competing empires’ efforts to terraform our territories. Yet so much of mainstream climate journalism is confined to nationalist narratives of technosaviourism, where petro-states promise a pivot to eco-states in hopes of preserving the socio-economic status quo. In this session—featuring panelists Tristan Ahtone, Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Deborah McGregor, and Stephanie Wood—we explored why our narrative lens(es) on climate change must be commensurate with the scale of global forces driving it.
LISTEN > https://pod.fo/e/3fbe13
PANELISTS
Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and is Editor at Large at Grist. He previously served as Editor in Chief at the Texas Observer and Indigenous Affairs editor at High Country News. He has reported for Al Jazeera America, PBS NewsHour, Indian Country Today, and NPR to name a few. Ahtone’s stories have won multiple honours, including a George Polk Award, a National Magazine Award nomination, and investigative awards from the Gannett Foundation and IRE: Investigative Reporters and Editors. A past president of the Indigenous Journalists Association, Ahtone is a 2017 Nieman Fellow.
Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson is a Pacific Islander climate journalist and scholar covering the Pacific for The Guardian. She was the first Pacific Islander recipient of the Covering Climate Now Journalism Award for her series, “An Impossible Choice,” exploring the existential impacts of climate change on Pacific communities. Lagipoiva is Editor at Large of The New Atoll and was formerly Climate Collaborations Editor for the Associated Press. At 25, she became the youngest editor of a national newspaper in Samoa. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, the Samoa Observer, and the New Zealand Herald. A Fellow of the Reuters Institute, Google News Initiative, and the Dart Center for Trauma and Journalism, she is a Scholar in Residence and Professor of Pacific Island Studies at Portland State University. Lagipoiva leads a project on Indigenous AI, developing safeguards to protect Indigenous knowledge in climate coverage while centering Pacific voices in global journalism.
Deborah McGregor, Anishinabe, Whitefish River First Nation, Professor, University of Calgary. Dr. McGregor’s research has focused on Indigenous knowledge systems in diverse contexts including environmental and water governance, environmental and climate justice, health and Anishinaabe legal traditions. She remains actively involved in a variety of First Nation initiatives, continuing to serve as an advisor and engaging in community-based research and initiatives
Stephanie Wood is a citizen of Sḵwx̱ úmesh Nation and a reporter at The Narwhal, where she focuses on Indigenous Rights and community-oriented features. Her work has earned awards from the Canadian Journalism Foundation, the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Digital Publishing Awards. She was on the writing team for the Sḵwx̱ úmesh history book tina7 cht ti temíxw: We Come From This Land, which won the City of Vancouver Book Award. She has worked with MEDIA INDIGENA, CBC, The Tyee and CiTR 101.9fm. She lives on Sḵwx̱ úmesh territory, also known as North Vancouver.
To learn more about BFF: Beyond Fires & Floods, including our core sponsors, visit our BFF home page.
