Mirror wins 3 awards for covering Arizona's Indigenous communities
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Shondiin Silversmith and the Arizona Mirror took home three awards in the Indigenous Journalists Association's annual journalism contest.
Silversmith, who began working for the Mirror covering Arizona's Indigenous communities in 2021, was honored on June 12 for her work covering the continuing fallout from the state's sober living home fraud crisis, the challenges that Indigenous voters face when heading to the polls and the role that tribal culture plays for 2SLGTBQ+ people.
She was awarded first place for Best Editorial in the IJA contest's professional category for her reporting on the Election Day challenges that Navajo voters had to overcome in order to cast their ballots in 2024. Through the course of her reporting on the day's activities, Silversmith spent nearly 10 hours in her car and logged more than 250 miles as she visited just 10 polling locations.
'On average, the polling stations within the Navajo Nation are about 20 to 30 miles apart, depending on the part of the reservation you live in. But there are places where people may have to drive up to an hour — one way — just to vote,' she wrote.
Silversmith also earned a second place for Best Longform/Magazine Story for her continued coverage of the challenges Native people and communities are facing because of the massive Medicaid fraud that victimized tribal members and that state leaders turned a blind eye to for years.
For the story, she followed volunteers who scoured the streets of Phoenix to find people who had been displaced after the sober living homes they were living in were abruptly shut down when officials cracked down on the Medicaid fraud. 'We're going through genocide,' one of the activists told her about how bad the crisis has gotten.
And she was honored with another second place award for Best Two-Spirit Coverage — an Indigenous term that broadly encompasses LGBTQ+ people — for her reporting on Pride celebrations in tribal communities across Arizona, from the large Navajo Nation to the tiny Hualapai Tribe.
'It's really good to be able to see our own people coming together, not only to celebrate pride but to celebrate their own people that live and work in their community,' one Tohono O'odham celebrant told her.
The Indigenous Journalists Association, which was formed in 1983 and originally known as the Native American Press Association, serves and empowers Native journalists through programs and actions designed to enrich journalism and promote Native cultures. Its annual journalism contest recognizes excellence in coverage of Indigenous communities and issues that directly affect Native peoples.
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