High Country News is a small but venerable publication covering the western United States. Founded in Wyoming in 1970 and long based in Paonia, Colorado, HCN became known for its reporting on public lands, water, and environmental issues in the Mountain West and the Great Basin. Over the past 20 years, it has gradually become more magazine than newspaper and has expanded its lens to include the West Coast, urban subjects, cultural stories, and Indigenous perspectives.
This has echoed a broader shift in how many people think about the American West—not only as a territory of resource extraction and recreation for Anglo-American settlers but also as a highly urban region, as a transnational borderland, and, most of all, as Native homelands. HCN’s evolution has attracted new readers but has also generated friction with some people devoted to a different version of the magazine and the West itself. Twenty years ago, I was an editorial intern at HCN, and I later contributed some freelance articles to the publication.
In 2017, HCN established its Indigenous affairs desk. Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa) served as the desk’s first editor. Alongside tribal publications, intertribal outlets like Indian Country Today, and an uptick in Native stories in the mainstream media, HCN has emerged as a leading voice covering Native America. The magazine still focuses on environmental and public-lands issues, but it often features Indigenous points of view. Indigenous stories have been among HCN’s most significant: for example, the 2020 report “Land-Grab Universities,” by Ahtone and historian Robert Lee, detailed the ways land grant universities continue to profit from expropriated Native lands.
In the spring of 2024, Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi (Diné) became the Indigenous affairs editor. Clahchischiligi hails from the Navajo Nation, and in addition to her journalistic experience, she recently earned a PhD in rhetoric and writing from the University of New Mexico. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
This interview appears in Issue 29 of Alta Journal.
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JOSH GARRETT-DAVIS: You’re the new Indigenous affairs editor at High Country News. What background and perspective do you bring to this position?
SUNNIE R. CLAHCHISCHILIGI: An eclectic combination of journalistic, academic, and Diné lived experience is what I bring to this new role. Most of my career was spent working as a sports writer for the Navajo Times, the tribal newspaper on the Navajo Nation. Before I landed at the Times, I had six internships, including one at Sports Illustrated and another at the Salt Lake Tribune. In my internships, I started out as a business reporter, then moved on to night-cops-and-courts reporting before settling in as a sportswriter.
I never planned to be an editor. I loved being on the ground, working within the communities themselves and sharing stories from them, which is something I did throughout my 12-year career at the Navajo Times. But over time, a good friend of mine managed to convince me to give it a try. I found editing to be very rewarding, mostly because it allowed me to work with other Indigenous journalists and to be a mentor to them while still being involved in the everyday workings of journalism.
In fact, I somewhat retired from journalism when I started my PhD program at the University of New Mexico, but was forced out of early retirement when the COVID pandemic settled into the Navajo Nation and when I saw the need for more accurate, culturally sensitive coverage.
My most valued perspectives and experiences come from the outside of journalism. I was born and raised on the Navajo Nation and attended boarding school for nine years. I have strong ties to my community, and any chance I get to be there, that’s where you’ll find me, among the people and community that raised me. Working in my own community and for the tribal newspaper allowed me to get a true sense of the perspectives of most Indigenous communities: what they value, how they want to be seen, and how they see the world they live in and how they see the world around them. Conversations had while at a weaving event or a community gathering, or even within my own family, have shaped the knowledge and perspective I carry with me in all that I do.
I also bring in some experience and perspective of an academic. The academic world for a Diné female doctoral student studying one of the oldest disciplines in academia can be rough, to put it nicely. Using the skills learned from navigating that world has been a true asset for me in this role, as I still find myself being the only Indigenous person in a managerial position in many rooms I enter.
The way I look at it is that when I walk, wherever it may be, I don’t walk alone. I am never alone. I carry with me all of the experiences and knowledge acquired throughout my lifetime as well as those who have helped me get to this point. These experiences and perspectives are most grounded in my overall lived experiences as a Diné woman.
Where do you see HCN fitting into the broad practice of journalism today, from tribal and intertribal outlets to Indigenous coverage in national and international media?
The Indigenous affairs desk at HCN sits at the intersection of the journalistic landscape of tribal, national, and international media. In one way or another, we are all of these things. We marry the conscious and culturally aware approach of Indigenous journalism with the rigor and influence of national and international media. I like to think that we essentially assist in the initiative to Indigenize journalism.
How do Indigenous stories and perspectives complement or challenge the frame of the “American West” and the environmental issues that have historically been HCN’s area of focus?
We use Indigenous stories and perspectives to set the record straight and to lift the voices that have been ignored for far too long. Much of what is known about the West comes from a non-Indigenous perspective. With the Indigenous affairs desk at High Country News, we’ve created a space that encourages Indigenous voices to be heard through storytelling.
Take environmental issues in the West, for example. We don’t just tell stories about environmental issues happening in Indigenous communities but also take time to look at how stories outside of the IA desk, across HCN, are being considerate of the first stewards of the land. Simply put, we both challenge and complement the frame of the American West, except we don’t call it the American West. At HCN, it is known as the West.
Can you describe one or two recent or upcoming articles that are especially exciting to you?
The Indigenous affairs team recently published a collection of mini-profiles featuring Indigenous women throughout the West who are leaders in the climate change movement. The collection was part of our special climate issue that was published in January. It was important and exciting for a number of reasons. It was a team effort by the Indigenous affairs desk, and while we did not initially intend for it to feature all Indigenous women, it ended up working out that way. That was important because it really spoke to how valuable Indigenous women are to their communities and how they are often front and center in defending the land and, ultimately, their people.
In news media more generally, what are some obstacles and opportunities for Indigenous journalists and Indigenous coverage that you see right now?
While all Indigenous journalists are different and have their own unique lived experiences, we sometimes run into similar obstacles. We are still often looked at as sources and not taken seriously as storytellers. While more opportunities have opened up over the years, there are still many Indigenous journalists looking for opportunities to tell stories in and outside of their communities and Indigenous communities in general. There is also still a lack of understanding of the need for Indigenous journalism and journalists and a lack of appreciation for what we have to offer to the industry as a whole. Indigenous journalists are in unique positions to tell stories in a way that is thoughtful and considerate of the voices and perceptions that have long been ignored, the voices within Indigenous communities and the voices of Indigenous journalists who are telling those very stories.
In terms of coverage, having access to data and information related to Indigenous communities has been a continuous obstacle. Much of the information needed to tell many of the stories within Indigenous communities is not available to us, which can make the work that we do challenging. There is much to cover when it comes to Indigenous communities and people, but without resources and opportunity, many stories remain untold.
How do you envision Native coverage at HCN evolving in coming years?
Those who came before me all had their specific areas of interest and strengths that were reflected in the coverage, and the same will happen under my guidance. I bring a somewhat different perspective, as I am the first Indigenous woman to lead the team. Audiences will continue to see some of the things they’ve enjoyed reading from the Indigenous affairs team but will also read stories that they may not have envisioned coming from the IA desk. Personally, it’s never really been my style to look too far ahead, as the future is unpredictable. But what I can say is that the team as a whole will be influential in how our coverage will evolve, as we are in a unified effort to tell the stories that are most important to the communities we serve, the Indigenous communities of the West.•
Josh Garrett-Davis is the H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western American History at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. He has curated various museum exhibitions and programs and is the author of the book What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination.
