Yearlong “Listening and Learning Tour Across Northeast Oklahoma Reservations” shows communities want timely news that helps them stay involved
(OKLAHOMA) Five stops, three different reservations, and more than 100 attendees gave Crosswinds News valuable insights into what Oklahoma’s Native communities are looking for in news coverage. The main takeaway? People want news that helps them stay involved in the community in a timely way, not just local recaps after the fact.
These insights and others are the results of the local news organization’s yearlong “Listening and Learning Tour Across Northeast Oklahoma”, held at different locations on the Muscogee, Cherokee, and Osage Reservations. The full findings are now public, along with recommendations for the future, in the recently released “Engaging with Native Communities: A Listening and Learning Tour Report 2025”.
“When I was on the Listening and Learning Tour, I kept hearing how important community-based news is for Native people,” said Trista Vaughn (United Keetoowah Band, Hualapai and Chickasaw), Community Engagement and Cultural Coordinator for Crosswinds News. “Many rely on social media and word of mouth to stay informed because local Native stories are often overlooked by mainstream outlets. At the end of the day people want news they can trust and see themselves in.”
One of the main goals of the tour was to survey the level of civic engagement of community members and the factors that impact it. Results from our online survey found 80 percent of people believe historic injustice influences their current level of community involvement.
Community members also reported they would be more civically engaged if they were included in conversations about policies and issues that had a direct effect on their lives.
Attendees in Eufaula, one of the four towns and cities visited, shared they often feel left out of local politics and development.
“The Indians are over here and everyone else is up there in town,” one community member reflected. “They never invite us to go to anything. They never ask us to anything.”
Concerns in Tahlequah, another tour stop, centered around environmental issues. In Tulsa, art was a main focus.
Participants at several stops expressed a greater desire for cultural coverage.
Crosswinds News President and CEO Kelly Tidwell (Muscogee and Cherokee) said the tour was important to serving Indigenous communities in the best ways possible, and insights from each tour stop will be used to inform future news coverage and community events.
“As a smaller, underfunded Native-owned news organization, we have to be very creative with what we can cover and how we cover it,” Tidwell said. “Reporting on news our communities want and need the most, making sure the messages are getting through and supporting community members in the storytelling and news delivery process are clearly the best paths forward. We are so appreciative of the community leaders who have partnered with us on this effort and opportunities like this to listen and learn together.”
In addition to gathering insights about news coverage and civic engagement, Crosswinds News also created a list of best practices following new insights into what works and what doesn’t while engaging Native communities.
These best practices include partnering with trusted Native community leaders, identifying and working around cultural calendars and ceremonies, lean into underserved areas (especially those your team is already connected to) and prioritizing cultural identity through activity.
Support from the Walton Family Foundation, American Press Institute, Listening Post Collective and Advancing Democracy made this project possible.
