Welcome to the Native Media Center!

Founded in 1990, the University of North Dakota School of Communication Native Media Center has a long history of teaching communication skills to Native Americans.  The Native Media Center serves as a source for news, features, and other information about Native peoples within an online newsmagazine, The Red Nation News.

The NMC was founded on the premise that a huge disparity in the number of Native American media professionals exists. According to the 2007 Native American Journalists Association’s “Reading Red Report 2007,” there are still only one-half of one percent of the journalists in the U.S. that are Native American. That figure is an ill-representation of the overall population of Native Americans in the U.S (about 2.5%).

Our programs are designed to change that figure. 

The Native Media Center’s mission is to promote diversity in the field of communication by increasing awareness of American Indian issues among mainstream media professionals, attracting Native students into journalism and communication careers.

The vision of the Native Media Center is to become the primary source of communication education, training, and technical assistance for Native American communities through working in partnership with the School of Communication, the University of North Dakota, area secondary schools, mainstream media, American Indian reservations, tribal colleges and other Native institutions in the Upper Midwest region.

We want to build a future of leadership that is prepared and ready to face contemporary challenges of Native Americans. Building strong leadership skills in Native American youth is achieved through the Native Community Studios, a two and a half day workshop that teaches youth, tribal college students and media professionals skills they can take back to their communities and share.

The Native Media Center is funded in part with a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This year, the Otto Bremer Foundation has awarded the Native Media Center a three-year grant to fund the Native Community Studios.  Our excellence in building strong communication skills shows in the dedication of our sponsoring foundations.