By
Mallary Jean Tenore When NPR's
Laura Sullivan read in an Amnesty International
report that Native American women are two-and-a-half times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other women, she wanted to know
the story behind the facts. For four months, Sullivan followed the case of Leslie Ironroad, a 20-year-old Native American woman who was raped and murdered on the
Standing Rock Sioux reservation in South Dakota.
For her two-part story, which just won a
Dart Award for excellence in reporting on trauma, Sullivan interviewed dozens of Native Americans, state medical examiners and hospital officials to find out what happened to Ironroad and why there was no investigation into her rape and murder.
She interviewed tribal police and reported on a startling fact: In sexual abuse cases involving Native American women, the most common rape offenders are non-native males who almost always go unpunished because tribal police can't charge non-Native Americans with crimes. Often, federal officials who can do something, don't.
I interviewed Sullivan via e-mail to hear more about what went into covering this story and about the challenges she faced in reporting in-depth on a culture that was not her own.
Tenore: How did you find out about this story? Sullivan: This story stemmed from an Amnesty International report on Native American women. It led me to startling statistics from the Justice Department that one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime.
What challenges did you face during the reporting process? How did you handle them? Sullivan: This series posed three distinct challenges: medical records that by law are secret, Indian tribes that were at first hesitant to grant access to report the story and recalcitrant law enforcement officials who for the most part declined to be interviewed about this topic.
My producer Amy Walters and I were able to piece together Leslie Ironroad's story based on documents and later interviews with the state medical examiners, hospital officials and more than a dozen people familiar with the incident. We were also leaked confidential correspondence from the Justice Department, and we spoke to federal officials on background, which confirmed the dismal efforts of federal officials on tribal lands.
When it came to gaining the trust of the Native American tribes, it was a matter of getting on the ground and knocking on doors. It was a long process of meeting one person and asking that person to introduce us to someone else. When we showed that we were willing to spend the time really getting to know people, every door we needed to pass through opened up.
You report that more than 80 percent of Native American victims describe their attackers as non-Native men. These men have been described as "untouchable" because tribal police can't charge non-Indians with crimes. What sorts of legal actions/changes have been made since you reported this information? Sullivan: On September 27, 2007 the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing on crime on Indian reservations. Senator Byron Dorgan of New Mexico plans to introduce legislation aimed at clarifying the maze of jurisdictional issues that cloud prosecutions. In Oklahoma, federal authorities have set up a hot line to improve reporting and investigation of crimes on native lands.
In addition, the response to the series from listeners was immediate and heartening. Listeners flooded the women's shelter in South Dakota with thousands of dollars in donations, and several set up a Web site to continue to raise money. One couple donated the money they received from their anniversary celebration to the shelter.
What sorts of cultural issues did you have to address and become familiar with? Sullivan: I think the thing that jumps out most for me is the issue of time. Amy and I were both used to the fast-paced way you generally go about a story. Call up, schedule an interview, get the information you need. In places like Standing Rock, that's not the way things work. I think within two hours of arriving there, we realized we were going to have to completely refigure how we were going to go about reporting this story. Interviewing people meant spending a day with them on their ranch, in their living room or even walking with them outdoors, and that was before you actually sit down to ask questions.
Trust is given slowly, and scheduled appointments mean nothing. There was a lot of waiting and a lot of driving around to find someone we had been scheduled to talk to because they weren't there and someone had heard they were over at so-and-so's house. Looking back on it, in some ways, I think partly it was a test, to see how much we were really going to invest in getting the real story. But once you made a connection and earned their trust, we couldn't believe how willing people were to open their doors, families and lives to us, and how involved almost everyone became in helping us report the story. People would call us and say, I was thinking about you guys, you really need to talk to so-and-so ... I'll take you over to her house.
What ethical decisions did you have to make? Sullivan: There were a lot of privacy issues as with any story about rape. But there were also issues about how much to tape what are usually quite private Native American ceremonies, like the sweat lodge at the end of the second story. We had a long conversation about how to include parts of this amazing ceremony without violating the trust of the people who let us tape parts of it.
Both parts of the story address a variety of diversity-related topics -- racism, social injustice, reservation issues. What did you learn about covering diversity-related issues while reporting this story? Sullivan: What I expected to find turned out to be true. Most people want to help people, and they join in whatever efforts they can to stop human suffering.
Have you seen any other news organizations report on this?
Sullivan: Local newspapers, The Associated Press,
The New York Times.
What surprised you during the reporting process? Sullivan: How big a problem this issue really is. It's different when you see numbers in terms of people.
What, if anything, would you do differently next time when reporting a story like this? Sullivan: Not stay in the sweat lodge as long as I did! I was five months pregnant. I am indebted forever to Amy, who sweated it out for the entire four-hour ceremony and earned the men and women's respect and trust. Our story would have had no end, were it not for her.
