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News from Indian Country is a nationwide publication of Indian Country Communications (ICC) that offers, according to its web site, "national, cultural, and regional sections plus special interest articles, features, entertainment, letters, nationwide obituaries and births, and the most up-to-date pow-wow directory in the United States and Canada."
Published from the resort community of Northwoods Beach, on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin, the twice-monthly paper represents itself as the oldest established Indian-oriented newspaper in the United States. Managing editor and Indian Country Communications Chief Executive Officer Paul DeMain started the newspaper in the late 1980s after returning to the Lac Courte Oreille area from Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked as Indian Affairs advisor for the Wisconsin governor at the time, Tony Earl.
First editions of the fledgling paper were mailed to subscribers of the former "WOJB Program Guide," a listeners' guide for the nearby radio station WOJB-FM, a service of Lac Courte Oreilles Public Broadcasting. Nationwide attention to jurisdictional conflicts over tribal treaty rights in Wisconsin and Minnesota helped the new publication spread its reach, while a rapidly spreading Indian gaming industry provided a source of advertising revenue. Emerging desk-top publishing- and information-management technology allowed the paper to keep up with an expanding market.
More recently, DeMain's News From Indian Country has broken stories related to the investigation of murders during the 1970s at the Pine Ridge Reservation, including those of American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, and FBI Special Agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack Coler. In 2002, The Native American Journalists Association Board of Directors recognized DeMain for reporting on imprisoned activist Leonard Peltier and the murder of Pictou-Aquash. DeMain was awarded the Wassaja Award, which salutes courage shown by journalists covering Indian country.
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