Tim Giago tells life, journalism experiences

Giago spoke for 1 ½ hours to a crowd of Chadron State College students, employees and Chadron community members at Memorial Hall.

Giago said his first venture in newspaper ownership would be frowned upon by many businessmen. With a $4,000 loan granted with the collateral of his friend’s car, he started the Lakota Times in 1981 with interest rates hovering around 20 percent in Shannon County which had recently been named the poorest county in the United States.

“My goal was to start a newspaper that was honest, open and never practiced censorship,” he said.

Battling threats, attempts of murder and arson, Giago’s newspaper gained both respect and notoriety. In 1992, the newspaper changed its name to Indian Country Today, went national, and distributed as many as 100,000 newspapers per month.

Giago said that South Dakota’s three American Indian newspapers have declined in both quality and journalistic integrity through the years, and that he is glad entrepreneurs Bat and Patty Pourier are giving financial backing to the new Lakota Times, based in Kyle, S.D. The first edition rolled off the presses this week.

Giago granted the Lakota Times name to the new publication, the same name of the newspaper that he bagan more than 20 years ago.

Giago said he expects the new publication, which is edited and published by his former employee Amanda Takes War Bonnet, to provide the Pine Ridge Reservation with needed unbiased reporting based on “honesty, integrity and no censorship.”

Giago related his pride in giving American Indians a voice through his newspaper. It is largely through his newspaper’s persuasive efforts that South Dakota celebrates Native American Day.

He said the American Indian vote is taken much more seriously now, and that turnout is much higher for state and national elections than it was when he first began the Lakota Times.

The influence of American Indian vote was evident earlier this year when Giago entered the race for U.S. Senate against incumbent Tom Daschle and challenger John Thune.

Giago said that he dropped out of the race after Daschle agreed to conditions that would help American Indians, including appointing an Indian to a post for economic development and arranging the first Sioux Summit for federal government officials and tribal presidents.

If Giago had stayed in the hotly contested race, it was projected that many of the valued American Indian votes for Daschle would have gone to the former newspaper publisher instead.

Giago began his presentation by talking about his childhood experiences at Holy Rosary School.

Although he said the teachers at his childhood school were excellent educators, the students didn’t learn about tribal government and some of the most significant events involving Lakota history, including the massacre at Wounded Knee.

He also said the school was detrimental to many of his schoolmates because they were taught that numerous aspects of their lives, from their “religion to their language was wrong.”

“All of us left there confused about who we were,” he said.

Giago is hopeful that the Sioux Summit will be conducted every two years to combat the poor social conditions of the Indians if Daschle is elected.

“We have 80 percent unemployment and some two-bedroom houses with four to six families living in them,” he said.

Giago said it was disheartening to print obituaries of people each week who had died in their 40s.

Giago also planned to participate in a roundtable discussion Friday at the Nebraska Museums Association Conference at Chadron State.