‘Working for [Indigenous Media] Is Like Coming Home’: A Conversation With Karen Lincoln Michel

In recent years, an unprecedented number of women of color have risen to executive and shot-calling positions in news media in the United States — but their representation is still far below their proportion of the population. The Women’s Media Center’s recently released report, “Women of Color in U.S. News Leadership 2023,” includes interviews with 20 history-making women of color news executives in television, print, digital media, and radio who shed light on how they have navigated their careers in media, the ways in which they create inclusive workplaces, and why it is crucial for news media staffs to reflect the diversity of their audiences. Below are excerpts from our conversation with Karen Lincoln Michel, president and CEO of IndiJPublic Media and president of ICT (formerly known as Indian Country Today).

Before becoming president and CEO of IndiJ Public Media and president of ICT in January 2020, Karen Lincoln Michel refined her skills — and climbed the ladder — at a succession of news organizations.

She started as a reporter at the La Crosse Tribune in her home state of Wisconsin, alternately covering higher education, the environment, minority affairs, and the Ho-Chunk Nation, her own tribe.

Her management gigs in mainstream media included being publisher and executive editor of Madison Magazine in Wisconsin; executive editor of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, Louisiana; and assistant managing editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, also in her home state.

Michel has served as president of UNITY: Journalists of Color; as president of the Native American Journalists Association, which recently became the Indigenous Journalists Association; and on the board of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

She’s grateful for the route she has taken and, most especially, her current stop at Arizona-based ICT, formerly known as Indian Country Today.

This is an abridged version of Michel’s conversation with the Women’s Media Center.

On what grounded her news reporting in mainstream newsrooms: The teachings and the values of my Ho-Chunk people. I was raised and brought up with those values.

I came to journalism because I saw the need for Native people to be involved in journalism. As I practiced mainstream journalism, I grappled internally with its values.

Native journalists provide that historical context. We know our communities. So we know the questions to ask, we know what’s important. Our communities are very complex, given their ties to the federal government and federal policies. Those nuances, we understand.

And if you don’t know the nuance, if you don’t take time to find that out, then your coverage is inconsistent. It’s inaccurate. It reduces the story to the stereotypes of Native people and communities.

On her leadership style: When I got to run my own newsroom, on the first day, I told my staff, ‘We’re going to operate on some basic core values. One of them is that we’ll have respect for each other, our individuality, and where we each come from.’

It’s important that we not talk to people any kind of way ... that we respect, for instance, different religious holidays and, for the Native community, different ceremonies and what they mean. We need to have policies in place — that are firmly supported and practiced — that allow for differences. There can’t be a single way of doing things because that doesn’t take staff diversity into account.

On how her path to the C-suite seems (but really isn’t) accidental: I didn’t have a plan to be on the business side, or even to be a leader. Opportunities came my way. And when they did, I wanted to do my best in that particular job. And at every level of opportunity, I always thought, ‘This is going to be the pinnacle, this will be as far as I rise.’

Opportunity would just come along. That seemed to be a pattern throughout my career. And others encouraged me. Sometimes others see the talent in you first. They help to prepare you for the next step toward being a leader or taking more responsibility.

On what she loves about her current job: ICT and its parent company, IndiJ Public Media, are experiencing a lot of growth.

We’re expanding from two bureaus to nine. We just opened a bureau in Montana in April 2023, and we have plans to open another bureau in the Northwest in the fall. We also have a newscast five days a week that goes out across PBS stations and public television stations in Australia. We are trying to make sure that as many people as possible see our content. There’s a lot of excitement around that.

There’s also the fact that we’re trying to build a different kind of company, one that’s built on Indigenous values. Our executive team and board members identified seven values that we are building our company on, and incorporating those values into the workplace.

All of the values resonate with me. But one value that I’d say most newsrooms don’t have is humility. There are different interpretations of what humility is. For me, it is really knowing who you are as a person, your strengths and weaknesses; it’s knowing that we’re all equal.

Knowing that we’re in this together creates a better atmosphere.

On how her career has come full circle: When I was going to public school, I often was the only Native person or I was one of very few. I tried but couldn’t reconcile the values and priorities I was raised with with those of the larger society. They were at odds with each other. My worldview was different.

I got my degree in journalism, then started down a career path in newspapers, in mainstream media, where the values also were different. Internally, I was always grappling with that.

Working for ICT is like coming home.