Mark Trahant

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Mark Trahant is a journalist and the founding editor of Indian Country Today, an Indigenous-focused news operation.

External videos
Panel: "Stop Making Native People “Political Fodder”" on Democracy Now!, October 18, 2018

Trahant is a former Charles R. Johnson Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota. He is a citizen of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and a former president of the Native American Journalists Association.^[1] Trahant is the former editor of the editorial page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he chaired the daily editorial board, directed a staff of writers, editors and a cartoonist.^[2] He was chairman and chief executive officer at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.^[3] He is a former columnist at The Seattle Times and has been publisher of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News in Moscow, Idaho;^[4][5] executive news editor of The Salt Lake Tribune; a reporter at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix; and has worked at several tribal newspapers.^[2] He was an editor in residence at the University of Idaho. Trahant was a reporter on the PBS series Frontline with a documentary called "The Silence," about sexual abuse by clergy in Alaska.^[6] At the 2004 UNITY conference in Washington, D.C., he asked George W. Bush what the meaning of tribal sovereignty was in the 21st century; Bush replied, "Tribal sovereignty means that. It’s sovereign. You’re a ... you’re a ... you’ve been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity."^[7]

Trahant authored Pictures of Our Nobler Selves, a history of American Indian contributions to journalism published by Freedom Forum in 1996.^[8]

He contributed to a commissioned exhibit, The Whole Salmon, published by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in 2003.^[9] He also contributed a chapter to Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes, an anthology edited by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. and published in 2006.^[10]

His book The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars was published in 2010, dealing with the federal government's Indian termination policy and the rise of Native American self-determination in the mid-20th century.^[11]

Trahant, as a co-author of a series on federal Indian policy, was a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.^[2][12] Trahant’s awards and honors include Best Columnist from the Native American Journalists Association and the Society of Professional Journalists, a Ruhl Fellowship, and co-winner of the Heywood Broun Award. He was a 2009-2010 Kaiser Media Fellow.^[13] In 1995 Trahant was a visiting professional scholar at The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. He serves as a Trustee of the Diversity Institute, an affiliate of the Freedom Forum, based in Washington, D.C. Trahant was a juror for the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 and 2005.

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Trahant lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He is married to Jaynie Parrish.