Countywide : Native Americans Protest Times Policy
About 15 protesters picketed the offices of the Times Orange County Edition in Costa Mesa on Thursday, complaining about the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of Native Americans.
August Spivey, spokesman for Newport Beach-based American Indian Resistance, said his group is unhappy with what he described as The Times’ failure to identify Native Americans as a separate and distinct minority, particularly in stories containing statistics about various ethnic groups.
Times officials denied the newspaper’s coverage has been lacking.
Spivey’s group has called for a boycott of The Times until the newspaper improves its coverage of Native Americans.
“We are the most impoverished minority in America,” said Spivey, a Cherokee. “Statistics cause change. To list us as a race gives us back our history and gives us a future.”
Laura Morgan, a spokeswoman for The Times in Los Angeles, defended the paper’s coverage of Native Americans, adding that no one in the publisher’s office was aware of any calls for a meeting.
“The Times regularly reports on Native American affairs, covering a range of issues fairly and completely,” she said. “We are happy to have a dialogue with this group as we have with many others because we are always interested in ways to improve our coverage.”
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