OPINION: The incomparable legacy of Nellie Moore

Editor’s note: The following commentary is adapted from remarks the author made at the memorial for pioneering Inupiaq journalist Nellie Moore, who died earlier this year. Moore was recently recognized by the Alaska Press Club, which awarded her its First Amendment Award for her decades-long service to journalism and helping foster Alaska Native voices in news.

If Nellie Moore were still my editor, this would have certainly been shorter, but in her absence, you’ll have to bear with me.

This morning, looking at the mountains, I thought about when Nellie and her husband, Greg, dropped off a big box of groceries on my doorstep after I’d been in Alaska only a few months, and they were worried that I didn’t have enough to eat. Watching birds at the feeder, I remembered walking through the parking lot of what was then the Sears Mall with Nellie. Ravens called out when we exited the building, and Nellie called back. They followed us across the entire parking lot — Nellie and the ravens having a discussion, other people staring. It was delightful and awe-inspiring.

I know if the situation were reversed, Nellie would have been right here to honor and support my family, as she did in 2006 when my mom was dying. It was another time in my life when I felt, as I do today, hollowed out by grief. I was making trips back and forth to the Midwest, feeling guilty about how far away I lived when my beloved mom was fighting a losing battle with cancer in Wisconsin. Nellie asked for mom and dad’s address — I figured she was going to send a card.

But instead of a simple note to bolster my mom’s spirits, Nellie made and sent a stunning quilt. Beautiful shades of soft reds and purples. There is a shiny red button heart in the center. It was incredibly soft and warm; my mom had that quilt wrapped around her until she left. Along with it, Nellie had written a beautiful letter with pictures of her family in it, telling mom how much joy they brought her and how proud she was of them all. She wrote about the important work we had done together and how much our friendship meant to her. I wrapped the quilt around me when I heard that Nellie had left. It helps me feel close to both of them.

I first started working with Nellie, long-distance, in the mid-1990s. I was a reporter and news director at tribal station WOJB on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibway reservation in northern Wisconsin, and Nellie was then the news director for KNBA and was the voice at the helm of National Native News.

She called one day to talk about the newscast and asked about tribal issues in the Midwest. She encouraged me to pitch stories to her as I traveled to tribal gatherings across Indian Country in the Lower 48.

I was a bit uncomfortable telling her I was white, wondering if that would change the discussion. She assured me it did not, that she was confident I would do good, ethical work. We both lamented the lack of Native journalists working in the country and a big part of my mission at WOJB was to train a tribal member to take my job. Nellie and I talked about ways to support those efforts. Eventually, that would lead me to Alaska and our attempts to start a broadcast training center for Alaska Native people to help diversify newsrooms.

Those early phone discussions were the beginning of at first a professional editor/reporter relationship. I learned so much from having her as an editor for those early stories I was doing as a non-Native person.

All my previous editors had been gruff old white guys — some of whom were good at their jobs, others, not so much. Some, at small midwestern papers were not interested in stories about tribal issues or edited them in a way that I could not accept, because it smacked too often of stereotypes and racism. I more often pulled the story than would allow them to run something that I knew to be incorrect. It made freelancing difficult and I needed extra work to supplement the modest wage the station could offer.

Nellie was the consummate professional, never trying to slant a story to favor the tribal perspective, as some other white editors had attempted in the opposite direction. She knew that trustworthy journalism is not advocacy, it’s contextualizing the truth so people can understand the issue, even if it’s not always comfortable or what you wish the facts were.

Telling the truth in our work was always her standard.

When we would discuss the lack of young Native people going into journalism, Nellie helped me understand what some of the cultural, social and economic barriers and biases were, and it further stoked my belief in working to uphold justice for all people.

I’m not a Native journalist, but I am the daughter of a dad who had a severe handicap, and I witnessed firsthand the cruelty of people who feel they can disrespect and “other” someone simply because of their physical appearance, skin color or ethnic background. Nellie was my like-minded sister.

I remember listening to Nellie speak to students about Native issues both in Alaska and across the country and world.

She repeatedly taught us that it wasn’t our job to make things look better than they were, even though the opposite had been too often true, such as the poor work of those small-town editors I mentioned earlier. She believed in the strength of honest reporting, and it was that conviction that led to us leaving Koahnic only months after my arrival in Alaska and starting Native Voice Communications.

That was an amazing time, all of us working in the offices of Sharon McConnell and Jeff Silverman’s business Blueberry Productions and the basement offices of Chancey Croft’s law office building in downtown Anchorage.

We covered the annual AFN convention exhaustively, built a daily headline newscast called Independent Native News that was eventually carried on more than 100 stations across the country and delivered online at a time when no one was sending broadcast-quality news over the internet.

One of the most important things I learned from Nellie and employ in the newsroom where I work today is that we should always take the responsibility of our work seriously, but we should never take ourselves too seriously. She taught me that humor and finding time to laugh with each other was a critical way to decompress from what can at times be traumatic work. When things would get heavy, Nellie would find a way to lighten the mood in the office, and we shared many laughs over sourdough pancakes at her and Greg’s house in South Anchorage.

Nellie epitomized the best qualities in a journalist — but more importantly, she was first and foremost a kind and caring person.

She was the first person who helped me feel welcome in Alaska, and when after I’d been here for only a month and we were taking a Christmas break from work in 1999, I remember wandering into the newsroom that last day before we would be off, feeling incredibly lonely and wondering what the heck I’d done, moving across the country alone to take a job here.

When I got to my desk that morning, there were jars of smoked salmon and homemade blueberry jam. Nellie had brought gifts to me and then proceeded to fold me into her family, inviting me to spend time with her, Greg, David and Liz. I then had a family here, and what I thought would be a year or two in Alaska has now been 24.

Nellie had her priorities right, and although she worked hard, her family was always front and center in her life. I will miss our long talks, her delicious wit, her laugh and her hugs. I will wrap myself in the beautiful quilt she made for my mom and remind myself of how fortunate I have been to have her in my life.

Lori Townsend is the news director and senior host for Alaska Public Media. She has worked in print and broadcast journalism for nearly 30 years.

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