{{Short description|American journalist (1934–2022)}} {{Use American English|date=July 2022}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Tim Giago | other_names = Nanwica Kciji | birth_name = Timothy Anotine Giago Jr. | birth_date = {{birth date|1934|7|12}} | birth_place = Kyle, South Dakota, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2022|7|24|1934|7|12}} | death_place = Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S. | education = {{Plainlist| * San Jose Junior College * University of Nevada, Reno }} | occupation = {{Hlist|Journalist|publisher}} | spouse = {{Plainlist| * {{marriage|Doris|end=divorce}} * Jackie }} | children = 12 }}
'''Timothy Antoine Giago Jr.''' (July 12, 1934 – July 24, 2022), also known as '''Nanwica Kciji''', was an American Oglala Lakota journalist and publisher. In 1981, he founded the ''Lakota Times'' with Doris Giago at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he was born and grew up. It was the first independently owned Native American newspaper in the United States. In 1991 Giago was selected as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. In 1992 he changed his paper's name to ''Indian Country Today'', to reflect its national coverage of Indian news and issues.
Giago sold the paper in 1998. Two years later he founded ''The Lakota Journal'', which he sold in 2004 while thinking of retirement. In 2009, he returned to papers and founded the ''Native Sun News,'' based in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was also a columnist for the ''Huffington Post.'' He founded the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and served as its first president. When hired in 1979 to write a column for the ''Rapid City Journal'', Giago was the first Native American writer for a South Dakota newspaper.
==Early life and education== Giago, whose Lakota name was ''Nanwica Kciji'',<ref name="ipl2"/> was born on July 12, 1934, and grew up at the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. According to Giago, he got his Spanish surname from his paternal grandfather Jesus Gallego, a Pueblo man who came to work as a ''vaquero'' in the Dakota Territory in the late 1880s; this name ended up being spelled phonetically on the rolls of the Oglala Sioux Tribe as "Giago." He attended the Holy Rosary Indian Mission school.<ref name = Williams>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/us/tim-giago-dead.html|title = Tim Giago, 88, Is Dead; Journalist Who Fought For Native Americans|last = Williams|first = Alex|newspaper = The New York Times|date = July 29, 2022|accessdate = July 29, 2022|page = A21|url-access = limited}}</ref><ref name="free">{{cite web |url=http://nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100616/Freedom-of-the-Press-in-Indian-Country.aspx |first1=Tim |last1=Giago |title=Nieman Reports {{!}} Freedom of the Press in Indian Country |publisher=Nieman Foundation for Journalism |access-date=July 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224214124/http://nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100616/Freedom-of-the-Press-in-Indian-Country.aspx |archive-date=February 24, 2014 |date=February 24, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He later wrote poetry and articles about the anger he felt at having his Lakota identity and culture suppressed.<ref name="carrier"/> He attended San Jose Junior College in California and the University of Nevada, Reno.<ref name="ipl2"/>
==Career== Giago served with the U.S. Navy at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, where he started writing because his commander noticed "he typed well" and assigned him to produce the base newspaper. Giago also wrote personal articles and poems about his mission school experience, first published in the monthly journal ''Wassaja'', run by Jeannette and Rupert Costo of San Francisco during the 1970s.<ref name="carrier"/>
Jim Carrier, then an editor of the ''Rapid City Journal'', saw his work and offered Giago a column for $10 a week.<ref name="carrier"/> In 1979, his "Notes from Indian Country" became the first American Indian voice in a South Dakota newspaper.<ref name="free"/> Giago's hiring had followed Wounded Knee incident in 1973 at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which received international attention, and near civil war on the reservation during the next few years, but, as Carrier wrote later, "none of the state's 11 daily newspapers or 145 weeklies covered the mayhem in any depth, relying instead on the Associated Press or printing nothing at all."<ref name="carrier"/> A year later the paper offered Giago a full-time position and he began to learn the newspaper business.<ref name="carrier"/> As a young reporter, he was sometimes told that he could not cover events at the Pine Ridge Reservation because he could not be "objective", an opinion which he questioned.<ref name="free"/>
In 1981, Giago moved back to the reservation to begin the ''Lakota Times'' with Doris Giago (his wife at the time) as a weekly community newspaper to represent his neighbors' lives.<ref name = Williams/> It was the first independently owned Native American newspaper; most papers published on reservations have been owned by tribal governments. In the beginning, he earned revenue by publishing the most complete list of ''pow-wows'' nationally and selling related advertising. This gave him needed independence on the reservation. He wrote editorials criticizing US and state policy related to Native Americans, and his columns were soon syndicated by Knight-Ridder. After his criticism of AIM's violence on the reservation, his offices were fire-bombed.<ref name="carrier"/> Despite his criticism of programs, he gradually earned the respect of tribal governments, and gained their support for his independence during difficult years.<ref name="free"/>
Through the years, Giago hired and trained numerous Native Americans, some of whom later moved on to other papers and media to become successful in journalism. He also founded the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and served as its first president. To encourage American Indian participation in the media, the NAJA Foundation provides scholarships and summer internships to journalism students who are Indian. The foundation also holds three major seminars a year for working Indian journalists, publishers and the business side.<ref name="free"/>
Gradually Giago expanded his paper's coverage to all the Indian reservations in South Dakota, then to American Indian issues nationwide. To reflect its national coverage, in 1992 he changed the name of the paper to ''Indian Country Today''. In 1998, Giago sold the paper to the Oneida Nation, based in New York. At the time it was grossing $1.9 million annually in ad sales.<ref name="carrier"/> By 2005, it was the largest Native American paper, reaching 50 states and 17 countries.<ref name="free"/>
In 2000, Giago founded ''The Lakota Times'' and sold it in 2004 to the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, thinking he would retire.<ref name="sun">[http://64.38.12.138/News/2009/013486.asp Tim Giago: "Announcing the Native Sun News"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007110322/http://64.38.12.138/News/2009/013486.asp |date=October 7, 2011 }}, ''Indianz.com'', March 9, 2009, retrieved July 8, 2011</ref> After the ''Times'' stopped publishing, Giago founded the ''Native Sun News'' in 2009 in Rapid City, South Dakota, committing to his style of investigative journalism as well as broad coverage of Indian news. It is published on paper only.<ref name="sun"/> He also was a columnist for the ''Huffington Post'', an online news source.<ref name="free"/>
==Personal life== Giago and his first wife, Doris, with whom he started the ''Lakota Times'', later divorced.<ref name = Williams/> She became the first Indian journalism professor at South Dakota State University (SDSU) and also the first tenured Native American Professor in SDSU history. She retired as professor emeritus in 2014.<ref name="carrier"/> His second wife was named Jackie.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Richards |first1=Richie |title=Native Sun News: Son of Tim Giago's wife killed in police shooting |url=https://www.indianz.com/News/2016/020759.asp |accessdate=March 2, 2020 |publisher=Native Sun News |date=March 22, 2016}}</ref> He had twelve children.<ref name = Williams/>
Giago died from complications of cancer and diabetes in Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 24, 2022, aged 88.<ref name = Williams/><ref name="AP-Obit">{{cite news |last1=Ehlke |first1=Gretchen |title=Tim Giago, trailblazing Native American journalist, dies |url=https://apnews.com/article/united-states-journalists-native-americans-south-dakota-e4009c68e7e5bf617e0fda27d604c9e7 |access-date=July 26, 2022 |work=AP NEWS |date=July 25, 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
==Books== *''The Aboriginal Sin: Reflections on the Holy Rosary Indian Mission School (Red Cloud Indian School)'', poetry, San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1978. {{oclc|4710052}}<ref name="ipl2"/> *''Notes from Indian Country'', K. Cochran, 1984. Non-fiction.<ref name="ipl2"/> *''The American Indian and the Media'', Minneapolis, MN: National Conference of Christians and Jews, 1991. {{ISBN|0-9631926-0-4}}<ref name="ipl2"/> *''Children Left Behind: The Dark Legacy of Indian Mission Boarding Schools'', Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishing, 2002. {{ISBN| 9781574160864}}
==Honors== * The ''Lakota Times/Indian Country Today'' won more than 50 awards from the South Dakota Newspaper Association while Giago was publisher;<ref name="free"/> * 1985, H. L. Mencken Award for journalism;<ref name="ipl2">[http://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A201 "Tim Giago", Native American Authors], ipl2, Internet Public Library (consortium), retrieved July 3, 2011</ref> * 1991, Harvard University Nieman Fellowship;<ref name="free"/> * University of Missouri Distinguished Journalism Award; * 2007, the first American Indian inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame<ref name="carrier">{{cite news |url=https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/South-Dakota-Indian-journalist-gave-voices-to-a-3779313.php |first1=Jim |last1=Carrier |title=South Dakota Indian journalist gave voices to a people long ignored |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle |date=December 23, 2007 |access-date=June 29, 2011}}</ref><ref>[http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/inthenews.aspx?page=19 "Niemans in the News"], Nieman Foundation, Harvard University, retrieved June 29, 2011. Note: At the time, the state had "nine Indian reservations and 59,000 Indians."</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{cite news |last1=Giago |first1=Tim |title=Excerpts from the writings of Tim Giago {{!}} "An American Original" |url=https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Excerpts-from-the-writings-of-Tim-Giago-3232369.php |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=December 23, 2007}} *[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86099904/ "About 'Wassaja' (San Francisco), 1971–1979"], ''Chronicling America'', Library of Congress
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giago, Tim}} Category:1934 births Category:2022 deaths Category:20th-century American journalists Category:20th-century Native American people Category:21st-century American journalists Category:21st-century Native American writers Category:20th-century American male journalists Category:American newspaper founders Category:Deaths from cancer in South Dakota Category:Deaths from diabetes in the United States Category:HuffPost writers and columnists Category:Journalists from Montana Category:Journalists from North Dakota Category:Journalists from South Dakota Category:Oglala people Category:Military personnel from South Dakota Category:Native American journalists Category:Nieman Fellows Category:People from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota Category:21st-century American male journalists Category:Native American people from Montana Category:Native American people from South Dakota Category:21st-century Native American male writers Category:Lakota writers Category:Lakota male writers