How Do I Cover Sacred Sites as an Indigenous Journalist? — ProPublica

"Western journalism tends to value transparency as a public good. But as an Indigenous reporter, I face a unique set of challenges: Include too-specific cultural details, and I risk endangering my community....

I’m standing at an Indigenous sacred site, looking at something I’m not supposed to see. Signs of ceremony are all around: little animal skulls, ribbons, a stump of freshly burnt sage stems in ashes, tied together with red yarn. It looks like a ceremony happened in the last week.

I’m here with a source who wants their story told — who wants to expose the harm that the public and private sectors are inflicting on tribal cultures in pursuit of renewable energy development. But the source also wants to protect these cultural sites from public exposure. So I don’t take any photos. I don’t record it in my notes. I walk away and do not publish what I see....

Even mentioning the archaeological features could endanger them, putting them in the crosshairs of looters and vandals. Write one too-specific article, and tribal historic preservation officers might find themselves fighting off new age gatherings of non-Natives appropriating Indigenous worship. Or worse: Western scientists destroying ancestral remains for anthropological “research.”..."