Hudetz to be recognized during 2024 Indigenous Media Awards Banquet July 27
NORMAN, Okla. — The Indigenous Journalists Association (IJA) has selected ProPublica reporter Mary Hudetz (Apsaalooke/Crow) as the recipient of the 2024 Richard LaCourse Award for Investigative Journalism, which recognizes groundbreaking work by journalists that creatively use digital tools in the role of community watchdog. Special consideration is given to journalism that helps a community understand and address important issues.
The committee selected Hudetz for her work with ProPublica’s The Repatriation Project – The Delayed Return of Native Remains. The project highlights how museums and universities have actively fought against repatriating Native American remains and sacred objects plundered over centuries. As a result of this reporting, American museums and universities repatriated more remains and objects to tribal nations in 2023 than any year in the three decades since NAGPRA’s passage.
“The Repatriation Project by Mary Hudetz and her team has had rippling effects at the institutional level down to Indigenous communities and peoples, which sets the bar for future investigative work and redefines what it means to make an impact,” said IJA Vice President Jourdan Bennett-Begaye (Diné).
Hudetz is based in Albuquerque, N.M., where she writes about Indigenous communities. She grew up in Montana and is a past president of the Indigenous Journalists Association. Previously, she was a reporter for the Seattle Times and Associated Press.
As a member of the Seattle Times’ investigative team, she helped lead coverage of COVID-19’s spread inside the Life Care Center of Kirkland nursing home, site of the nation’s first known coronavirus outbreak. That work was selected as a finalist for breaking news awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
At the AP, her reporting with colleagues on cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women won several awards, including a Dori J. Maynard Award for Justice in Journalism from the News Leaders Association.
Hudetz would like to also highlight her team members Graham Lee Brewer, Logan Jaffe and Ash Ngu contributions to ProPublica’s The Repatriation Project – The Delayed Return of Native Remains.
Graham Lee Brewer is a national writer covering Indigenous communities at the Associated Press. He previously worked for NBC News, and his reporting has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, and Rolling Stone. He is a former president of the Indigenous Journalists Association, and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Logan Jaffe is a reporter for newsletters at ProPublica. She came to ProPublica by way of The New York Times and Chicago Public Media (WBEZ). She was the multimedia producer for WBEZ’s Curious City, a journalism project fueled by community questions about Chicago, and previously an embedded mediamaker with The New York Times’ Race/Related newsletter in collaboration with the documentary showcase POV. Her local reporting, including an investigation into an Illinois sundown towns, earned her multiple Peter Lisagor Awards from the Chicago Headline Club. Jaffe is also pursuing a master’s degree in public history from Loyola University Chicago.
Ash Ngu was a reporter, designer and developer with ProPublica’s news apps team. They previously worked at The New York Times and The Pudding.
Hudetz will be recognized during the 2024 Indigenous Media Awards Banquet on Saturday, July 27 as part of the 2024 Indigenous Media Conference at the Omni Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City.
The IJA Special Awards Committee is composed of board representatives, members and past awardees. Hudetz was not involved in the 2023 review process.
