The Washington Post reporter Hedgpeth to be honored during the IJA Membership Meeting Aug. 14 in Albuquerque
NORMAN, Okla., — The Indigenous Journalists Association (IJA) has selected Dana Hedgpeth (Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina) as the recipient of the 2025 IJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award.
The award honors IJA’s mission and the exemplary people who have led the way with outstanding work and contributions to the field of journalism. The award recognizes important work by journalists in the past and encourages the new generation of Indigenous journalists to achieve career excellence.
The IJA special awards committee selected Hedgpeth for her work at The Washington Post across 26 years where she has covered dozens of stories revealing hidden histories and truths about Native Americans.
Hedgpeth has also mentored journalists and storytellers by modeling how to interview leaders, elders and community members who may be hesitant speaking with the media.
“Dana’s investigative work has been critical to raising awareness of long overlooked tragedies the Indigenous community has suffered,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “Medill is honored to recognize her with this award, and we hope that it further calls attention to the critically importance of journalists.”
About Dana Hedgpeth
Dana Hedgpeth is an award-winning Native American journalist at The Washington Post and an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of N.C.
She recently she completed a year-long investigative series with a team that revealed the deaths of more than 3,100 Native students at boarding schools – three times the number the federal government found — and another piece that documented the widespread sexual abuse of Native children at these institutions.
Her team’s work won the 2025 Dori J. Maynard Justice Award from Marquette University. The judges called it “a series that stays with you forever – haunting, beautifully done, searing, …, important, with stunning findings and writing.” Their work was also a finalist for the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics.
In her decades at The Post, she has also uncovered stories of Native Americans that haven’t been widely told in mainstream media, including the real story of the first Thanksgiving with the Wampanoags and the worst massacre of Native people that no one’s ever heard of. She’s also covered a range of topics, including the Washington area’s transportation system, the D.C. area economy, local governments, courts and crime, plus Pentagon spending and wacky animal stories. She and a colleague also won the 2008 Gerald Loeb Award in the Best Writing Category for a piece on government contracting. She’s the only Native American in the roughly 900-person newsroom at The Post.
Dana attended the University of Maryland at College Park where she majored in journalism and economics and was a top scholar at the College of Journalism. She is a member of the Indigenous Journalists Association and served on its board of directors where she helped oversee the scholarship committee. She has served as a mentor to Native American journalists at the Freedom Forum and other venues.
Dana lives in D.C. with her husband and two children and in her spare time, she enjoys participating with her girls in competitive powwow dancing as a jingle dress dancer.
