KU News Release

C-SPAN2 program to feature Native American graduate student Feb. 13

Rhonda Le Valdo

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas journalism student is scheduled to appear on “Close Up at the Newseum” at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, on C-SPAN2.

Rhonda LeValdo, who is pursuing a master’s degree at KU and teaches video production at Haskell Indian Nations University, will field questions from the audience on the challenges of being a Native American journalist. She is an Acoma Pueblo.

Produced by the Close Up Foundation, “Close Up at the Newseum” has been seen nationally since 1979 and is one of the longest-running public affairs programs involving young people in substantive discussions with expert guests.

The producers have invited more than 100 students from the National Indian Education Association and the United Southern and Eastern Tribes to be in the audience and participate in the one-hour program. The show will be taped Feb. 12 in Washington, D.C.

A news video that LeValdo prepared for the PBS Online NewsHour will be shown during the show. Her report focused on federal government funding for tribal schools and its effect on students at Haskell. See the video online.

The show also will address federal funding for tribal schools and increasing Native American participation in U.S. government.

Before leaving to tape the show, LeValdo noted that one challenge she has faced as a Native American journalist is questions from news editors and producers about a conflict of interest in reporting stories about Native American issues.

LeValdo also said she has recognized interest in presidential politics among the younger generation. While working on stories during the presidential campaign and just before the inauguration, LeValdo was surprised to find her daughter, age 6, and even her son, age 4, were well aware of Barack Obama. Her son chanted Obama’s name. Her daughter asked her mom to tell Obama that she had voted for him in a kids election.

“I thought that is a real change,” said LeValdo. “When I was 6, I didn’t know who was president. The only president I kind of knew about was John Kennedy because in our home on the Acoma Reservation my grandmother had his picture on the wall. I could never understand why we would have that picture.”

Now, LeValdo says, she considers the photograph an indication of how much American Indians could relate to Kennedy.

LeValdo’s trip this week marks her second in two months to the nation’s capital. In January, LeValdo was in Washington as a runner-up in YouTube Project: Report, a competition sponsored by YouTube and the Pulitzer Center for aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be told.

While in Washington, LeValdo completed a National Minority Consortia fellowship by preparing a third story for the PBS Online NewsHour that aired Jan. 16. The National Minority Consortia are five national media organizations funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to deliver programming that brings minority voices to public airwaves. Her final report for the consortia examined Native American participation in the inauguration. That video is online.

“I thought it was great that they trusted me enough to do a nonbiased report. My whole purpose in journalism is to get Native American news into mainstream media,” LeValdo said.

Originally from New Mexico, LeValdo earned an associate’s degree in media arts at Haskell and a bachelor’s degree in journalism at KU in fall 2007.

She graduated from high school in Phoenix, Ariz., where her mother, Alfie LeValdo, lives. As a youngster, LeValdo lived with her family on the Acoma Reservation near Albuquerque, N.M.

LeValdo and Denny Gayton have two young children and live in Lawrence. She will return from Washington on Feb. 13.

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