Follows an intrepid journalist’s fight for foundational press freedoms in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation after they’re revoked in an emergency meeting in 2015. We break down BAD PRESS by Rebecca Landsberry-Baker & Joe Peeler, which won a Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression.
Sundance 2023 Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Distribution: Not available
From Sundance’s website: Angel Ellis is just trying to do her job. She’s a reporter for Mvskoke Media in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and she wants to give her readers access to all the information relevant to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. But that’s not an easy task, given that Angel and her colleagues believe in truth and transparency and aren’t afraid to challenge the integrity of some questionable tribal officials. Fast-forward to a confusing whirlwind of an emergency session at the National Council, where the 2015 Free Press Act is repealed, Mvskoke Media’s independent editorial board is dissolved, and the newspaper is placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Nation and Commerce. Now the real fight begins.
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler tell a nuanced, empowering tale of a modern Native community fighting for transparency and access to information in order to hold their government accountable. Bad Press is an energizing watch — full of humor, humanity, and numerous twists and turns.
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.501] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. And I'm Wonder Bright. And welcome to Story All the Way Down. We're continuing our series of looking at Sundance 2023, the different documentaries that are there. And today is a piece called Bad Press by Rebecca Lansbury Baker and Joe Peeler that actually won a special jury award for freedom of expression. I actually didn't realize that the freedom of the press is not enshrined into all the constitutions of all the different Native nations. Of the 547 native nations that are out there, only five of them have a guaranteed freedom of press. And so the Muscogee Creek Nation was actually one of them. And then I'm going to just read this part of the synopsis. It follows these journalists, including Angel Ellis, who's trying to do her job as a reporter, but it's not an easy task because Angel and her colleagues believe in truth and transparency and aren't afraid to challenge the integrity of some questionable tribal officials. Fast forward to a confusing whirlwind of emergency sessions at the National Council, where the 2015 Free Press Act is repealed and the Muscogee Media's independent editorial board is dissolved. The newspaper is placed under the directors of the Secretary of the Nation and Commerce. Now the real fight begins. So you have this repeal of the Free Press Act and essentially have these tribal people who have been elected, now all of a sudden they're directing editorial control of what can and cannot be reported by the media. And so you have this revocation of the freedom of the press. And this whole story is about the fight to restore journalistic freedom. And what do people like Angel Ellis, this intrepid reporter reporting the truth, and the journey that they go on to try to restore this. So it's a thrilling ride and also one that I actually learned a lot about the different dynamics that I just wasn't really aware of at all.
[00:02:08.397] Wonder Bright: Yeah, it was news to me, literally news to me, that only five Native nations had freedom of the press protected in their laws. And Angel Ellis is, you know, just your classic hard nose, cut from the classic template of journalist that we have enshrined in American media or, you know, once did actually. We no longer do. Now we're living in the era of fake news, everybody. And so we've lost touch with that exciting, dynamic, heroic journalist endeavor that used to be something that was a staple of American cinema all the way from, you know, the silver screen up through the 60s and 70s and beyond. Like, we really had this, like, idolatry and, like, interest in freedom of the press. And journalists were cast as heroes in those films. And in Angel Ellis, my faith in that idea is restored in that iconic personage of somebody who is the intrepid reporter who's going to pursue the truth at all costs, like she's just a compelling narrator who's really interested in reporting what actually happened and the impact that what happened is going to have on all of the residents of her nation.
[00:03:35.964] Kent Bye: Yeah, and all that with a sense of humor as well, because it's so funny. So, just kind of this dry wit that she has to kind of reflect on, you know, because a lot of times she's really silenced because in a lot of this film by this revoking of this act, you know, she's functionally silenced from being able to speak her full authentic truth. I mean, it goes through the history where in 2011, she had reported in some different embezzlement cases and basically is fired because there was no protections for her. And so, She had no way to fight back against these things that she's trying to report. And there was this interesting moment that I think helped contextualize a lot of the dynamics here. It's that one of the people at some point was saying that throughout history was told that the Indians, Native Americans were too dumb and insignificant to take care of themselves. And there was a stigma that if all of a sudden their newspapers were reporting all of the different aspects of corruption or things go wrong, that there is this general feeling that these newspapers should be reporting and putting forth the best foot, but not necessarily reporting the things that were going wrong. But the role of the journalist is to kind of shine a spotlight on those ugly things, because by shining a spotlight on it, it actually catalyzes the community to want to do better. And so there's checks and balances that happen there that is stifled in the absence of having those protections. And so there's this fundamental tension of trying to get around that cultural stigma, but also really appreciate the value of having that freedom of press. And so the irony of this story is that in trying to fight for this freedom of press, she can't actually report on all the things that are happening. And so it ends up being this kind of circuitous route with different twists and turns that we take throughout this journey of this piece. And It feels a little bit like a roller coaster in some sense, but you get introduced over the course of this story of the different politicians who are either legitimately really in favor of the free speech and other people who are appropriating it in a way falsely to kind of promote on the surface that they're actually for it, but behind the scenes are actually undermining it in different ways. or trying to come up with fixes that have a shield wall that maybe protects the sources, but not the journalists. And so Angel Ellis is operating throughout the entirety of this film without these deeper protections. And so she's fighting for a better vision of her community while also putting her own livelihood and career on the line. And so there's a lot of that at stake here, these deeper principles of freedom, but at the same time, at a lot of personal costs to the people that are involved. And yet they still find ways to persevere and kind of fight for this deeper vision. So I think it's well deserved that they got this special jury award for the freedom of expression, because I feel like that that's the real spirit that I see in this film.
[00:06:47.046] Wonder Bright: Yeah, for sure. You know, we're really lucky to have a number of Indigenous films available to watch in the documentary section. This is one of three full-length feature films that I was able to watch. And One of the themes that emerges in the three feature films that I was able to watch on indigenous people is the long-standing effects on these nations and on the people who populate them of having been torn away from their history, having their families ripped apart, having the children sent to schools where they weren't allowed to speak their native tongue, where they're being returned, the parents no longer have ways to make their livelihoods. So one of the things that bad press brings up is how that impacts the leadership in these nation states. If only five out of 547 tribes have a free press, and these nations are suffering from generational trauma, then the people who can get into power are themselves perpetuating trauma and they're able to in the absence of having a free press. It just really brings to light what happens when people come into power who have absolute power and they're not checked by the press. this film operates as a direct warning of what we're going through right now in this country. And it's really important to pay attention to. And the fact that it's coming from a Native nation and Native filmmakers is compelling in ways that I don't think I'm going to be able to honor properly, frankly.
[00:08:43.014] Kent Bye: What do you mean?
[00:08:44.297] Wonder Bright: I mean, I can't find the way to articulate why it's especially upsetting for me knowing that this is happening in Native nations. I think it's just because I grew up with my mom who taught Native kids because there is a Native nation very close to my hometown and my mom had the kids in her school as an elementary school teacher. I grew up listening to her talk about these families and these kids. You know, I just have this appreciation for Native culture, you know, as an outsider, obviously, through my mom, who had a lot of really wonderful interactions with our local Native community and really loved them. And I've had opportunities to go out and spend time in the nation observing different rituals that they have. that just incredible and moving and have connected me with stories and ideas and ways of thinking about things that I think of as being counter to what the colonized mindset is perpetuating and, you know, better than. And I didn't like seeing that it can be worse than even though obviously it can be worse than, you know, it's like obviously this is the impact of colonization. Obviously. I just want to believe that we can do better and we can find ways to do better. And Angel Ellis is a compelling person who isn't just believing that, she's taking action on that belief.
[00:10:22.172] Kent Bye: Yeah, I know what you mean in the sense of like there's a certain expectation that we have of living in America, we have a constitution and we have the ways in which that the freedom of press is enshrined in the first amendment. And it's something that I just kind of assumed was the law of the land everywhere, but these 547 native nations, each of them are these sovereign nations that have their own ability and freedom to make up their own constitutions and make their own laws and make up their own ways that they're going to be governing themselves. And so I think of other films that we watch later in this series, like Murder and Bighorn, that has journalists that are being presented, but yet it's not always necessarily clear that the native nations that they're talking about have the freedom of press, meaning those journalists are operating within some sort of constraints that we can't necessarily see. So it's good to just recognize that, but I think to get back to the heart of this story, we have the main characters of the journalists who are out there reporting and fighting for these press freedoms. We have the politicians. But we also have like these cast of characters who are like the citizen journalists and the bloggers and the influencers who are kind of out there just spreading a lot of... Yeah, contributing to this general distrust of the press by literally saying, we don't trust, we can't trust the press.
[00:11:50.701] Wonder Bright: Fake news, fake news, fake news. you know, like how do you report the truth when people won't believe you? They don't want your truth. They don't want the truth. They don't even want the facts.
[00:12:02.107] Kent Bye: Or in this case, you are prohibited from reporting the truth, which then furthers the distrust in the media because they see them as just being shills, which they actually are at that point not able to report the full truth. But yet there's something about the journalist's inability to be able to articulate that, that is compounding nature of whenever you're taking away different aspects of these press freedoms.
[00:12:24.745] Wonder Bright: So, I would just say though, sorry to interrupt, but I would just suggest that, you know, if these bloggers were really that concerned about freedom of the press and they were actually fulfilling their role that they've cast themselves in as the intrepid person who's like actually, they're still fulfilling this trope of the intrepid journalist, only now they're the intrepid blogger, right? But if they were actually fulfilling it, they would also be reporting on the fact that the freedom of the press had been overturned in Muskogee Nation. And they would therefore be able to deduce that reporters couldn't report the truth. But these bloggers are not doing that. They're just as irresponsible as anybody out there talking about freedom of press and then claiming that they're the ones reporting on the truth.
[00:13:16.190] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, hopefully we will see some poetic justice through the long term of the course of the story and as people bear witness to the journey that the story takes you on. And also, you know, just like in any other situation, there's people that become these pundits that have a very strong point of view, and they're attracted different people that followed them. But yeah, just to go back to the film, I felt like the thing that I really want to bear witness to is just that intrepid spirit of fighting for this deeper truth and deeper justice that Angel Ellis is exhibiting throughout this film and all the things she puts on the line to be able to continue that fight. And this is something inside of her that has to speak the truth and when that is muzzled and that's silenced, then it becomes this sort of stewing fire that still continues. Like there's a number of people that left and felt like they couldn't operate underneath those restrictive abilities to be able to report the full truth. something about the people that did stay behind with the vision that perhaps sometime in the future, they'd be able to report the truth again. So anyway, I found it really inspiring and I think well-deserved this special jury award honoring the freedom of expression story that this is really telling in bad press.
[00:14:37.997] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I definitely want to bear witness to that badass reporter who's yet another in the long line of badass women that we've been seeing in this slew of films in 2023 here at Sundance. Angel Ellis is a really compelling person to observe this emerging situation through. What I really love about this film is the way that it illustrates the importance of freedom of the press. and reclaims its role in the canon of American lore through this Native journalist who is doing her damnedest to get the story out as it's actually occurring.
[00:15:19.852] Kent Bye: Hmm. Yeah, so that was Bad Press by Rebecca Lansbury Baker and Joe Peeler that was at the Sundance Film Festival, a part of the U.S. Documentary Competition. At this point, I don't see any distribution, but it's got to find some way to get out there because it's just such an amazing story. Really quite enjoyed it. And yeah, thanks again for joining us here on Story All the Way Down. And if you'd like more information, you can go to storyallthewaydown.com. to find out ways that you can support the podcast and get more information on all the stories that we're covering here. So thanks for joining us.
