The award-winning storyteller from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation ‘risked asking tough questions of tribal officials with no legal protection for his job’
Award-winning reporter and storyteller Gary Fife of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation died Jan. 14 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was 73.
A leader in Indigenous journalism, Fife produced thousands of stories for radio, television, digital and print media during a 50-plus year career, and wrote opinion pieces using the name “Emvpanayv,” or “one who tells the story.”
In 2021, Fife told ICT that at the peak of the Civil Rights movement, he was studying journalism in college.
“Watching all of the activities going on around the nation with different minority people stepping forward, I personally was wondering, where is the Native American presence in this movement? I also felt, of course, that since we have a federal relationship that no one else has, ours would be different, our presence. So I wanted to be a part of that, and I felt making a positive move for Native American people in the presentation of our information.”
Some Native-owned media at the time “was a lot of ‘rah, rah, go, go Indians. Let's go beat up on the white man’ kind of thing,” Fife said. “And through my journalistic schooling, I thought, ‘Well, wait a minute, now there's another side to this story. And even though we don't want to hear it, we've got to know what the enemy is up to, so to speak.’”
Fife said people need to know both sides of the story to effectively deal with issues, “to perhaps combat the oppression and loss of land and culture and a way to show the rest of the world that our pride was still here and that our young people are going to be making changes within themselves and the community.”
A celebration of life ceremony will be held for Gary Fife at the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Mound Building in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Jan, 27 from 1 to 3 p.m. The service is open to the public and will celebrate Gary's life and contributions to Native American journalism and media activism.
read more: https://ictnews.org/news/groundbreaking-journalist-gary-fife-dead-at-73