By BROOKLYN BROWN
One Feather Reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. – On Friday, March 27, I attended the 5th Annual North Carolina News and Information Summit at McKimmon Conference and Training Center at North Carolina State University (NC State) and met with my mentor and cohort for the 2026 Law and Justice Reporting Fellowship I received officially on March 18.
The fellowship is a year-long $5,000 grant for criminal law reporting. The grant will aid my travel, overtime pay, and public records access and subscriptions in covering cases that leave Cherokee Tribal Court and enter the Federal Court system. I will specifically follow cases with crimes related to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis on the Qualla Boundary, which includes murder, but also includes crimes that are part of a pattern of violence that can lead to homicide, such as domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, sex trafficking, and assault. With the maximum sentence of 3 years for any crime in tribal courts, we often see our major crimes cases leave Cherokee Tribal Court to pursue federal court sentencing. This is a process that I hope to illuminate through my reporting for education and clarity for my tribal community.
Through this reporting, I plan to navigate the justice system to strengthen awareness and illustrate a journalistic approach to violence prevention and education.
My mentor is Kate Martin, a senior data reporter for APM Reports. She also previously worked as a sexual violence and health reporter for NBC News.
The News and Information Summit was also a great networking event where I met several North Carolina journalists and discussed my work as a journalist for my tribal newspaper.
