TULALIP It allows us to keep Tribal members informed across the country, said Shelly Lacy, general manager for the Tulalip Tribes.
A staffer at Tribal TV station KANU-TV, Niki Cleary said about one-third of all Tribal members live off the reservation.
Now, those Tribal members throughout the world can get the Tribal news, she said.
For several years, Lacy has given a weekly managers update via the Tribes local cable station. The biggest hitch was that update, along with many of the other shows carried by KANU, were, for the most part, only available locally.
All that officially changed last week. From now on, Lacys updates will be available, along with KANUs other programming, to anyone with access to the Internet. The Feb. 12 managers update officially marked the launch of KANU on the web at www.kanutv.com.
KANU is now the first Native American station to broadcast via the Internet.
KANUs webcasting of all Native programming content is one more example of a technological breakthrough by Tulalip Tribe communications department staff, said Jim Browder, news director for what is possibly KANUs signature show, North West Indian News.
Cleary said the Web site actually has been up and running since the beginning of the year. But hoping to work out any kinks first, the Tribes held off the official launch of the webcasts until last week.
As a Tribal member, you always want to be connected to home, said Lacy. We are really a big family.
That family currently includes military personnel stationed in Iraq and Lacy was quick to note those soldiers now can receive Tribal information and news out in the field.
For the managers report and other productions, Lacy and the Tribes communication staff now work with a virtual studio, employing the same techniques used by many TV stations. For example, for her managers report, Lacy sat last on a simple chair in front of a green screen. Technicians plug in a background and during the broadcast, Lacy appears to be sitting at a news desk with the Puget Sound shoreline in the background.
KANU-TV went on the air in 2000. In 2006, the station began showing programming 24-hours a day for some 1,200 cable subscribers on the Tulalip Reservation. NorthWest Indian News also went on the air in 2000. Via syndication and other distribution means, the show now is carried by numerous cable and broadcast stations from California to Alaska.
NorthWest Indian News is really one of our biggest pride projects, said Cleary, who has served as a reporter for the show.
Other KANU offerings now available on the web include a series on the Lushootseed language. There is a seven-part video highlighting Tulalip history. Discover Tulalip is a talk show about Native issues and the Tulalip and Marysville areas. Production assistant J. D. Mower seemed proud of KANUs two telecasts so far of Tulalip Heritage School basketball games.
The Native programming that weve been creating and acquiring is important and educational to the Tulalip community, but we are also producing programs that have tremendous value beyond the boundaries of this reservation, said Roger Vater, a digital media coordinator for the Tribes.
Cleary said news is obviously a big part of the job for the Tulalip communications staff, but only part of their overall charge.
In their small offices on Totem Beach Road, they produce not only KANU-TV but also regular newsletters and a Tribal newspaper.
Were a really small staff, Cleary added. Theres no such thing here as Thats not my job.
Still, she said preservation of Native history and tradition is as least as important as press releases on the latest reservation construction project. Thus, Lacy teaches a few words of Lushootseed during every managers report. She said shes aware no one is going to learn to speak the language from those snippets, but also said thats not really the point.
It creates interest, it places a value on the language, Lacy said.