Sask. media outlet Eagle Feather News to return after 6-month hiatus

After a six-month hiatus, a Saskatchewan-based publication featuring stories about First Nations and Métis communities in the province is returning.

Earlier this year, Eagle Feather News (EFN) announced it would take a break from publishing to figure out how to become self-sustaining as advertising revenue dropped. Meta stopped distributing Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram last year over the Online News Act, which requires platforms to compensate news organizations when making their content available. 

"It took a lot of reimagining," said Kerry Benjoe, the managing editor of EFN. 

She said since the late 1990s, EFN had been giving emerging journalists the opportunity to have their first byline and she wanted to continue doing that. 

EFN is now planning to offer a quarterly print magazine. It is also partnering with Pattison Media, a Western Canada media company of radio and television stations and online news, to offer a new digital news platform.

Benjoe said she sees the partnership with Pattison Media as a part of economic reconciliation.  

"It's about having the support but also having that mutual respect, understanding and agreement to move forward," she said.

"It isn't a top down approach. They are not controlling Eagle Feather. We are still independent. We are still producing our content."

Benjoe said any kind of support that is working to promote Indigenous storytelling is beneficial to Indigenous media. 

"I think that we actually need to come together, support each other, promote each other as much as possible to combat these bans and to show people that we were here before social media, and we will be here after social media."

'The best news'

Merelda Fiddler-Potter, an associate professor at First Nations University in Regina, said EFN was a safe place for Indigenous people to talk about their experiences and issues in a different way than mainstream media. 

She said EFN also gave non-Indigenous readers an opportunity to understand Indigenous people better because, as an Indigenous-focused and -run publication, it provided a window they couldn't get anywhere else.

When EFN stopped publication, it closed off a space for Indigenous people to share their stories, she said.

"That means that we're not speaking to one another. We're not hearing about these stories or these new ideas … and we need to have that," she said.

"[It was] kind of like saying to everyone, 'We finally have created these spaces for you and it's completely Indigenous-led, and now we're going to just shut it all down.' So you got into the restaurant and just before you ordered, they burned down the kitchen."

Fiddler-Potter said she is excited that EFN is making a comeback. 

"To see it go was really sad but to hear that it's back … is just the best news."