"Watch a HuffPost exclusive clip of the new documentary “Bad Press.”"
"In the fall of 2019, journalists at Mvskoke Media, the news outlet covering the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma, were documenting a dramatic election season while also facing a tough fight to safeguard their right to report the story.
When Lucian Tiger III, one of the contenders in the primary election for the office of principal chief, came 10 votes short of advancing to the runoff, he filed a motion for a recount and made accusations of voter fraud. Mvskoke Media reporters Angel Ellis and Jerrad Moore scrambled to report out the details, a scene captured in this HuffPost exclusive clip of the new documentary “Bad Press,” which will have its New York theatrical premiere this Friday.
The contested election is just one of several wild chapters of a years-long fight in the Muscogee Nation to restore and codify free press protections. It culminated in a landmark achievement in the fall of 2021, when the tribal nation’s citizens voted overwhelmingly to approve a free press constitutional amendment.
Of the 574 federally recognized Native tribes, just five have free press laws on the books. And as of now, the Muscogee Nation is the only one with the right to a free and independent press enshrined in its tribal constitution. The high stakes of the fight are rivetingly chronicled in “Bad Press.” The film, directed by Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression. "
Marina Fang reports for HuffPost November 30, 2023.
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