MCALESTER — Looking back, some may have guessed I would find a career in journalism, even if my path to get here was far from simple.
It started with a handwritten “newspaper” in a notebook, crafted with a couple of friends in the fourth grade. We ripped a lot of the content from the McAlester News-Capital, but we paired it with a mix of elementary school news. The hand-crafted publication was short-lived, but we had a teacher who would give 25 cents for the paper we had written: a paying reader.
But even then, I never wanted to be a journalist. I planned to become a meteorologist, like the late KOTV weatherman Jim Giles, or Bill Paxton’s character in Twister. That goal ended as I entered high school and learned of all the complicated math classes required to earn a meteorology degree.
After graduating from McAlester High School in 2008, and with my meteorology dream gone, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I enrolled in and dropped out of college twice. I eventually took a job as a food vendor on the state fair circuit. After traveling and smoking barbecue across the U.S. for five years, I decided to take another look at higher education, this time through the degree programs available at Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton. Mass communication stood out as a program that interested me, and I enrolled for the 2015 fall semester.
From the E to the MNC
During my time at EOSC, I got a gig as an on-air storm tracker for KOKI Fox 23 in Tulsa, which turned into a hybrid news/weather stringing role. I shot b-roll video and gathered information for news stories so a reporter didn’t have to drive the two hours it took to get to McAlester. I enjoyed it because in Oklahoma, the weather is often news, and it harkened back to my meteorology dream. Around the same time, in November 2015, former McAlester News-Capital news editor Adrian O’Hanlon approached me to string a basketball game played at EOSC.
That assignment became my first published story. In 2017, I became a part-time digital contributor for the MNC, mainly shooting football highlights with the occasional breaking news story. After graduating from EOSC in December 2017 with my associate degree, I was offered a full-time staff writer position and a promise from O’Hanlon that, “We would win so many awards.” Seventeen years after using the MNC as a source for my makeshift elementary school newspaper, I accepted the job with no additional thought. What a hell of a ride it was.
While working for the MNC, I covered it all, from feel-good stories like a little girl selling lemonade to help fundraise backpacks for fellow students, to harrowing executions, to complex legal cases that continue to have ripple effects today, like the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma decision in 2020, which functionally affirmed eastern Oklahoma as a series of Indian Country reservations.
While the traditionally “newsy” metro areas may dominate a lot of journalism attention in our state, there was always something important to cover in Pittsburg County and southeast Oklahoma.
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The Pitbull approach
Through seven years at the MNC, and as O’Hanlon promised, our work earned several accolades from the Associated Press, the Oklahoma Press Association, the Oklahoma chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association/Indigenous Journalists Association.
Stories receiving recognition included in-depth reporting on a police shooting death, a shared award with the late James Beaty over a Pittsburg County commissioner using a hammer to knock police-only parking signs off of courthouse curbs and a spotlight on Pete’s Place. I was also honored to receive several photography awards.
My reporting on the effects of McGirt has also been used in several briefs filed in subsequent cases.
While working full-time, I decided to go back to finish my bachelor’s degree. I graduated from Oklahoma State University in May 2023, and I hope to further my education through a master’s in Indigenous peoples law from the University of Oklahoma, a degree that is only becoming more valuable as the civic, legal and political dynamics of eastern Oklahoma shift in a post-McGirt landscape.
As an Indigenous journalist who grew up in this area, I have taken seriously the obligation to approach complicated topics in a thorough, fair and respectful way that avoids stereotyping rural and native people. But I have also worried about the future of journalism in southeast Oklahoma.
When market forces led me to leave the McAlester News-Capital in February, I knew staying in journalism would be difficult in this community, which had just lost a legend in Beaty. I mentioned my MNC departure to Tres Savage of NonDoc, and I was excited when he said this nonprofit newsroom’s mission and vision recognizes the need for new journalism jobs in rural Oklahoma. Nonetheless, he explained it would take a while to determine whether a fundraising pathway exists to create and sustain a southeast Oklahoma reporting position.
As I waited to learn more, I joined the team at McAlester Radio, where I did a little bit of everything, including writing news stories and selling advertising. You can still find me on the sidelines of McAlester Buffalo football games with a video camera and a microphone on Friday nights, helping with the local radio call and video broadcast.
When Tres called this summer and said NonDoc’s board had approved pursuing a growth opportunity in southeast Oklahoma, accepting the interview opportunity and then the job offer was an easy decision. NonDoc’s journalists, now my new coworkers, had always been easy to work with when I was at the MNC. Having their stories available for use in the print product helped tremendously. I have always been impressed with the quality of journalism that has come from NonDoc over the past decade, and I am happy to join the team at such an interesting time in Oklahoma history.
In the song Now or Never by Pitbull and Bon Jovi, Pitbull tells listeners, “The world is yours, just get up and get it.” That is the same philosophy I bring to my journalism. In order to get the best story, you have to get up from behind the desk and get it. Being born and raised in southeast Oklahoma, I hope to burn rubber all across this part of the state to help readers understand issues that are affecting our community.
As I snoop around the land of Bigfoot, any tips will be helpful (cryptid-related or otherwise). Feel free to reach me at derrick@nondoc.com or direct message me on X, the site I’m told we still call Twitter in this newsroom, @dljames0001.
