Canada

Thaioronióhte Dan David, a renowned Kanien’kehá:ka journalist who helped establish the news department of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, has died.

His sister Marie David said he died Jan. 12 after a long struggle with cancer. He was 73.

Pugliese said David helped found APTN News in 2000 — then called InVision News — to transform the way Indigenous stories are told. He witnessed news reports of his own community of Kanehsatà:ke, in southwestern Quebec, being distorted by mainstream media during the siege of Kanehsatà:ke, commonly referred to as the Oka Crisis, in the summer of 1990.

"Some of his family were involved in the land protection there at the time when the army came in. And there was Dan, with all the sources and all the connections, and he wasn't allowed to report on it because he was considered biased," Pugliese said.

Soon after, David was asked by his boss and mentor at CBC to help launch the South African Broadcasting Corporation in post-apartheid South Africa.

"In South Africa, he was working with journalists from all walks of life, including those who had been on opposite sides of the apartheid years. He was very affected by that," Pindera said.

That experience gave him the tools and knowledge to establish APTN's news department.