or 145 weeklies covered the mayhem in any depth, relying instead on the Associated Press or printing nothing at all." A year later the paper offered Giago a full-time position and he began to learn the newspaper business. As a young reporter, he was sometimes told that he could not cover events at the Pine Ridge Reservation because he could not be "objective", an opinion which he questioned. In 1981, Giago moved back to the reservation to begin the Lakota Times with Doris Giago (his wife at the time) as a weekly community newspaper to represent his neighbors' lives. It was the first independently owned Native American newspaper; most papers published on reservations have been owned by tribal governments. In the beginning, he earned revenue by publishing the most complete list of pow-wows nationally and selling related advertising. This gave him needed independence on the reservation. He wrote editorials criticizing US and state policy related to Native Americans, and his columns were soon syndicated by Knight-Ridder. After his criticism of AIM's violence on the reservation, his offices were fire-bombed. Despite his criticism of programs, he gradually earned the respect of tribal governments, and gained their support for his independence during difficult years. Through the years, Giago hired and trained numerous Native Americans, some of whom later moved on to other papers and media to become successful in journalism. He also founded the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and served as its first president. To encourage American Indian participation in the media, the NAJA Foundation provides scholarships and summer internships to journalism students who are Indian. The foundation also holds three major seminars a year for working Indian journalists, publishers and the business side. Gradually Giago expanded his paper's coverage to all the Indian reservations in South Dakota, then to American Indian issues nationwide. To reflect its national coverage, in 1992 he changed the name of the paper to Indian Country Today. In 1998, Giago sold the paper to the Oneida Nation, based in New York. At the time it was grossing $1.9 million annually in ad sales. By 2005, it was the largest Native American paper, reaching 50 states and 17 countries. In 2000, Giago founded The Lakota Times and sold it in 2004 to the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, thinking he would retire. After the Times stopped publishing, Giago founded the Native Sun News in 2009 in Rapid City,