by Elizabeth Bauchner

Homelands Productions, a non profit radio production company headed by Jon Miller of Ithaca, has won the 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for best national radio news documentary. The winning show, "Saints and Indians," was produced by former freelancer Kate Davidson and looks at the emotional experiences of Navajo children placed in Mormon foster homes throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

The Edward R. Murrow Award is one of the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism. Miller says that of the thirteen awards given out at last week's ceremony in New York, "Saints and Indians" was the only winner from a small, independent production company. The rest were produced by ABC News Radio, CBS Radio News, NPR, American Public Media, and PRI's The World.

"I was very surprised and very gratified," says Miller, on receiving the award. "I don't know why, in a year that was so full of incredible stories, that this story struck a chord." The award was given for stories produced in 2005, and Miller points out that as broadcast producers, they were essentially up against two wars, numerous civil rights issues, and hurricane Katrina.

"Saints and Indians" was part of the "Worlds of Difference" program spearheaded by Miller, which focused on how diverse cultures are responding to globalization in an ever-changing world. In three years' time, the program produced forty features from twenty-seven different countries.

Over the course of nearly 50 years, more than 20,000 Native American children were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and enrolled in the Indian Student Placement Program. Placement students spent their school years in the care of white Mormon families. The program included more than sixty tribes and spanned the western half of the United States.

Kate Davidson, who produced "Saints and Indians," spent a year living in Flagstaff, Arizona, interviewing Native Americans who had been placed in foster homes, as well as former foster families and church leaders who created the program. 

"I think what appealed to me so much about this topic was that there was absolutely nothing black and white about it," Davidson says. "There were so many families that participated in it, that the range of experiences was as varied as the families themselves."

Indeed, some families saw the placement program as a way out of poverty or abusive situations at home, while others really saw it as a blow to their culture.

Davidson decided early on to focus the show on the emotional experiences of the children, explaining that the topic brings up so much in the way of religion, culture and power, focusing on the children's experience was an accessible entry point. "You just can't refute someone else's experience," Davidson says.

To listen to the program, go to: http://homelands.org/worlds/saints.html

For more information about Worlds of Difference: http://homelands.org/worlds/