Reporter’s Notebook

When disaster encroaches, the instinct to protect what we love most can define the shape of our response. For Ela Yazzie-King, a longtime St. Michael’s resident who walks with crutches, that moment of reckoning came not with the sirens or smoke, but with a simple, aching question: What will happen to the horse?

I didn’t step into The Door Christian Fellowship Church myself, but I didn’t need to. The footage speaks loud enough. Marketed as a revival, what unfolded on stage wasn’t worship. It was war, waged through theater, cloaked in salvation, and aimed squarely at Navajo identity.

There are moments – quiet, mostly – when the story is submitted, and the MacBook screen fades to black. When headlines are filed, inboxes go still, and the adrenaline that once kept the body upright dissolves into silence

Some conversations don’t start with a point. They meander. They stumble. They double back and laugh at themselves for doing so. They land where they want to, not where you intended.

This is the beginning of a multi-part investigative project focused on Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren’s campaign promises and how they hold up against the realities of his administration so far.