Miles Morrisseau
ICT

Award-winning journalist and teacher Dan David, the first news director of APTN in Canada and an agent of change in post-apartheid South Africa, died Jan. 12 following a long illness. He was 73.

David, Mohawk from Kanehsatà:ke, is being remembered as one of Canada’s most impactful Indigenous journalists, including his work in 2000 helping launch the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the world’s first all-Indigenous national television network.

“He changed the course of Canadian history, and I say that because there was no Facebook and there was no Twitter or anything like that when we started, and people in one community to another didn’t have a way of speaking to each other,” said Karyn Pugliese, a Pikwakinagin First Nation journalist, who was part of that fledging newsroom and returned to APTN recently as host and producer of “Face to Face.”

“We did a lot of stories that showed that people weren’t alone,” Pugliese told ICT. “They think something’s only happening in their community, and then they realize, ‘Wait a second, it’s not just my daughter that’s missing. There’s a lot of missing women out there.’”

Jim Compton, Keeseekoose First Nation, was program director at APTN when the network launched, and he worked closely with David in developing the news department.

“Dan David and I spoke in a blog recently on the launch of APTN,” Compton said. “We had not talked for quite a while. But I’ll never forget the times we had launching APTN News and the network.

“Every day we would ask each other, ‘Wonder what fresh hell awaits us today?’ There was always something to be handled with whatever diplomacy we could muster,” he said. “At the time, we were living the dream of creating a national network with a flagship news department covering news from coast to coast. Rest in Peace, my friend.”

A personal view

Dan David had a knowing smile.

It wasn’t that he was supercilious, it was that he appreciated ideas and opinions and he wanted to know what you really thought. We connected for the first time when we met at CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I was working for “Sunday Morning,” CBC Radio’s flagship documentary program, and he was the national Native Affairs broadcaster for the corporation, a job I would take over after he left for greener pastures.

We were the only two Indigenous people at CBC in Toronto, including radio and television, but he was the first. We both attended the journalism program for Native Peoples at Western University in London, Ontario. He graduated in 1981 and I graduated in 1985.

Journalist Dan David, right, seen here with Karyn Pugliese and Duncan McCue, was honored for his contributions to Indigenous journalism, including as a co-recipient of the Charles Bury Award in 2023. Credit: Photo via APTN

Dan enjoyed laughing at the absurdity of situations and at the same time taking them deadly seriously. It was a dichotomy that I came to understand more as I spent time listening to elders of various nations. I began to see that laughter was an essential component of resiliency. The elders who really connected could bring you down with some hard truths and then lift you up with an unexpected joke.

Sometimes you need to say something unexpected or inappropriate to the moment just to break free of the yoke of oppression.

During one of the most fraught moments in modern Canadian history, Dan and I took to the airwaves of Kanehsatake and acted like fools. Dan was from Kanehsatake and was living at home when the Sûreté du Québec , the province’s police force, raided the community with intent to take down a barricade that was halting the construction of a golf course. What followed was the longest armed standoff in Canadian history.

Sent to cover the story by CBC, I crossed the Lake of Two Mountains with a small group of people who were smuggling food and medicine into the community. The people were under siege and we had insulin for diabetics and other medications and supplies.

I contacted Dan and he took me to the family home and let me sleep on the couch. I would spend much of the evenings at the local rez radio station, and one night Dan asked if I wanted to get on the air with him and we started to do a show together. We both figured it would not be a good idea to use my real name and so Dan dubbed me Hank, after Hank Williams and my love for classic country music.

We joked around, talking music and making bad jokes and puns, entertaining ourselves and hopefully entertaining the people in the community living under siege and the warriors at the barricades and checkpoints around the community.

Dan had told me that we were not going to talk about the events of the day, an update on the negotiations or anything like that. The people were living the story and they didn’t need anything more than a respite from the stress of the day.

Indigenous identity

In addition to his work in Canada, David is remembered for the work he did in South Africa turning the state-run apartheid media into a news service that served all the people. In a tribute published by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Davdi’s significant impact was acknowledged.

“Danny has been an important part of my life. As his spirit departs, the gap he leaves behind is tangible, almost unbearable,” wrote Sylvia Vollenhoven, former executive producer at SABC-TV. “Hamba Kahle Comrade Thaioronióhte Dan David. Thank you for the lessons, the laughter, and the love you left in your wake. You taught us to listen more carefully, to travel with courage, and to meet adversity without losing gentleness. We will carry your stories forward.”

David was born June 2, 1952, in Syracuse, New York, but his family moved to Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk territory when he was four to help care for his mother’s parents.

After attending the Native journalism program at Western University, he went to work for CBC Radio, then produced for TVOntario and VISION TV. He also served as chair of diversity at Toronto Metropolitan University, taught at the University of Toronto and provided training through Journalists for Human Rights, according to APTN.

In addition to his work in South Africa, he also worked to train journalists in Indonesia and Azerbaijan.

David wrote an essay about Indigenous identity that means as much today as when it was published in 2012 for the online magazine Open Canada.

“Identifying myself as a citizen of my Indigenous nation should be enough,” he wrote. “After all, who gave a foreign, faraway king the right to declare non-existent my peoples’ governments, laws and institutions simply by planting a damn flag? We had civilizations, religions and science. These I know to be self-evident and true. But, oh Canada, none of that mattered, because you have done a grand job of whitewashing my peoples out of your history.”

One of Canada’s most accomplished playwrights, Drew Hayden Taylor, Curve Lake First Nation, was David’s longtime friend.

“I was privileged to have known Dan David for a number of decades,” Taylor said. “As an up-and-coming writer, our conversations were inspiring and educational. He had the background many of us could only imagine — running the journalism division at the fledgling APTN, working in South Africa to help train the new generation of reporters in an essentially new country. I saw him more as a friend than a colleague.”

Taylor said they shared “innumerable dinner parties.”

“He was an amazing cook. I watched him make pasta from scratch once, with far too much wine,” Taylor said. “Hanging out with friends at his place in wintery Quebec, talking about stories in all their many forms. During the last few years, we kind of drifted apart, as can sometimes happen with friends, but every time I think of him, I smile and laugh. Dan was a proud journalist, a proud Mohawk, and the kind of friend everybody should have.”

In 2021, David received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Journalist Federation,the first Indigenous journalist to receive the prestigious award.

“Dan David was a trailblazer whose vision fundamentally changed the landscape of Canadian journalism,” Natalie Turvey, the federation’s president and executive director told ICT.

“We recognized his remarkable career and his profound understanding that journalism advances reconciliation,” Turvey said. “By launching APTN’s news service, Dan created space for Indigenous voices to tell their own stories. He didn’t just build a newsroom; he built pathways for Indigenous journalists, training and mentoring a generation of storytellers who continue to shape our national conversation.”

Turvey noted his commitment to journalism as a force for justice, including his transformative work in South Africa.

“He saw the universal power of truthful storytelling to strengthen democracy,” Turvey said. “At the CJF, we are grateful for Dan’s legacy and the standard he set. His life’s work reminds us that excellence in journalism means ensuring all communities can see themselves reflected in the stories that shape our nation. Our deepest condolences to Dan’s family, friends, and the many journalists whose lives he touched.”

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