Priestess Bearstops, right, then 18, with her mother, Reva Bearstops, in their home in Minneapolis, in a photo published Jan. 20, 2014. In a series on the dangers of gang life for young Native Americans, Priestess Bearstops was featured for her determination to graduate and go on to college. Tomo for Al Jazeera America

In 2013, I received an email from a digital editor at Al Jazeera America. The organization had a goal: to become the go-to place for stories from Indian Country. The email asked for story pitches.

“We’re especially committed to showing good and bad, to go above the stereotypical ‘sad life on the rez’ that seems to get reported all the time,” the editor wrote. “No matter what the story, we want it to be full of portraits and voices, very much on-the-ground reporting.”

It was a curious request. Usually, indigenous people show up in media if they fall into what Reporting in Indigenous Communities calls the WD4 rule: If you’re an Indian who’s going to make the news, you have to be a warrior, be drumming, be dancing, be drunk or be dead.

“We’re interested in tech, environment, health, science, sports, culture,” the editor continued. “Frankly, if it’s a good story, we want it.”

As a reporter and member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, I knew a lot about what I didn’t like seeing in the media: journalists parachuting into tribal communities for stories on victims and statistics, written in clichés and stereotypes. I also knew what I wasn’t seeing: the topics I discussed with my friends and family, the heroes, the history and the nuance and context required to make sense of what Native America is really about.

The request seemed genuine, so I sent a few pitches.

Within two years, my editors at Al Jazeera America and I were producing award-winning series and in-depth features from indigenous communities, and stories poured in from other reporters. Al Jazeera America even built its own Indian Country vertical with pieces on food, language, legal battles, uranium mining, sex and dating, drought, law and order, mascots, payday lending, sports, voting, financial mismanagement, pipeline fights, missing and murdered indigenous women, pollution and treaty rights, to name a few.

There was nothing like it at any other mainstream news outlet in the United States.