Amplify Utah supports and facilitates dynamic journalistic storytelling to celebrate diverse points of view. By partnering with traditional media, we cultivate an environment that encourages stories be shared widely and made easily accessible for our communities to read, hear, watch and engage.
11-05-2025 By Vanessa Hudson
From photojournalist to public servant: Bruin alum Jesse Valdez aims for mayoral seat
10-21-2025 By Pearl Ashton
'I think we deserve to start telling our own narrative rather than let others do it for us.'
Speakers at censorship ‘teach in’ at Weber State encounter rain outside, restrictions indoors
10-04-2025 By Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell, James Gordon, and Kyle Greenawalt
The “uncensored version” of the Unity Conference began outdoors. When weather forced participants inside, they were told to adhere to the limits of Utah’s anti-DEI law.
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A documentary focused on Indigenous stewardship of Great Salt Lake is the latest work of art centering on the declining levels of the lake and a cry, filmmakers say, for state leaders to listen to Indigenous voices who believe the issue has been “scienced to death.”
“Diverted: Indigenous Stewardship and Saving Great Salt Lake” has been two years in the making, despite reshoots and the personal struggles of balancing work, families and daily life. Now, it's ready for two screenings this month: Nov. 6 at Fisher Brewing and Nov. 20 at the Utah Film Center.
Director and producer Valene Peratrovich said she initially got involved with the project after co-producers McCaulee Blackburn and Cristian Martinez asked her to do voice-over work for the documentary, which was still in pre-production, and later invited her to attend planning meetings. At first, Peratrovich said, the amateur crew had no idea what they were doing.
“We just knew what we cared about, and that really taught us that you don't need perfect and you don't need to be an expert,” Peratrovich said. “If the intention is true, and the heart is there, everything else will grow from that.”
The documentary centers Indigenous voices and focuses on traditional connections and their ecological knowledge to save the lake, Peratrovich said. Interviews with Darren Parry, former Northwestern Shoshone Nation chairman; Carl Moore, a member of the Hopi, Chemehuevi, and Colorado River Indian Tribes; and Elizabeth Kronk Warner, dean of the University of Utah’s law school, bring the threads of the story together on screen.
“I was super passionate about it because I am Indigenous myself,” said Peratrovich, who is Tlingit (Eagle Clan), Unangan and Athabascan, from the Anchorage, Alaska area. “I was raised really to believe in my people, in my culture, understanding all the positive and negative things that have impacted us as people, and really using it to push the culture forward, advocate for my people and really amplify our voices.”
Peratrovich led the crew of two producers, Blackburn and Martinez, whom she met in 2022 while studying journalism at Salt Lake Community College. They initially worked on the documentary as a passion project outside of the classroom, but they later pitched it for a documentary class at the college and premiered a first cut of the film through the school in December 2023.
In 2024, “Diverted” received a Rocky Mountain Student Emmy and a Bloomberg Philanthropies grant from the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
Andrew Shaw, special projects coordinator for the Salt Lake City Arts Council, runs Wake the Great Salt Lake, a temporary public art project funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies to educate and inspire people about saving Utah’s capital-city namesake. Salt Lake City was one of eight cities to receive the $1 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The money was divided amongst several art projects and artists and funded murals, photo exhibitions and performance art.
Shaw said he believes the documentary has the potential to be seen and make an impact at film festivals across the country and the world.
“I think this film has such great potential … as a good depiction of a community caring about the water and the natural resources around them,” he said.
Peratrovich said their $10,000 portion of the grant was really helpful.
“We're going to be able to afford to enter into film festivals,” she said, though they’re not sure which festivals yet. “It's not free, it ain't cheap, so we're very lucky for their support.”
Shaw said he’s been impressed by the crew’s approach to the film, finding the right people to interview and showcasing how communities can find solutions together. The upcoming screenings, he added, mark the beginning of something great for added awareness about the lake and its connection to some of Utah’s Indigenous communities.
“Artists have a way of touching people's hearts in a way that the data doesn't,” he said. “Data shows us what's going wrong and helps us really get into the weeds, but art can show a much bigger picture and can be much more accessible to a wider audience.”
Still, as a grassroots project, the documentary faced several obstacles – from the technical to new laws – during shooting and post-production, Peratrovich said.
“I looked at it as each barrier or obstacle or hurdle was presented in getting this film done and completed,” she added. “It really was always a checkpoint: are you dedicated to the story?”
The first iteration of the documentary wrapped while the crew were still students at SLCC, giving them access to classrooms and other filming resources. Peratrovich said she took specific classes just to be able to use certain equipment, like drones, to keep moving the project forward.
The crew took a blow in 2024, when the Utah Legislature passed HB 249, banning governmental entities from granting personhood to bodies of water. The idea of giving a body of water or a natural resource personhood, or granting the same legal rights as a human, comes from Indigenous practices and an environmental personhood movement across the world.
In 2014, New Zealand’s Te Urewera Act gave a forested area a legal identity to protect its natural and cultural value. New Zealand’s bill acknowledges Te Urewera as an ancient, spiritual and living forest with distinct Indigenous history and importance. It hit hard for Peratrovich, she said, because other natural resources with personhood allows people to sue on behalf of that resource if it is believed its rights are being violated.
“It was a punch in the gut,” she said. “That was hard in our documentary when we saw that happen, because we were so hopeful about that idea [of granting personhood to Great Salt Lake].”
The crew persisted and updated the film following the personhood ban, making sure the new information was included in a written note at the end.
Earlier this year, the crew screened the film at a “work in progress” session through the Utah Documentary Association. One thing that shocked Peratrovich and her crew, she said, included reactions from some viewers who expressed the film didn’t appear to feature enough Indigenous voices in its mix of interviews.
“I think many people see Indigenous folks as people that are in traditional regalia [or] elders,” Peratrovich said. “As a director and an Indigenous woman, I'm very much right here right now, and I may not look the way you think a native person should look. And that's an interesting thing, too.”
The crew, Peratroovich said, realized they needed to go back and help people understand what it means to be Indigenous and to help break long-standing stereotypes. They went back through their footage of interviewees explaining their Indigenous experience, and made sure to ask other participants on film to share their definition of what it means to be Indigenous.
“In order to make this conversation and help it go along, we'll go to wherever we need to and grow and develop that part of the film,” Peratrovich said.
But, she added, it’s motivating to know people are “thirsty” to hear from Indigenous voices.
“People are excited to hear indigenous voices,” she said, “and they really helped wake us up to what we need to shine a light on … when it comes to sharing Indigenous stories, Indigenous ecological knowledge, and Indigenous issues and challenges.”
And that’s the hope, she added – that people see and hear different perspectives so the whole community can work together to find ways to save the lake. It won’t be just one entity or a single person with a solution.
“I hope this plant seeds, seeds of understanding, seeds of hope and bridges,” Peratrovich said. “Seeds to build bridges and communities so that we reach out to each other and consider each other's perspective and how we can work together.”
Vanessa Hudson, a recent journalism graduate from the University of Utah, wrote this article through a collaboration with Amplify Utah and the Great Salt Lake Collaborative.
When Jesse Valdez graduated from Salt Lake Community College, he never imagined he would be running for mayor of his hometown.
But for Valdez, the leap from photojournalism to public service isn’t as far as it seems. Both, he says, are about telling the stories of the community.
“As a photojournalist, I was really telling the stories of the community and really getting engaged to uplift the voices that may be unheard or neglected,” Valdez said. “I’ve always been that person that wanted to tell the story of others without knowing it.”
Valdez studied TV/Video Production at SLCC and credits the hands-on environment and faculty at the South City campus for shaping his career.
“I love SLCC, specifically South City,” Valdez said. “You’re not going to find any other place like it for communications, at least in Utah.”
During his time at the college, Valdez noticed something was missing. He created the club Sports Rally, brought intramural activities to campus and ran for Student Body President. He also helped revamp the SLCC sports show called “End of the Bench.”
“My duty [as a leader] is to get people to engage and connect, just like I was doing with the club at SLCC,” said Valdez. “Even if it was something as simple as sports, it fulfilled what it needed to do, and that was to connect the SLCC community together.”
Jesse Valdez graduated from SLCC in 2016. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
Looking back on his college years, Valdez admits he didn’t have a clear direction when he started. He encouraged students to get out of their comfort zones and not stress about not having everything figured out.
“I think getting uncomfortable is a good thing,” said Valdez. “Getting uncomfortable and just sticking up [for] and doing what’s right is the best thing you can do.”
When talking about majors, Valdez suggested exploration.
“Don’t be set in stone like you’re signing a contract, just put whatever [idea] down and see where it takes you,” he said. “As long as you’re putting in work, it will find you.”
He also stressed the value of involvement and networking — lessons he learned firsthand at SLCC.
“I did it with people who had that same passion to do it with me. I think that’s just as important as networking, finding people that … you kind of connect with, in a sense,” said Valdez. “It’s not about just finishing the work and making sure you get a good grade on it. I honestly almost feel like the networking part is just as important, if not more important.”
Jesse Valdez while working as a photojournalist for ABC4. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
After graduating, Valdez joined KTVX ABC4 News as a photojournalist, where he spent nearly a decade filming, lighting and editing for the station’s newscast.
“All the stuff you see behind the scenes, that when it hits air on TV and the reporter’s standing there looking good, that was all me,” said Valdez.
Valdez said his favorite part of the job was not knowing what his day was going to look like.
“I was always out and about. My office was wherever it took me,” said Valdez. “There were tragic times as well. But I think that’s what I enjoyed a lot is just the unknown kept it interesting.”
Valdez said he didn’t imagine becoming a photojournalist.
“I think all of us will look at life and be like, ‘we never became what we wanted to be or thought we wanted to be, but it all worked out how it should have,’” said Valdez. “I don’t think I necessarily ever had the dream to become a photojournalist, but I do love what I do and the fact that I get to tell stories and create those stories, and it means something to me, right? So, it’s more of finding your niche of where you belong.”
Jesse Valdez on the set of ABC4 where Valdez worked for nearly a decade. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
After years in journalism, Valdez felt called back to his roots in Kearns, where he grew up. Before he and his family had even fully moved in, he joined the Kearns Community Council.
“I always kept the idea since I was 10 years old that, you know, one day when I can buy my own house and have my own family, we’re going to move back to Kearns,” said Valdez.
Valdez also created the Facebook page K-town, one of the “most popular community pages in the valley.” The page has almost 40,000 members.
“The whole reason why I even created that [page] to begin with was because I really felt like at the time when I moved in, I was looking for direction. I wanted to know how to get involved. I just didn’t know how, and I thought maybe other people feel this way,” Valdez said. “I created that page so people could kind of find that direction and kind of find a purpose of, you know, how they can help be involved in Kearns.”
Valdez created the Facebook page with the hope of getting people actively engaged in their community.
“I think that’s the biggest thing; it’s not that the community doesn’t want to be engaged, they just don’t know how,” said Valdez. “So as a leader … that’s my duty is to get people to engage and connect. Just like I was doing with the [Sports Rally] club at SLCC.”
Now, Valdez is running in Kearns’ first modern-era mayoral election, aiming to bring transparency and accessibility to local government. Valdez says he wants to listen and understand what the community wants.
According to his campaign website, his focus as mayor will be “on neighborhood safety, a thriving town center and a transparent, responsive city hall that treats every resident with respect.”
As ballots begin to go out for the election, Valdez says his motivation remains simple: to help his community tell its own story.
“Kearns has just been neglected for so long,” Valdez said. “I just want to see it thrive. I want to see it be at its best because I think at the end of the day, the community really deserves that. And I think we deserve to start telling our own narrative rather than let others do it for us.”
Jesse Valdez, far right, stands with colleagues after receiving an award for his work in photojournalism. After moving back to Kearns, Valdez joined the Kearns Community Council. (Courtesy of Jesse Valdez)
A steady rain drove a “teach in” on censorship at Weber State University indoors on Friday, but the speakers and attendees were as persistent as the turbulent weather.
“The rain hit us hard, but people were still willing to stay for it,” said Barrett Bonella, a professor of social work at Weber State. “People really wanted to hear and be a part of this.”
Bonella is chief steward of The Wildcat Collective, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council — the union that represents university faculty and staff. The union organized the “teach in” as an alternate conference to Weber State’s annual Unity Conference.
Organizers canceled the Unity Conference this week, after being told by university officials that speakers would have to censor some of their talks. The topic of the conference was censorship.
Among those attending Friday’s campus event was Ogden School Board member Stacy Bernal, a Weber State alumna who was, according to her biography, the first manager of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Utah Jazz.
“It’s wild to me to be living out this censorship in real-time,” Bernal said. “To be just someone watching it as it was coming up in the news and on social media, I just truly couldn’t believe it.”
The alternative “teach in” was scheduled to be held Friday on the front steps of Stewart Library. When the rain started to pour around 11 a.m., and kept going through the two-hour event, The Wildcat Collective worked with campus police to move the event into a temporary indoor space.
Once inside Lindquist Hall, though, attendees were told discussions would have to adhere to the limits placed by the Utah Legislature under HB261. At that point, the event shifted to small-group discussions.
The “teach in,” which organizers called “Unity Conference: Uncensored Version,” included open-mic opportunities and speeches, featuring presenters from the canceled conference. About 50 people attended the event, as speakers discussed book banning, the limitations of censorship on scientific research and other topics.
HB261, passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, restricts how certain topics — such as anti-racism, bias, critical race theory, oppression, intersectionality, discriminatory practices, systemic bias or personal identity characteristics — can be addressed in some higher education settings.
In an email sent to faculty and staff Friday, the president’s office at Weber State addressed the cancellation of the Unity Conference. The office cited poor communication and unclear definitions of HB261.
In the email, the administration wrote that “we recognize that this has been difficult to navigate and that there have been times when communication could have been clearer.
“We apologize for the frustration this has caused. We are truly working to move forward, through what has sometimes been shifting guidance, together.”
The administration stressed that faculty are exempt from HB261 when they teach, conduct research, join scholarly events and discuss complex or controversial issues in their field. However, other campus events — like those under the umbrella of the university’s Student Access & Success department, such as the Unity Conference — are not exempt, and must follow the content limits of HB261.
“Because of this difference, some proposed Unity Conference sessions were better suited for academic venues, while others raised compliance concerns because this was a conference hosted by Student Access & Success,” the administration wrote.
Richard Price, a political science professor at Weber State, was one of the original panelists scheduled to discuss censorship at the canceled Unity Conference. When university officials said speakers would have to restrict their language, Price wrote to the university’s president, Brad Mortensen, saying they “could no longer ethically participate.”
Price told The Signpost on Friday that while, in theory, HB261 shouldn’t affect their teaching, in reality there is no way the law won’t change how professors in Utah educate students.
“I could teach what I want in theory within the confines of my academic discipline, which is what I do,” Price said. “But I can’t talk to a general audience on campus about it, because they start to worry that it looks like the university is endorsing what I’m saying.”
Last fall, Price said they gave a talk on LGBTQ history, and administrators pushed back — even though, they said, the administrators only had access to the title of Price’s talk: “LGBTQ Education and Higher Ed.”
“The perspective that administrators are taking essentially is that anything that references groups of people — whether it’s queer people, Black History Month, whatever — can’t be done because it might piss off a legislator,” Price said.
The administration in its email closed by saying it plans to discuss the situation further with Weber State’s faculty senate and staff advisory council meetings.
Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell, James Gordon and Kyle Greenawalt reported this story as student journalists at Weber State University’s The Signpost. It is published as part of an ongoing collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
Weber State University’s annual Unity Conference was set to take on a big topic — censorship — with workshops, panel discussions and the screening of a documentary about book banning.
Organizers announced Wednesday that they canceled the event, originally scheduled for Thursday and Friday, because university officials wanted speakers to remove some of what they were going to present.
Professor Richard Price, one of the scheduled speakers, wrote in an email to the university’s president, Brad Mortensen, ”Little did I expect that the university would censor the content of the conference to the point at which I could no longer ethically participate.”
On Thursday, Weber State’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council — a union that represents faculty and staff in higher education — told The Signpost via email that it would host a “teach-in,” titled “Unity Conference: Uncensored Version.”
That event, unaffiliated with the university, was scheduled to take place at the same time and place as the original conference: Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in front of Stewart Library on the Ogden campus.
The decision to cancel the conference came after organizers received an email from Jessica Oyler, Weber State’s vice president of Student Access and Success (SAS), in which she sought “to provide clarity” about whether the conference’s programming conformed to state law.
Oyler cited HB261, passed by Utah Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, which requires Utah’s higher-education institutions eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to as DEI.
“The intent here is not to suggest that operating this way is ideal, as I know there are strong feelings about the legislation itself, but rather to be transparent about how we are operationalizing the law,” Oyler wrote in her email to organizers.
Oyler told The Signpost on Thursday that her department — which funded the conference — does not enjoy the academic freedom that faculty do, and so is not exempt from the restrictions of HB261.
“That distinction in funding and coordination matters under HB261 because SAS staff and other non-faculty employees fall outside the academic freedom protections specifically carved out in the law,” she said.
HB261, Oyler said, doesn’t allow university programs to talk about what the Legislature called “discriminatory practices.” Those include anything that suggests any people, based on characteristics of personal identity, are inherently privileged, oppressed, racist, sexist or victims. The same goes for political systems or conflicts over power.
Price, a political science professor at Weber State, wrote in a blog post Thursday that administrators wanted to block information that suggested censorship is the result of a partisan strategy.
“I, a political scientist, was told not to talk about politics,” Price said. “In other words I was ordered to lie to my colleagues, students and the general public.”
The 27th annual Unity Conference, which was free to the public, was scheduled to take place Thursday and Friday at two locations: Stewart Library in Ogden and the D2 building at the school’s Davis campus in Layton.
Roughly 120 people were registered for the event, half of them conference organizers and people scheduled to present, Bryan Magaña, public relations director for the conference organizers, said in an email.
The committee in charge of the Unity Conference — whose title was “Redacted: Navigating the Complexities of Censorship” — sent an email to the conference’s collaborators Wednesday, “to share the difficult news that we have made the decision to cancel” the event. The notice also was posted on the school’s website.
An email signed by the conference’s co-chairs read: “After careful consideration of concerns raised by conference planners and participants, we have determined we cannot in good conscience deliver the high-quality, meaningful experience that our community expects and deserves.” At the bottom of the email, the sign-off, “Co-Chairs of the 27th Annual Unity Conference,” was crossed out.
Sarah Herrmann, who organized one of the conference’s panels, posted on a private faculty Facebook group, obtained by The Signpost, that presenters were directed to remove any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion by the end of the day Monday.
Herrmann wrote that she was concerned “about the precedent this sets for academic freedom, student scholarly development and the integrity of conferences and events hosted on campus.”
James Gordon, Alfonso Rubio, Jared Mitchell and Kyle Greenawalt reported this story as student journalists at Weber State University’s The Signpost. It is published as part of an ongoing collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
