From an ivory tower to a sandstone mesa.

Take nineteen print and broadcast reporters. Add one editorial page editor for balance, taste, and class.

Or, in my case, because they had a last-minute opening.

Fly the whole lot to Washington, D.C., in March for two full days of meetings with policymakers, advocates, and

What do you have?

An exhausting, stimulating, and possibly first-of-its-kind fellowship called "Covering Indian Country: Native American Issues in the Twenty-first Century." The Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, with help from the Native American Journalists Association, put together the week-long journalistic blitz, which took place from March 6-13. Organizers said it was designed to help print and broadcast journalists do a better job of covering the more than four million Native Americans who live in the United States and who are sometimes misunderstood or stereotyped. Or worse, ignored.

As the lone editorialist, I'd say they delivered.

"We started with a blank sheet of paper" said Victor Merina, a former Los Angeles Times staff writer and senior fellow at USC's Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, who helped lead the discussions along with Knight Center director Vikki Porter. They quickly filled that white space. Among the many high points:

* Special tours and discussions at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, the newest museum on The Mall.

* An hour-long meeting on Capitol Hill with U.S. senator John McCain, R-Arizona, who explained why Indian issues, such as the settlement of the tribal lands and tribal trust case that could amount to billions of public dollars, are on the radar screens of only a handful of congressmen. And newspapers.

* A half-day visit to the Acoma Pueblo's Sky City, which sits atop a sandstone mesa that rises three hundred seventy feet straight up from the desert in northwest New Mexico. Historians there say it's the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America, tracing the roots to AD 1100. The view was spectacular. So was Orlando Antonio, a guide and storyteller who talked about the construction of the San Esteban del Rey Mission in 1629 and the Indian builders who died at the hands of the Spanish.

* Sessions in Window Rock, Arizona. It's the capital of the Navajo Nation, which covers an area as big as West Virginia--but struggles with larger poverty and unemployment rates.

* The "Indian Elvis." He performed at an open mic night at the Sky City Casino Hotel, located along a desolate stretch of I-40 in New Mexico just west of nowhere.

* The polished and poised chairs of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians in Southern California. They discussed Indian gaming--and why they don't trust nosy reporters from the mainstream media who ask where the money goes.

At Window Rock, Navajo Times publisher Tom Arviso talked about his feisty weekly, which has a circulation of 21,400 and estimated readership of one hundred thousand. It's the largest Native American-owned paper in the country. Arviso led the successful effort to make the paper independent from tribal government in 2004--a move that resulted in vandalism, threats, and the killing of a reporter's dog.

His opinion page is filled with letters to the editor. "It's the most popular part of the paper," Arviso said. Adding more spice is in-house editorial cartoonist Jack Ahasteen. His cartoon published March 10, shortly after the reds allowed treated wastewater to be used to make artificial snow for a ski resort on an Arizona mountain that Indians consider sacred, showed a roll of toilet paper hanging on the wall of the U.S. National Forest Service office. On it were the words to the "Our Father."

This road show format was new for the Western Knight Center. According to Porter, her organization typically conducts its seminars in hotel meeting rooms. But this effort, dubbed the "Rolling Thunder Tour," has made Porter a believer. She said the WKC may take future groups on the road--and she encourages editorialists to apply for fellowships.

"We were told we were crazy to try to do something like this," Merina said.

I'd say you'd be crazy not to take advantage of such unique learning experiences, especially when nearly all expenses are paid. There's nothing like the view from a mesa to clear the mind--and perhaps see things more clearly from the ivory tower.

Tom Barton is editorial-page editor for the Savannah Morning News in Georgia. E-mail tbarton@ savannahnow.com