Lisa Meeches

Lisa Meeches

Media and Communications (2007)

Lisa Meeches is a trained herbalist raised by a family of traditionalists and pipe carriers. They taught her everything about living a traditional life. Meeches realized later that not everyone was as lucky as she was. While the country was barraged with prejudices and preconceived notions about Native people, Meeches decided to set the record straight. She studied media and communications and learned to weave her spirituality with the mediums of media.

That was in the 1980s when Native media was in its infancy. Meeches, a young television reporter with a knack for capturing the essence of a story liked to tell stories. She grew up listening to traditional stories and it was those legends of lesson, love and life that fueled her imagination and her pursuit to communicate meaningful stories to audiences. Meeches positioned her stories on truth creating dignified stories that weren’t covered by non-Native media. A media trailblazer that led Aboriginal media into the mainstream by exposing the ‘truth’, Meeches buries old prejudices and opens minds with her meaningful and traditional-based approach to television production. By covering her subject matter with dignity Meeches’ stories stand alone in a medium convoluted with mixed messages and mind-numbing nonsense. And while her work soars to the heights of her imagination, it is rooted in the belief systems she inherited from her ancestors. Meeches is one of the most dynamic and respected television producers in Canada, and continues to produce top-notch programming that entertains, teaches and transports — just like any gifted storyteller would.