UPDATE, Aug. 19: Edgar Blatchford, veteran journalist and associate professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, has purchased the last two, of six, Alaskan newspapers scheduled to end publication on Aug. 31. "I appreciate Calista's commitment to rural journalism and I'm excited about the possibility of the Seward Phoenix Log and The Tundra Drums," Blatchford told The Cordova Times. "I see tremendous potential in working with local people." (Read more) Earlier, The Arctic Sounder, The Dutch Harbor Fisherman and The Bristol Bay Times were sold to Jason Evans, chairman of Sitnasuak Native Corp., and his wife, Kiana Peacock, president of an International Association of Machinists union local and chief shop steward for employees of Alaska Airlines, reports the online Alaska Dispatch.
UPDATE, Aug. 3: The editor of The Cordova Times, Jennifer Gibbins, is buying the paper, thus keeping alive the oldest one in the chain. The other papers' last editions have been set for the week of Aug. 15, but "The company said it continues to entertain offers for the individual publications," the Alaska Dispatch reports.
UPDATE, Aug. 3: The editor of The Cordova Times, Jennifer Gibbins, is buying the paper, thus keeping alive the oldest one in the chain. The other papers' last editions have been set for the week of Aug. 15, but "The company said it continues to entertain offers for the individual publications," the Alaska Dispatch reports.
The Alaska Native corporation that has published a chain of six weekly newspapers in rural Alaska for 19 years is liquidating its newspaper company after failing to find a buyer, leaving most of the rural communities without a local news outlet.
Calista Corp. said Alaska Newspapers Inc. is unprofitable and will stop publishing some time next month. ANI publishes The Cordova Times on Prince William Sound, The Seward Phoenix Log on the Kenai Peninsula, The Dutch Harbor Fisherman in the Aleutian Islands, The Bristol Bay Times in Southwest Alaska, and The Tundra Drums in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta (the corporation's service area), The Arctic Sounder in Northwest Alaska and the North Slope, and First Alaskans magazine. Richard Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News, in a comprehensive story, notes that The Cordova Times is 97 years old.
About three years ago, the company brought its field reporters into its Anchorage office, occasionally sending them out to their coverage areas, then re-stationed reporters in (from west on Google map) Unalaska, Bethel, Seward and Cordova. It started a content-sharing agreement with Alaska Dispatch, an online publication founded in 2008 and funded since 2009 by Alice Rogoff, former chief financial officer of U.S. News & World Report. The Dispatch's Craig Medred writes, "Newspapers in rural Alaska have been struggling like those elsewhere as news increasingly moves to the Internet." He notes the withdrawal of the Daily News to its home area, and lists the other dailies in the state and their owners, none based in Alaska.
"We genuinely hope the communities affected by this will find a new media voice to tell their stories," Calista CEO Andrew Guy said in the corporation's announcement.
UPDATE, July 25: The undersigned gave an interview about this story to Mike Mason of KLDG Radio in Dillingham, on Bristol Bay. For streaming audio, click here. For download, here.
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