Local journalism well portrayed in ABC's new 'Alaska Daily'

Actors Grace Dove, Hilary Swank and Jeff Perry in "Alaska Daily."
(ABC publicity photo by Darko Sikman via Alaska Public Media)

"We need good reporting in the minor leagues, too."

So says Jeff Perry, playing Editor Stanley Cornik, in the first episode of ABC's "Alaska Daily," one of the most realistic representations ever of local journalism. He's talking to Hilary Swank, playing Eileen Fitzgerald, who lost her New York City reporting job in a dispute about a source who turned sour. To his job offer, she says she's already paid her dues in the minors.

But she goes to Alaska anyway. And the first episode touches many bases: a downsized newspaper, a city editor afraid to alienate the cops, Alaska Native staffers who want to do more but feel constrained, the moral crises that can thwart accountability reporting, the state's awe-inspiring beauty, outsiders' notions about Alaska, and widespread notions about journalism.

To a Native staffer (Yuna Park, played by Ami Park) who doesn't want to write a front-page story about a public official's misuse of public funds, because he told her it would ruin his life, Swank says: "This job isn't easy; we don't do it to be liked; we do it because it matters. . . . This is exactly why local journalism matters." Park writes the story, and tells Swank they're lucky to have her.

The series was created by Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning “Spotlight” about The Boston Globe’s reporting on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, notes Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times: "It borrows its long arc from a series of articles, reported by the Anchorage Daily News in conjunction with ProPublica, about official indifference to missing or murdered Indigenous young women." Kyle Hopkins, the main ADN reporter on the Pulitzer Prize-winning series, is one of the other executive producers on the show, as is Swank.

"Hopkins says the show’s creators have taken a keen interest in creating an honest portrayal of journalists and journalism in Alaska," reports Casey Grove of Alaska Public Media, introducing an interview with Hopkins, who says "This is not telling how I or anyone else at the paper reported a specific story. It’s a fictional workplace drama that shares a lot in common with the Anchorage Daily News. And it’s meant to kind of be about how local news is made."

The first time my wife and I went to Alaska for an Alaska Press Club meeting, Kyle Hopkins picked us up at the Anchorage airport. It's a thrill to see local journalists like him, especially those doing rural reporting, fairly and heroically represented on TV at a time of crisis for local journalism. --Al Cross, director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues