Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - July 25, 2009 -- Taking on the ADN - Part One

Two analyses of Alaska bloggers' role in the understanding of very-very-soon-to-be-ex Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have appeared within the past two weeks. One seems to miss how we took on the important aspects of the role the Alaska mainstream media failed to play, the other seems to understand this.

Thursday, politico.com's Daniel Libit penned an entry titled Exiting the Sarasphere. Libit contrasted the mostly in-state political blogs that have been highly critical of Palin with those who defended her, and which are largely based in the Lower 48.

In his article, Libit takes up the issue of invective and trumped up legal action threats taken against Alaska's most meteoric and nationally prominent independent commentator, Shannyn Moore. But he failed to give Moore's ongoing saga the depth I suggested he find.

Libit does somewhat accurately describe the dilemma many of us will face Monday morning in a more-or-less post-Palin Alaska, and our realization that the Palin farce has brought worldwide attention to other Alaska issues we hope to now find more time to help solve:

For years, Moore has been fighting a proposed open-pit gold mine in the Bristol Bay Watershed, which would threaten Alaska’s salmon and trout. Now she has many more eyes watching her.

“I am grateful for that,” says Moore. “I have no problem saying, ‘Thank you, Sarah Palin’ for a lot of things.”

On July 14th, Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America co-founder and author of the 2009 book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press, updated his book's Chapter 13, with a weekly column at Media Matters, titled Saradise Lost: How Alaska Bloggers Dethroned Sarah Palin. Boehlert's article takes the story of our continuing efforts past the end of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Boehlert observes:

As Time noted last week, "A more experienced, more familiar politician would have been ready for the ramping, but Palin seemed consumed by it. Instead of ignoring hostile bloggers, she combed the Web for their latest postings." And Wonkette recently captured the obsession with the snarky headline "Sarah Palin Will Soon Condemn, Bomb Entire Internet."

It was fitting, then, that the day after making her resignation announcement, Palin had her attorney issue a strange, over-the-top, four-page letter threatening legal action against any news organizations that picked up on the Palin resignation speculation that had been aired by influential Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore.

Appearing on MSNBC in the wake of Palin's stunning announcement, as observers tried to make some sense of it, Moore, searching for a possible explanation, pointed out that there had been a "scandal rumor" floating around Alaska for months about a possible corruption investigation centered on Palin. Moore clearly did not validate the claim of the rumor. She simply pointed out that it existed. Palin's legal eagle, though, then claimed Moore had stated the corruption charge as "fact."

By singling her out for public denunciation, all Palin did was turn the Alaska blogger into a media celebrity and guarantee that she'd be given a larger media platform to discuss the rumor.

How did the flagship operation of Alaska mainstream media react to Moore's courage? They certainly did not defend her. Here's what appears to have happened:

According to one of my sources at the ADN, editorial page editor Matt Zencey reviewed before publication (possibly even soliciting) a scurrilous, defamatory op-ed by a Republican Party operative, named JoAnn Grimes, or something else. Then, when people, some of them attorneys, complained about the defamation, the ADN removed the op-ed.

When I called Zencey to ask about the op-ed and its removal, he stated that it had been removed "voluntarily" by the author, and that she had "voluntarily" ended her relationship with the ADN. I next observed to Zencey that anyone with knowledge of the internet could still gain access to the "voluntarily removed" article. I also pointed out to him that Grimes' piece had spawned other articles on the web that continued to spread the false information Zencey had allowed to be published. After asking whether he or the ADN intended to apologize to Moore, or to any of the other Alaska bloggers mentioned in the articles spun from Grimes' ADN piece, Zencey hung up on me. I had been extremely polite, by the way.

The op-ed's removal was followed by a curious op-ed by local outdoors writer Bill Sherwonit, called, Whatever Happened to Joann Grimes? In the comments to the article, ADN senior vice president and editor, Pat Dougherty, took the unusual step of inaccurately jumping into the comments, falsely claiming that Grimes' husband, Jeff Pantages, had never written for the ADN:

ds55 wrote on 07/16/2009 07:50:42 PM: Are we allowed to mention that it was revealed Joann's husband, Jeff Pantages, writes for the Anchorage Daily News?

ds55:

If you are going to mention it, you might also want to note that it is not actually true, unless you mean that he is someone who has written a letter to the editor or op-ed column.

Pat Dougherty

Dr. Chill then responded with [edited for convenience by PA]:

If you are going to mention it, you might also want to note that it is not actually true, unless you mean that he is someone who has written a letter to the editor or op-ed column.

Pat Dougherty
--------
WT Heck!? Pat, if you frequently publish his opinion/editorial columns, and it gets a by-line and you print his picture, isn't it fair to say he "writes for ADN?"

So if I may, I'd like to note that your statement is not actually true:

Baseball Has Some Hints for Government

Best answer for left-wing naysayers is to ignore them

New citizens feel optimism, patriotism here

John McCain should know: Getting old has its advantages

Permanent Fund's first guide kept future ... By JEFF PANTAGES. Published: May 24, 2008
Economy will take time to recover, but it's no Depression By JEFF PANTAGES 10/26/08
Legislature did OK with $1 billion energy relief measure: Opinion ... By JEFF PANTAGES. Published: August 15th, 2008
adn.com | compass : It's time to fix tax, get pipeline built By JEFF

and commentor (and commentator) justafarmer, responding to Dougherty's seeming defense of Grimes, wrote:

@ Pat Dougherty: If you are indeed an ADN editor, you need to take a course in journalism ethics. I am a journalist of 30 years and a retired university professor who taught journalism ethics. This entire Joann Grimes debacle is a nightmare and I can NOT believe you are excusing it.

Please note that I am a registered commentator here so you have my contact details. Please stop insulting those of us who are trained journalists.

I'm in receipt of a number of the letters sent to ADN editors and McClatchy management by people who were very disturbed at Zencey's course of allowing Grimes' piece to be published. Some were written by attorneys. To date, to my knowledge, none have gotten responses.

When it comes to dealing with people critical of Sarah Palin this past year, the ADN has been remiss other times too. The only coverage of Alaska Rep. Mike Doogan's "outing" of AKM at The Mudflats this past winter was a snotty, extremely hypocritical piece written by Sheila Toomey, the Alaska Ear, a writer who had pseudonymously sat across from or in the same room with Doogan, while she anonymously influenced Alaska politics to a similar degree as had AKM. Not once did a reporter or editor at the ADN take up the important issue of Doogan's having used state resources to wreak vengeance upon a citizen activist who had crossed him.

It took Progressive Alaska and other Alaska bloggers to get the ADN to "Tear down that shrine, Mr. Dougherty."

The ADN had the resources and archives to deal far more seriously with the Wayne Anthony Ross attorney general nomination than they chose to. Instead, the editors actually inaccurately predicted his confirmation the day before Ross was soundly trounced in a joint session of the legislature.

And now, this morning, the ADN has published an "Our View" editorial on how to deal with our totally dysfunctional executive ethics code, that totally misses the point. The editorial, which has some valid points, fails to realize that until the oversight of how the complaint process is handled - by taking the filtering and processing of such complaints out of the hands of people who are appointed by our chief executive - whatever is done about confidentiality and real investigative costs will remain at least as suspect as what we now have to endure.

Before the legislature faces this dilemma next year, I recommend we find a way to get an independent group of five Alaska attorneys to look at each of the rejected, negotiated or successful complaints, and assess whether or not they feel they were frivolous or had merit, and if so, how that reflects upon the validity of the current process.

But whatever the legislative solution, a rewrite of our executive ethics code needs to evenly and productively reflect all the lessons learned these past 14 months.

image - PA rendition of Pat Dougherty