The Biggest Environmental Catastrophe in Alaska History is Accelerating and Alaska's Journal of Record Misses the Story - Introduction

Back in late April and Early May, Progressive Alaska commented on the death of the soul of Alaska's journal of record, the Anchorage Daily News, as the newspaper's editors and publisher seemed to solidify Alaska's most influential media outlet's ongoing reinvention, as the comforter of the comforted and afflicter of the afflicted.

PA has been critical of Republicans and Democrats, of other progressive Alaska bloggers, and of almost every mainstream media outlet in the state.

Way to make friends, eh?

It isn't.

I cannot comment at The Mudflats without approval of each comment by AKM herself. I think Brian may be able to overrule her, but... the policy effectively keeps me from wanting to contribute to discussion there. And I refuse to play by the blog's rules. They're more stifling than those at my 91-year-old mom's quilting club meetings.

Sen. Mark Begich's office isn't happy with my criticisms of his lack of interest in the plight of the Yukon salmon ecosystem. They're even more disturbed that I've questioned Mark's endorsement of what will turn out to have been, in somewhere between 20 and 200 years, a disastrous Kensington Mine waste storage solution.

Of all the problems I've complained about, small and large, the dysfunctional, slow death spiral of the ADN seems to be the one about which PA has had to play solo most frequently. It is a sad dirge.

A lot of discussions with my colleagues on this have been frustrating. Even more troubling is the fact that so many of my friends at the ADN don't appreciate something or another about my continuing campaign.

This past week, though, even more troubling than the ADN's:

• Cooperation with Sen. Stevens to stifle debate on his Mark Steyn racist book endorsement

• Lack of criticism of the growing awareness that VP candidate Palin was the most polarizing political figure in the USA since George Wallace

• Continuing inability or unwillingness to report in important articles about the war on open access to scientific information
• Willingness to back a public official who was an ex-employee of the ADN, when the official had used state resources to "out"somebody who was questioning the corrupt power structure of Alaska.

• Inability to grasp that the ADN had actually created a porn star-like shrine to Alaska's chief executive, and was continuing to promote and build the site after a candidate - Bob Poe - had announced his intent to compete against the governor in the next election for that public office.

• Failure to use its overwhelming resources to explain how inadequate Wayne Anthony Ross was to be Alaska's Attorney General. Instead, the ADN erroneously predicted Ross' confirmation.

• Encouragement of a hack political operative to write a scurrilous op-ed denigrating Alaska's most courageous independent commentator and journalist.

• Dishonest claim that the current chief executive is changing state hiring policy for high-level appointments, when the ADN had no evidence this is actually the case.

• Unwillingness to replace the exit of qualified reporters in rural affairs and fisheries with somebody ready and experienced enough to do these tasks at a critical time in Alaska history. Not only that, but the ADN assigned one honest, hardworking young journalist, Kyle Hopkins, to do both jobs. Given the political climate the ADN threw Kyle into, and the lack of support on research or on questioning state policies his editors have proven willing to provide their reporter, nobody envies Kyle. (Too bad, because this could have been the year for the right reporter with the right editorial backing to gain the paper a Pulitzer, and to rescue the rag from the waste basket of history.)

Has been the dead air there in regard to the growing concern on the biggest ecological catastrophe in the history of Alaska.

Maybe, like me, the ADN is simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of what is happening in the Bering Sea and in our rivers, and how that has such a profound effect on what Alaska really has been and is.

And should continue to be.