Commentary
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Demonstration Draws Large, Sign-Carrying Crowd Supporting Fired Writers; Managing Editor Under Fire
Paper Facing Fallout from Readers, Employees after Community Protest; Censorship a Long News-Miner Tradition, Including With Doonesbury; Local Media Competition to Drop as News-Miner Parent Company Muscles into Alaska
Filed April 19, 2002
By John Creed
When Kelly Bostian first applied for a newsroom position at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in the mid 1980s, during his job interview he reportedly offered information that included this list: "Ten Ways to Improve a Newspaper."That tickled then-managing editor Kent Sturgis so much that he soon hired this seemingly clever young man, who in the ensuing years has himself become the News-Miner's managing editor.
One wonders whether Bostian, in the wake of recent events, has since revised his 10 ways to improve a newspaper to match them to his own style as managing editor:
1) When you goof with an editorial decision, appear smug, aloof, unrepentant, and defiant;
2) Ignore community sentiment;
3) Assume most of the public doesn't understand journalism;
4) Keep changing your reasons when you fire regular columnists, making your reasons "a moving target";
5) Never admit to a mistake;
6) Show more loyalty to the local business establishment than to readers;
7) Don't worry about newsroom morale, because there are plenty of people always willing to work in journalism;
8) If you ever do fire regular columnists, don't call them, just send a letter through the mail;
9) Discourage investigative journalism as much as possible;
10) Always pretend to be a "real" journalist.
Indeed, there stood Mr. Bostian on April 12 in front of his newspaper's offices, pretending to be a cool and detached journalist and in control and unbothered, as an estimated 125 or more demonstrators, many with signs blasting the paper, protested the News-Miner's recent firings of some obviously appreciated social and political commentators.
Three or even four columnists got the axe, but the demonstration focused mainly on writer Dan O'Neill, and to limited extent Gary Moore.
"Kelly Bostian has no backbone," said Pat Walsh, who attended the rally and is owner/operator of VanGo, a local tourism business. "He won't admit he made a mistake," she added.
Editor Keeps Changing Reasons
Mr Bostian has such a hard time with the facts about why he fired these writers in what some locals are calling "the Easter Massacre."Indeed, here's one of Bostian's reasons that appeared in reporter Richard Mauer's article in the Anchorage Daily News that scooped the News-Miner's announcement of its own editorial housecleaning: "Bostian said the idea of paid local columnists-they get $50 an article-arose when the News-Miner was flush with money during the pipeline construction booms of the 1970s."
(Incidentally, Bostian reportedly didn't think the firings was "a story" and expected "professional courtesy" from other media not to cover the story. Wonder if he still thought it wasn't a story when 125 people showed up to protest the firings on April 12.)
Conglomerate Takeover of Interior Alaska
Of course, for the News-Miner, part of a corporate giant called MediaNews Group, Inc., to "cry poverty" over 50 bucks a column is so preposterous that the paper quickly dropped that explanation as Alaskans collectively rolled their eyes.But many Alaskans are genuinely concerned about not just the Interior's media market but all of Alaska journalism as the News-Miner's parent company muscles into the state.
MediaNews Group, Inc., the country's seventh largest newspaper chain, operates 46 dailies in 10 states in California, the Rocky Mountains, the Northeast and Alaska. The conglomerate's mission statement declares that the corporation "proactively" moves into media markets with the goal to dominate them, "starting with the local newspaper" and "continually expanding and leveraging our news-gathering resources."
$7.5 Million to Take Over Channel 11
According to a page one News-Miner story on Oct. 10, 2001, the News-Miner and its parent company has a $7.5 million option (a bargain to a big corporation) to buy Channel 11, which explains the cozy relationship over the past year or so between the News-Miner and Channel 11, the Interior's dominant television station.With Media News Group already partnering in Fairbanks between the News-Miner and Channel 11 in news and election coverage, rather than compete in "free market" America, the corporate strategy now is simply to buy out the competition, with the enthusiastic blessings of the Federal Communications Commission.
In fact, Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Powell and the Bush administration's pick to head the FCC, favors relaxing anti-trust regulations that now prohibit corporate mergers of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations serving the same market, according to press reports. In fact, here is information from the News-Miner parent company's own corporate website:
"In anticipation of changes in regulations governing the ownership of newspapers, radio and television, we have acquired a television station, a CBS affiliate in Anchorage and also operate radio stations in Alaska and Texas."
MediaNews Group, Inc.'s takeover of Channel 11 could just be one of many buyouts and mergers of print and broadcast media down the road in Alaska.
But We Digress
Back to the News-Miner protest. Even the News-Miner's publisher, Marilyn Romano, quickly backed off from Bostian's "we're too poor to pay" whopper as she told her own paper's reporter that the columnist firings were "not about money."People at the rally even offered to pay the columnists themselves, some indicating they'd offer hefty raises, if O'Neill especially could remain a regular columnist.
The News-Miner dodged that one, too.
"Bostian said it wasn't the money," Walsh said. "He couldn't even stick to the same reasons for firing the columnists. All his reasons kept changing. The man has no credibility."
Reasons Ring Hollow
Here's the crux of the issue: The only daily newspaper in northern Alaska is ignoring the sentiment of the local community. The News-Miner is cutting loose and diminishing the status of its regular dissenting and progressive voices while at the same claiming to broaden its diversity.When the public gets fed such phony logic, people can only conclude that the News-Miner just doesn't want these voices appearing on its pages or at least wants more control over them. All this leads only to one conclusion: censorship, a fine tradition at the News-Miner stretching back many years.
For the record, here's another Bostian "reason": The public is confused between regular columnists and guest opinions.
Besides insulting the public's intelligence, that confusion's easy to fix, Kelly, especially if you call yourself a "journalist": Educate readers who don't realize these columnists are expressing their own opinion and not that of the News-Miner.
Columnist Tagline
For example, include an extra sentence in the columnists' tagline, such as, "These views are those of the writer only and do not necessarily reflect those of the News-Miner." Simple! Create a distinctive logo that speaks to the separation. If you keep getting phone calls from confused readers, send them a prepared email message or form letter explaining the difference. Problem solved, unless you think some who call to complain aren't just inflamed knot heads merely trying to get these guys fired.Speaking of phone calls, if you really wanted these guys to stay, Kelly, you'd have done the decent thing: called them on the phone, not-like a coward-sent them a letter in the mail.
Bostian and the editorial page editor never called the columnists about firing them before the paper sent out the letters, which doesn't even meet basic business courtesy standards. If nothing else, it's just plain old-fashioned impolite but speaks volumes about what little respect they have for people willing to write with everything they've got-for peanuts.
Another Reason Rings Hollow
Fact is, Bostian's letter to the columnists is most revealing, as he indicates that the News-Miner does not like to be associated with these columnists' opinions. To Kelly Bostian, that's bad.Doesn't that demonstrate that Mr. Bostian disagrees with their views and doesn't like it when some readers associated the columnists' opinions with the News-Miner? That confirms that the content, yes, the content of these columns was a problem for Bostian, and they created a problem with like-minded conservatives in the local business community. O'Neill's columns, especially, put Bostian on the hot seat with conservatives in Fairbanks.
So instead of having the journalistic integrity to defend, much less celebrate, someone who dares to speak truth to power, we have a newspaper that ignores the sentiment of the community. Instead of a managing editor standing up to his buddies at the chamber of commerce, Rotary, and Festival Fairbanks (who too may suffer from an overdeveloped sense of entitlement about what should fill the local newspaper), Bostian's actions reflect little integrity, even less spine.
We Are Left With Speculation
Yes, let us speculate. Dan O'Neill exposed a plan for the University of Alaska to launch up to 20 Scud missiles into the Brooks Range. Did O'Neill ruffle the feathers of defense contractors on the eve of the military and defense interests setting the stage for military construction at Delta Junction and Fort Greely and at the University of Alaska worth millions of dollars to local businesses?Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is a powerful man, and Dan's been on his case more than once. Perhaps one word from Uncle Ted could well make Dan history at the News-Miner.
Unidentified Pressure
In addition, Mr. Bostian may well be responding to some other pressure that we don't know about. Who knows, maybe lawyers for Golden Valley Electric Association or other local organizations have complained to the News-Miner, and their threats, hollow or not, are enough for a timid little profit-driven chain newspaper to cower. We don't know, and they're not telling us.Perhaps the News-Miner, according to sources within the paper itself, has received legal advice that if a columnist is not paid, the paper is less liable in any libel action than if the columnist is paid. We don't know, and they're not telling us.
Again, Bostian won't say, so all we can do is speculate, and the sad thing about Kelly Bostian is that you can find just about anything he ever said about this issue and then find someplace else where he contradicts himself.
Who's Calling the Shots?
For example, Bostian claims he alone made the decision to fire the columnists and that upper management, including the paper's parent company, a Lower 48 media conglomerate, had no role in the decision.He's also said the publisher, Romano, had nothing to do with the decision. He's also said it was the News-Miner editorial board's decision, not just his, but Romano sits on the editorial board. Bostian's apparently not worried that a lack of consistency erodes credibility.
And managers always say, "It was my decision alone." What else can Bostian say? But people who get and keep management jobs at the News-Miner know that if they don't run the news/editorial side the way upper management wants (meaning with a certain slant), they lose their job.
While Bostian's bland mediocrity, particularly as a writer, is always a plus for any reporter or copy editor wanting to move up at the News-Miner, it's Bostian's narrow-minded social and political views that really have allowed him to rise through the News-Miner ranks to snag the newsroom's top job. He's simply a product of the system. Someone who wouldn't fire these columnists just wouldn't be the managing editor.
Sadly, such people call themselves "journalists," and then use journalistic principles as a "cover" to protect themselves in controversy. Bostian uses the typical journalist convenient cover that goes like this: "All points on the political spectrum object to the News-Miner, so therefore our news is 'objective' and 'unbiased'."
More likely, if some conservatives do complain, it's not because the paper's too liberal, it's that it's not conservative enough.
It appears Bostian got to be managing editor much the way many of his predecessors became managing editor: from a years-long demonstration of narrow-minded social and political views. And the managing editor hires apparent right-wing ideologues such as Rod Boyce, the paper's city editor and former Anchorage Times employee, in an attempt to keep news coverage on the "correct" side of the social and political spectrum.
Keeping Reporters Within Appropriate Bounds
Narrow-minded editors hire the reporters, and if they make a hiring "mistake," there are ways to keep reporters covering local issues that continue to espouse the News-Miner slant. Reporters who don't are made to feel extremely uncomfortable, and anyone who doesn't espouse the News-Miner point of view is not going to last over the long term, much less become managing editor someday.For example, in the 1980s, long-time reporter Stan Jones applied to become the News-Miner's managing editor. Instead, they gave it to a guy named Ken Noblit, who eventually ended up connected to a local murder and was arrested and convicted of hiding the culprit under his bed.
Jones, who eventually left the News-Miner to return to the Anchorage Daily News, unquestionably was the more qualified and decorated journalist (including capturing a prestigious George Polk Award while at the News-Miner), but Noblit was clearly more the "News-Miner type" and got the job.
Imagine the paper's embarrassment when the cops came into the paper one day to question the newsroom's one-time fearless leader about his involvement in a murder. In those days, a struggling local weekly paper covered the trial closely, something the News-Miner management no doubt considered excessive in a print media market it is used to dominating.
Times Have Changed, Or Not
Perhaps the rank-and-file News-Miner reporters in 2002 welcome today's public scrutiny of their present managing editor, but at least the cops aren't looking for him. In any event, the News-Miner has not always been considered a great place to work, but these days the rank-and-file reporters, photographers and others connected to the newsroom may well be on the verge of doing something to improve working conditions (including addressing press room fumes reportedly wafting throughout the facility)."I'd like to see Kelly go," said one frustrated insider.
Morale: "All-Time Low"
Word from the News-Miner newsroom these days is that many if not most reporters, copy editors and photographers oppose these columnist firings. Indeed, overall newsroom morale is reportedly "at an all-time low," what with the News-Miner's shamelessly low wages for journalists, many of whom hold four-year degrees. In addition, as workers quit in frustration, move on, or get laid off, the remaining journalists' workload reportedly keeps increasing. (Time to organize?)At least managers may be relieved that reporters don't have time to more than scratch the surface of local issues, for we can't have any investigative journalism going on in Fairbanks.
Cheechako in Editorial
The present editorial page editor, Gina Ferrell, arrived just a few months ago from the Lower 48. As a military spouse, some newsroom workers say Ferrell offers "few opinions about anything." Apparently her strategy is not to make any waves at work until her husband transfers to his next assignment, where she can land another editor's position. That's convenient for her but not so great for local journalism serving a huge chunk of Alaska that could profit greatly from thoughtful editorials written by long-time Alaskans.Don't Make Waves
Ferrell also was doing much of the gate keeping and editing for the fired columnists and still does for the guest opinion writers. If she doesn't want to "make waves," how friendly do you think she's going to be to controversial points of view that do not reflect the News-Miner's perspective? (At the same time, this very public firing fiasco may force the News-Miner, ironically, to run a more diverse mix of guest opinions, at least for a while.)But just after the firings, leaving the regular commentators silenced, the first few "Community Perspectives" columns, predictably, included a free political ad bashing gubernatorial candidate Fran Ulmer submitted by Steve Frank, gubernatorial campaign treasurer for Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska.
(Expect the News-Miner's Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop to continue his fawning coverage of Alaska's congressional delegation, especially on Murkowski as he runs for governor amid the widespread perception that, even though Murkowski is far from the sharpest tool in the shed, he should at least finish out his current term because his more than two-decade Senate seniority remains so critical to Alaska's political and economic future.)
Vic Kohring
The News-Miner also ran a recycled piece as one of its first new "Community Perspectives" feature by Vic Kohring, a legislator from the Mat-Su who makes Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, sound like Ted Kennedy.But the News-Miner happily ran Kohring's piece bashing government even though he lives way outside the paper's circulation area (even when he's not in Juneau or with his new wife in Portland, Ore.), while refusing to print letters to the editor on the columnist firings from other parts of Alaska, such as from Kodiak.
Not surprisingly, the News-Miner is reportedly refusing to run any "Community Perspectives" commentaries on the columnist firings. The paper as of this writing also had not loaded onto its website the bulk of its massive number of letters to the editor on the columnist firings.
So much for open expression.
Narrow Range on News Side
City editor Rod Boyce ensures that local news coverage stays within a certain narrow range suitable to the News-Miner.News-Miner editors may well pound their chests and say their reporting is "objective," but there is no such thing as "objectivity" in any news story anywhere. But the News-Miner should at least try to be more "fair," which this paper always has found difficult on both the news and editorial side.
Why no real objectivity in journalism? That's because every step in the newsgathering and disseminating process requires a subjective decision.
For example, editors hire the kind of reporters that "fit" a newsroom's "atmosphere." Editors typically approve the issues to cover and even how to cover them.
Reporters and editors make subjective decisions throughout the process, from deciding the issues to cover, the sources to interview, the questions to ask, the quotes and information to include, what to emphasize in the lead and which quotes and information appear most prominently in the story.
Editors write the headlines, another subjective decision, along with deciding what prominence the story gets by whether it lands on page one or is buried on page 12.
News-Miner Coverage
The News-Miner's coverage of its own protest is a great example of how a newspaper tilts stories by emphasizing some points and ignoring others. For example, notice the de-emphasis on these guys getting "fired" because Bostian is pushing the idea that he didn't fire these folks, he just changed their status.In only words, they were doing such a great job and were so highly valued commentators, Bostian demoted them. Also, they're just "free lancers," not employees. "There's a big difference," says Romano, as if to say, hey, we're being kind to be dealing with these people at all, and we don't have to deal with them if we don't want.
Celia Hunter
Rudeness to local columnists the News-Miner prefers not to run did not start just recently. For example, for years the News-Miner used to run the late Celia Hunter, a nationally-known and respected conservationist, buried in the paper's grocery ads at the same time it featured syndicated columns by the arch-conservative John Birch Society prominently and regularly on the editorial page. After Hunter's death late last year, the paper probably figured that cleared the way to go after O'Neill & Co.Doonesbury
Are you ready for a vintage News-Miner story?Millions of Americans read Garry Trudeau's nationally syndicated comic strip, "Doonesbury." In fact, many newspapers run the famous strip on the editorial page.
Not the News-Miner. In fact, for many years the News-Miner flatly refused to run Doonesbury at all despite incessant reader requests. Today, at least readers can finally find Doonesbury in the News-Miner's classifieds along with the conservative strip, "Mallard Fillmore."
In the days when the News-Miner wouldn't print Doonesbury at all, newsroom employees used to joke about the paper not only refusing to run Doonesbury but that management might have purchased the copyright reportedly to keep it away from, say, the now-defunct All-Alaska Weekly, which would have been a nice circulation boost to that struggling paper.
Doonesbury: Where Art Thou, Doonesbury?
Kent Sturgis, a former managing editor, reportedly had the Doonesbury strip mailed to his house to avoid the embarrassment (or "unauthorized circulation") of a censored comic strip arriving regularly into the News-Miner's newsroom.When one reader asked in the 1980s why the paper didn't run Doonesbury, Sturgis reportedly replied, "It would be moving too far too fast." Yes, Doonesbury would surely have toppled the local power structure while getting all the local teenage girls pregnant.
Managing Editor Resigns
When Sturgis was leaving the News-Miner in the mid-1980s, he went on a local radio talk show for the requisite community "exit" interview-designed to be all warm and fuzzy for the hometown boy.During the call-in show, News-Miner employees gathered around a small radio in the newsroom, listening to their boss.
When the host finally went to the phones, what was the very first question from a local citizen?
"How come you don't run Doonesbury?" the caller asked indignantly.
The newsroom erupted in laughter.
Sturgis admitted that the then News-Miner owner C.W. Snedden simply didn't like Doonesbury, and that was why the News-Miner wouldn't print it. (Is that "censorship" or "freedom of the press only for the one who owns the press"?)
Snedden, who ran the News-Miner for decades with an iron fist, was in many ways a tyrant. For example, he fired a copyeditor in the 1980s because, in Snedden's opinion, the copyeditor's hair was still a bit too long after he had cut it on Snedden's orders.
Print Coverage
After the Anchorage Daily News broke the firings story on March 31, the Associated Press refused to pick it up-so even the News-Miner couldn't run an AP version of the story about its own organization. In addition, the electronic media in Fairbanks had nothing to use from the AP, either, because the AP did not distribute the Daily News story, not to mention not sending the story to print and broadcast media in the rest of Alaska.In fact, the Associated Press apparently didn't even pick up the News-Miner's own story of the April 12 protest. By 5:30 on April 13, a full day after the protest and after the News-Miner had been out all day, the Anchorage Daily News city editor said that the News-Miner protest story hadn't come over the AP wire.
Some Fairbanks area residents found it odd that the AP would block a story that has obvious statewide interest, particularly post-Sept. 11.
"When free speech issues are raised, particularly now when dissent is considered unpatriotic, it is incumbent upon the Associated Press at least to acknowledge that this thing happened," said Douglas Yates, a News-Miner protest organizer.
Some Alaska Ear Perspective
At the April 12 rally, the News-Miner itself broadcast the protest over the Internet. Here's how the Anchorage Daily News' "Alaska Ear" described it on April 14:"AIN'T TECHNO GRAND . . . The City on the Edge of Nowhere experienced a cosmic convergence of technology and passion Friday. You've heard how the Fairbanks News-Miner fired two local columnists, apparently because they occasionally criticized local sacred cows. The firings have generated almost as much heat as the closing of Nordstrom some years ago, including angry letters to the editor, radio debates and, on Friday, a demonstration outside the newspaper building.
"Now it so happens the News-Miner has a Web site with one of those cameras that post a new picture of a fixed scene every so often. They call it ArcticCam, although a more appropriate name might be Parking-Lot-Across-the-Street-Cam. The camera is right outside the newspaper office.
"Hmmmmm. How convenient.
"Early Friday morning, protesters erected a big sign in front of the camera that read, 'FBX News-Miner Oppresses Free Speech,' so everyone logging on to the newspaper's Web site before the bosses noticed would be able to see it. Either newspaper brass didn't care, or they don't surf their own site, because it stayed up all day, even during the demonstration, which the camera also dutifully broadcast."
Dog Mushers for Dan
Mary Shields, the first woman ever to cross the finish line (in 1974) in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, carried a sign at the protest that read, "O'Neill's truth is gold; News-Miner pans for pyrite (fool's gold).""Dan O'Neill's writing has been very enlightening on important subjects," said Shields, citing his work to expose the University of Alaska's plans to launch up to 20 Scud missiles into the Brooks Range, among other issues.
"I don't trust that the News-Miner will do in-depth reporting," Shields said. "Dan puts his heart into his writing. Nobody puts the time and effort into his work like Dan O'Neill does."
News Coverage Competition
A decade ago, the Anchorage Daily News, the state's largest newspaper, won a hard-fought circulation war with The Anchorage Times, which after its death has since published a half-page each day in the Daily News to ensure another daily editorial voice in Anchorage.Shields said the Interior also needs to expand its print media diversity, citing the ideal as a competing daily or "zoned Fairbanks edition" of the Daily News. Short of that, Shields suggested people in the Interior contact the Daily News (800-478-4200) to at least establish an Interior news bureau in Fairbanks and also pick up O'Neill as a regular Daily News columnist.
"That would also give Dan a wider platform," she said. "I'd buy the paper if I knew his columns were going to be in it. Many people would."
Shields also said the Associated Press should station one correspondent in Alaska's second largest city rather than leave all local print coverage to the News-Miner, allowing a near monopoly on Interior news and information. In addition, the News-Miner's parent company may soon take over Channel 11, northern Alaska's largest television station, unless local and national pressure can stop such mergers that most likely stifle competition.
Firings Affect Rural Alaska
The News-Miner columnist firings will most assuredly affect rural Alaska because O'Neill and Moore covered many rural and Alaska Native issues. Also, the News-Miner is a notoriously timid newspaper when it comes to digging into local, rural, and particularly Native issues. The News-Miner simply covers too many issues either superficially or not at all."A lot of issues important to rural Alaska and Natives are not covered by the News-Miner," Moore told KUAC-FM in Fairbanks in an interview. "Investigative reporting is not done at the News-Miner, or not that I'm aware of, and I think that's partly the niche that Dan and I filled."
But Bostian strongly objects to the "investigative" characterization of O'Neill's and Moore's work.
"I have a real problem calling it investigative journalism," Bostian said.
"Is it a true investigative journalist if they're turning up on the opinion page?" Bostian asked in a KUAC-FM interview.
Journalistic Ignorance
Bostian apparently has never heard of Jack Anderson or William Safire, two of the most famous journalists in America and well-known for breaking major stories in their columns, located prominently on the opinion pages of their own newspapers and syndicated nationwide.That's why so many have "a real problem" calling Kelly Bostian "a real journalist."
Many people also have " a real problem" with the News-Miner forcing O'Neill to squeeze all he has gathered on, say, the Scud missile story, into a 750-word column after spending weeks researching it.
Bostian readily admits the News-Miner does little or no investigative reporting but won't budge to reinstate an inexpensive, experienced writer like O'Neill, who does investigate issues extensively. It's just too easy to conclude here that Bostian and the News-Miner don't want any investigative journalists serving the local community, only "drive-by journalism" shooting puffballs of pabulum.
Slap in the Face
Too many people see through the News-Miner's transparencies.For example, it doesn't take a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist to believe the News-Miner wants to retain the power to censor these, and other, writers. The News-Miner says the fired columnists can come back, but not with the same status, which is a slap in the face in itself to this level of talent and experience.
Sorry, No Space
Losing columnist status means that whenever News-Miner editors feel uncomfortable about something a former regular columnist such as O'Neill has written, they can nix it, saying, "Sorry, we don't have the space right now, because we have so many other guest opinions in the hopper. But do keep submitting articles."That's the crux of the issue. They already do that with guest opinion writers by stalling about a decision to publish, requesting the writer conduct more "research" to "answer some questions," and so forth. Now they want that option for O'Neill and Moore.
For example, O'Neill told "the rest of the story" last year about William R. Wood after the News-Miner refused to write a balanced account of the life of this community booster but controversial former president of the University of Alaska and enemy of academic freedom.
The Wood administration left a record of firing professors based on their opinions or whether they projected the right "image" for the university. A legislative bid to rename Fairbanks International Airport after Wood right after he died failed due to stiff opposition from UA faculty statewide, Native leaders, aviation groups, and others.
O'Neill is author of The Firecracker Boys, the amazing story of Project Chariot, a federal government scheme of the late 1950s and early 1960s to create a deep-water harbor up the coast from Kotzebue in Northwest Alaska by detonating up to six thermonuclear bombs.
The Alaska Historical Society named O'Neill its Historian of the Year for The Firecracker Boys, and the book has remained in print for the past eight years.
O'Neill's book documents Wood's role in pushing the federal government to blow up Native hunting and fishing grounds using nuclear bombs.
In any event, local Wood boosters would have been delighted to see O'Neill lose his regular columnist status long ago.
Real Journalists?
See, with this all-new format and no columnists whose work they "must" publish even when the paper disagrees with it or knows it will stir controversy, the News-Miner editors can nix such submissions and still pretend they are "real" journalists and not corporate stooges worried about what their cronies are going to say at Rotary meetings, at Wood's Festival Fairbanks, or at "chamber."That's a passive-but just as effective-form of censorship that stifles free speech, and these columnists and protesters are smart enough not to allow the News-Miner to try to fool the public that way.
Dan O'Neill said he was gratified, if a bit embarrassed, by the size of the protest and depth of community support, including an avalanche of letters to the editor that keep pouring into the News-Miner every day, the overwhelming majority of which vehemently oppose the firings.
News-Miner Supporters
News-Miner defenders remind some of that yappy little obnoxious terrier with a little stick in its mouth that it won't let go of.Their little stick in the terrier's mouth is the idea that the protesters should get off this free-speech kick, because the First Amendment was designed to keep the government off the press's back, not to allow the people to agitate the press for access and, therefore, free speech.
"The press has no obligation to listen to anybody" is a seductive argument especially to shield an ever-consolidating corporate media. But such arrogance ignores the idea that the News-Miner is not responding to community sentiment. What's the difference if the community sentiment argues for free speech and against censorship?
Obligation to the People
The News-Miner has a right to make a profit, but it also has community responsibilities, including responding to community sentiment.
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The News-Miner "enjoys special protection under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment," which guarantees freedom of the press, O'Neill said, but the paper must ensure that its news/editorial product "enables us to participate as citizens in our democracy. They owe the people that for the protections the people have given them" in the First Amendment.In any event, local media came out in force to cover the News-Miner protest.
"We had fabulous media coverage by local television," said Sean McGuire, owner and operator of the Cloudberry Lookout Bed and Breakfast outside Fairbanks.
"Even the News-Miner covered (the demonstration)," he said. "Their article was tilted in favor of the News-Miner, of course. But I don't think this could have been better. It was a shock, even for me, that so many people showed up.
"Even Kelly Bostian admitted that he was amazed at the turnout," McGuire added. "The News-Miner's not backing down, but we are not going to let this issue die."
John Creed is a journalism professor at Chukchi Campus, a Kotzebue branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Background:
3/30/02 ADN story:
http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/857656p-942953c.html3/31/02 FDNM column by Gary Moore:
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1002,7252%257E498400%257E113,00.html3/31/02 FDNM column by Kelly Bostian:
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1002,7252%257E498399,00.html
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1002,7247%257E526061,00.html
Article Last Updated:
Saturday, April 13, 2002 5:00:04 AM MSTProtesters voice support for columnists
By NANCY TARNAI
Staff WriterDan O'Neill seemed embarrassed by all the attention he received on an abnormally chilly morning Friday in downtown Fairbanks.
The former Fairbanks Daily News-Miner columnist, surrounded by over 100 protesters in front of the newspaper's offices, said he was overwhelmed by the number of people
waving signs and calling for the paper to reinstate him and Gary Moore as paid writers on the editorial page.O'Neill expressed hope that News-Miner editors would be influenced by the protest.
"It doesn't matter why they did it," he said. "I hope they are big enough to respond to the thoughtful sentiment and keep the editorial page open to a full range of views."
Moore echoed that hope and said he was surprised at the turnout.
"It's more than the support of Dan and me," he said. "It's a freedom of speech issue.
The News-Miner is wrong to censor. Diverse opinions are good for the country and good for Alaska."News-Miner Managing Editor Kelly Bostian, who met with some of the protesters, said that bringing the columnists back in a paid format would be giving in to the same type of pressure that some protesters have accused the paper of succumbing to in the first place.
He said O'Neill and Moore are welcome to keep writing for the paper in an editorial page column called "Community Perspective." The open-forum column is available to anyone wanting to express an opinion, within reason, he said. Writers will not be paid.
The change was made, according to Bostian, to improve diversity on the editorial page.
"I was uncomfortable with the idea of having two paid columnists from a fairly narrow political perspective without the balance," he said. To try to recruit paid columnists with differing opinions would be difficult, he said.
O'Neill, who had written an editorial page column for the newspaper for four years, and Moore, who had been on the page for about two years, were informed by the News-Miner last month that they would no longer be paid for columns but that their unpaid submissions would be welcome. They had been receiving $50 per column.
O'Neill wrote about wide-ranging topics, from scud missiles to local politics to the Healy-to-Fairbanks intertie, while Moore focused on Native issues. Two other columnists received the same notice. All four were free-lance writers, not staffers at the newspaper. Moore and O'Neill contributed about one or two columns a month, appearing more regularly than the other two.
Stacey Fritz, coordinator of No-Nukes North, an organization fighting construction of a National Missile Defense System in Alaska, helped organize the protest and started a petition drive in support of the writers.
"The people here feel the News-Miner only wants to print--I don't want to say fluff-but feel-good stories and the public wants hard-core investigative journalism," she said.
Fritz said it's possible the majority of Fairbanksans are happy to see O'Neill's columns go. "But that's a perfect reason to retain him."
Others spoke of a need to have columnists who will write on topics the paper has not covered.
"I feel without the columnists we don't have a whit of balance with seasoned journalists offering researched opinions," music teacher Suzi Lozo said. "They're one of the main reasons I read the paper."
Larry Paquin, a retiree, said he was on hand to protest the "firing of the columnists" and that he was hoping the rally would lead to their rehiring.
"At least it's important to protest the silencing of investigative reporting," he said. "Even though they may have stepped on institutional toes, what they said was important to the public."
News-Miner Publisher Marilyn Romano said she believes that most people understand that O'Neill and Moore can continue to submit columns but as unpaid writers. She stressed that the two were freelancers, not employees. "There is a big difference," she said.
"I have a hard time believing Dan or Gary do it for the money. It's not about money;
it's about an opportunity to be read, to get their message out. That still applies today."