An information alternative is gone
By PAUL JENKINS
I have always loved newspapers, believing they are the key to preserving our democratic republic. From Colonial times, when they were hastily tacked on trees and tavern walls in the night, they have shown the way. Not always the right way, mind you, but a way that at least could be debated. They would and should always be around, I thought, because they are needed, especially in tense and uncertain times such as these.
Not everybody feels that way about newspapers, but really, what’s not to love? Each has its own personality; its own cadence; its own soul. Some are spoiled children. Others stern grandfathers. Some are happy; others grimly gray and stodgy. Each day, despite economic woes nibbling at their bottom lines, they cajole, drag and push for what they think is right. They scream. They yell. They cry. The good ones separate the wheat from the chaff.
To me, newspapers always have been living entities with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies you would expect. Some are smart; others, not so much. There are very good ones and some that go out of their way to be bad. Just like people.
The treat has been that there were always so many of them to read on a dreary Sunday morning while attacking a key lime pie. That has changed. Too many published newspapers find themselves in dire financial straits and their numbers are diminishing. It is sad . . .
(cont'd from front page) when one breathes its last and its voice is silenced.
The Anchorage Times during its long and colorful life was a booster newspaper, an unabashed, pom-pom waving, Republican cheerleader for this state and especially this city. Shortly after the turn of the last century, it began frontier life as the Cook Inlet Pioneer and Knik News and set about pushing for economic growth and eventually, and most importantly, statehood. Alaska today largely is what The Anchorage Times struggled for during all those long years.
Pushy, even sometimes to the point of arrogance, the Times — struggling in the 1980s after finding itself an afternoon newspaper in a morning newspaper world — was sold to Bill Allen in 1989, who sold it to the Anchorage Daily News a few years later after a ferocious and expensive newspaper war. For the next 15 years, what was left of The Times — The Voice of the Times — was published in the News in a unique journalism marriage. We left the News in 2007 and went online to continue The Times’ mission. Today that ends as well, and The Times’ voice finally is silenced.
It is a small thing, perhaps, but yet another information alternative is gone in Alaska as of today. Journalism here is shifting online and I’m not sure that is such a good thing. I wonder whether there will be enough money to support quality, in-depth reporting and investigation in such electronic arrangements. I wonder at the number of Alaska stories unearthed in the current political campaign, not by Alaska news entities, but by Outside newspapers and other sources. And I wonder what it all will mean for the state’s future if we cannot keep track of our own politicians.
As for me, I hope to land someplace where I can continue doing what I do, getting paid for not doing much, and having the pleasure — no, the delicious privilege — of really ticking some of you off.
Until then, the best to you — and confusion to our enemies.
Paul Jenkins is an editor of The Anchorage Times. His e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it