Newspapers and broadcasters have a role "to be advocates for what's good for the communities they represent and the communities that support them," Murkowski said Thursday. "Just because they are part of a chain I don't think relieves them of the local responsibilities they have to represent the local communities in the state."
The Republican governor is not asking the chains to slant the news, he said, but to help tell Alaska's story throughout the country.
He compared it to his proposal to hold a public relations campaign to polish that image with the aim of swaying public opinion toward opening ANWR.
"What's Alaska's story? It's in the minds of the beholder. What do we do right up here? What do we do wrong up here? What's the basic misconceptions? Do we have responsible environmental oversight?" he said.
Murkowski referenced The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, Calif., Morris Communications Co. of Augusta, Ga., and MediaNews Group of Denver, saying he would contact those chains to ask for their assistance.
McClatchy owns the Anchorage Daily News. Morris owns the Juneau Empire, the Alaska Journal of Commerce, the Peninsula Clarion, Capital City Weekly of Juneau, the Homer News and the Alaska Star. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and the Kodiak Daily Mirror are owned by a family trust, but two of those owners are on the board of MediaNews Group.
The governor's comments come a day after U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, lamented that the newspapers of today are more critics than advocates of the state's position on opening ANWR, and it is unfortunate there are not more publishers willing to make Alaska's case heard.
Bob Steele, senior ethics professor at the Poynter Institute, a think tank for journalism in St. Petersburg, Fla., said Murkowski is not the first politician to try to influence newspaper owners to buy into his arguments, although others are usually less overt.
"What's unclear to me is whether he's calling on the newspapers to take an advocacy role in their editorial positions or whether he's calling on them to change their news coverage on this issue," Steele said. "I certainly hope that he's not arguing the news coverage move into the advocacy of a particular position rather than independent, fair and accurate coverage on this important public policy matter."
Alaska newspaper publishers were either skeptical or unclear of what the governor was proposing.
Bob Hale, publisher of the Juneau Empire, said he didn't think it was improper for the governor to ask for help, but said that's not the way newspaper chains work.
"I don't think we have a responsibility to try to influence the outcome as it is desired by the governor," Hale said. "I do think it's kind of ironic because the governor has expressed his disdain for newspapers, newspaper reporters and editors and publishers in the not-too-distant past."
Publishers Mike Sexton of the Anchorage Daily News and Marilyn Romano of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner both said their newspapers' editorial pages have consistently favored responsible drilling in ANWR.
Sexton said he has personally called politicians in states where he used to work to argue for opening ANWR, but the Anchorage Daily News would not advocate to other newspapers within McClatchy to write editorials.
"I think there's a disconnect," Sexton said of the governor's remarks. "The role of the newspaper is to try to represent their readers and ask the questions that the readers can't ask."
Romano said probably no other newspaper in Alaska has advocated more strongly for opening ANWR in its editorial pages than the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. But turning it around, she said she wouldn't want a newspaper from another state telling the News-Miner to take a position.
"I don't know if I would appreciate them calling me and saying we want you to write an editorial and say we are against resource development," she said.
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