On Aug. 29, 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain startled the nation with his surprise selection of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his vice presidential running mate. Within a couple days, a Wasilla housewife named Anne Kilkenny composed a 2,400-word missive containing information about Palin, who, outside of Alaska, was a political unknown. Kilkenny was interested in government. She was a regular attendee at Wasilla city council meetings, a PTA member, and a voter registrar. She watched with interest as Palin rose from city council member, to mayor, to governor.
After the fashion of op-ed journalism, Kilkenny presented both factual material and evaluative comment. That is to say she presented her opinion-about Palin's character as a public official, her potential as a vice-president, and so on. She sent the document, via E-mail, to friends and relatives in the Lower 48, expecting it to remain within that small circle. Instead, it quickly "went viral," dropping into millions of inboxes across the nation and around the world, making Kilkenny something of a national media star for a few weeks last fall.
More significantly, Kilkenny's writing seemed to prompt tenacious investigative reporting by national and world media-work which, by and large, Alaska media outlets had failed to do during Palin's ascendancy. And, complaints from Palin and her people notwithstanding, rigorous research into a vice-presidential candidate's political history is entirely appropriate, especially when the candidate and her record are not well known,
Now comes the Alaska Press Club. Its annual Howard Rock/Tom Snapp First Amendment Award will go to Gregg and Judy Erickson of Juneau, but the club's board considered Kilkenny's accomplishment so extraordinary that she'll be honored with a "Special Recognition."  The language on the award reads, in its entirety: "For demonstrating integrity, grace and courage as a concerned citizen, while speaking out without fear to help voters nationwide to make informed decisions."
As the Press Club began to publicize Kilkenny's honor, a few press club members raised questions. Brian O'Donoghue aimed a few brickbats at the award decision via an E-mail to the board. Others, like Tony Hopfinger, rolled a stink bomb into the parade with a critical posting in his website, Alaska Dispatch, where the teapot tempest has percolated for several days (to mix my beverage metaphors).
With the issue gaining momentum in Alaska Dispatch, and the Anchorage Press covering it this week, perhaps quite a few Alaskans will be wondering why the Press Club is honoring a person not formally employed as a journalist, and whose writing was not published in a traditional medium of journalism. I'm not a Press Club member, but as I haven't seen anyone engage the critics sufficiently head-on, I thought I'd take a crack. I can't blame the board for not offering a point-by-point response to the opposition, because the critics have offered only the most tepid qualms in public, even if they have fulminated in private.
Tony Hopfinger questioned the selection of Kilkenny for the award, although when challenged by a Press Club board member to state clearly what troubled him, Hopfinger demurred: "I'm just asking ... I'm trying not to pass judgment ... I'm not sure ... I have nothing against...," etc. Indeed, Tony's original post contains mostly ambiguous references to his discontent. Here is the pertinent language:
"Kilkenny's "Special Recognition" honor ... is raising eyebrows among some Alaska journalists (me included).
Her email popped up in millions of in-boxes worldwide just days after McCain chose Palin as his running-mate. At the time, Americans were hungry for information on Palin, but national journalists were still making their way to Alaska. Kilkenny's letter helped set the tone of coverage, at least for several days after Palin hit the national scene.
Kilkenny interspersed facts with her opinions on Palin. Here were some of her comments about the governor:
"She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help."
"Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her."
"She is solidly Republican: no political maverick."
"As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens."
"There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she."
Absent a clear statement from Hopfinger, we'll have to assume that he selects these aspects of Kilkenny's piece as supportive of his unenthusiastic reaction. Fine, let's look at them:
HOPFINGER: "Her email popped up in millions of in-boxes worldwide..."
COMMENT:Â Wide readership doesn't sound like a journalistic failure to me.
HOPFINGER: "...just days after McCain chose Palin..."
COMMENT:Â Nothing wrong with getting in print early; it's usually called a "scoop."
HOPFINGER: "...Americans were hungry for information on Palin, but national journalists were still making their way to Alaska."
COMMENT:Â The implication seems to be that mere Alaskans like Kilkenny should await the verdict of "national journalists," which strikes me as nonsense.
HOPFINGER:Â "Kilkenny's letter helped set the tone of coverage, at least for several days after Palin hit the national scene."
COMMENT: If, by "tone," Tony means a vigorous investigation into the record and background of a vice-presidential nominee, well, from where I sit, that's a good thing. Weren't all the Alaskans who wrote commentary on the topic immediately upon the selection of Palin (including me, in Alaska Dispatch) doing the same thing, hoping to point national media-with all their resources-toward information and aspects of the story (both favorable to Palin and otherwise) that we might know and they might not? Why on earth wouldn't we?
If, by "tone," Hopfinger means something else, he needs to say it forthrightly.
HOPFINGER: "Kilkenny interspersed facts with her opinions on Palin."
COMMENT: Kilkenny's commentary, like any good opinion piece, presents facts and a subjective review of those facts. It is not, somehow, a desecration of the cannon when the writer of an opinion article expresses her blankety-blank opinion! The most amazing thing about this dust-up is the apparent need to explain to practitioners the difference between opinion journalism and news reportage.
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The other principle critic my research has turned up is Brian O'Donoghue, an ex-officio Press Club board member who hadn't attended the deliberations, but who expressed his criticisms to the whole board in an E-mail. Excerpts (quoted here with his permission):
O'DONOGHUE: "Kilkenny's open letter figured in a lot of good reporting about a national figure. Yes. It also can be read between the lines as a savage polemic selectively cherry-picking facts in support of a partisan cause."
COMMENT: Note the weasel words: "can be read" (as in, at least one person on the planet might interpret it so), and "between the lines" (as in, it's there essentially, just not there actually). Then ka-boom: "a savage polemic." I was certain, after reading that blast, that we'd get some solid evidence for the dark menace lurking between the lines. Instead, the O'Donoghue produces ONLY this: "Take her reliance on the census portrayal of tiny municipal Wasilla." It's not at all fair, he says, because Wasilla is actually "a boomtown commercial hub serving a far larger region."
OK, OK! Uncle! Fifty lashes with a wet Frontiersman financial section. But (I'm laughing as I write), that's it? That's the lapse that paints "savage polemic" on an oak plank and hangs it around the neck of Kilkenny's piece? Please. Either make the case or dial back the invective.
As to "cherry-picking facts," again, no examples are given (besides the devastating touché re Wasilla's population).  Actually, cherry-picking facts is what Kilkenny's critics are doing. Here are a few things that she wrote about Palin that O'Donoghue failed to mention and Hopfinger selectively ignored:
"Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher.
"She is enormously popular."
"She is 'pro-life.' She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby."
"She is energetic and hardworking."
"She is savvy."
"She's smart."
"[She is] gutsy: absolutely!"
"Her husband... is a champion snowmobile racer."
So who's cherry-picking? Kilkenny made a real effort at balance; these two professionals did not.
Finally, O'Donoghue plays the "partisan" card. I think it's a cheap shot, utterly unsubstantiated, as he presents no evidence, no argumentation. I see nothing in Kilkenny's piece to indicate that it is other than what it presents itself to be. In fact, Kilkenny takes the time to examine and lay out her motivation for writing: "I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools." She speaks of her "participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations," saying "few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings." And finally, she says, "everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable." If there is anything in the piece about the writer's preferences in candidate or party, I missed it.
Essentially, this false charge reminds us of the Palin riposte of choice to any critical journalism: It's a "hit piece," an "attack," "Sarah hatred." Of course, it is nothing of the kind when an issue is engaged fairly with fact and argument. But I wonder if this Rovian strategy isn't having an effect on Alaska journalists.
O'DONOGHUE:Â "Palin's ruthlessness as mayor was common knowledge."
COMMENT: Huh? I pay attention to Alaska politics, and I didn't know she'd been ruthless as mayor of Wasilla, didn't know about all the firings after she took office, didn't know about the attempted book banning, the firing and un-firing of the Wasilla librarian. I'd bet not one Alaskan in a hundred outside of the Mat-Su Borough knew these things, to say nothing of the rest of America.  It took national journalists to acquaint Alaskans and the country with Palin's record, and Kilkenny deserves our thanks for tipping them to some of the stories Alaska media outlets failed adequately to cover.
O'DONOGHUE:Â "Kilkenny isn't to be confused with a courageous whistle-blower."
COMMENT: I think she was courageous, taking on a powerful politician, a sitting governor with a reputation for retribution. But it's our critic who is confused-about the nature of the recognition. No one has called her a whistleblower. No one thinks she works within the Palin administration. She is being recognized for fearlessly exercising her First Amendment right with a timely, valuable, and influential commentary.
I suppose Anne Kilkenny is what has come to be called a "citizen journalist," a mocking appellation when professional journalists use it. But I am inclined to be optimistic about the tactical effect of this rabble army, like citizens in revolt, pikes flashing. It reminds me of the pamphleteers at the time of the Revolution. Thomas Paine was not trained as a journalist; he didn't work at a newspaper. He too side-stepped the mainstream venues and went straight to the people with his words of dissent. Good things came of it.
Dan O'Neill is the author of The Firecracker Boys, The Last Giant of Beringia, and A Land Gone Lonesome. He is a former columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.