Well, that's odd, I thought, because a) the coverage is wildly skewed and sometimes even fabricated; and b) in a state-wide race, you ignore the News-Miner at your peril.
This analogy may not hold down to the molecular level, and wiser numbers-guys might refine this, but it seems to me that Fairbanks is the Ohio of Alaska politics. In a statewide race, a Democrat can win by a landslide in liberal Juneau, take Anchorage, but lose Fairbanks and so lose the state. If the race is close in Anchorage, Democrats are in trouble if they don't have Fairbanks, because Alaska's number-two town can cancel Juneau and eat up some of the Anchorage margin, leaving the rural Alaska, which is likely to be on the same page as the Interior's hub. That makes the only daily newspaper in the northern half of the state important, perforce.
A few years ago I examined the coverage given to Democrat John Davies and Republican Ralph Seekins, both running for the state senate from Fairbanks. I came up with a few criteria to quantify the coverage in 11 articles. I tabulated whose views were mentioned first in the article; whose views dominated the lead page; and whose views received the most column inches.
Advantage Republican. Two times out of three, Republican Seekins' views were given first mention. Three times out of four, Seekins' views dominated the lead page. And in 9 of the 11 articles the Republican's point of view was given the most column inches.
The other day I did a similar informal tabulation in the state-wide races for Congress and U.S. Senate. I looked at all the coverage in the News-Miner from August 1 up to the primary on the 26th. There were 37 articles. Twenty of those 37 covered only the Republican candidate. Of the 17 remaining, 15 presented the Republican's point of view first. Only one article in the 37 begins with a major Democratic candidate's point of view, while 35 of 37 either began with the Republican or dealt only with the Republican candidate. Those numbers are hard to explain without invoking the notion of bias.
I looked at the use of photos as well, since it is an important element of publicity. For Ethan Berkowitz, the Democratic candidate for Congress, there were zero mug shots. He appears only once, in a group shot, in the whole month before the primary. There is only one tiny mug shot of Mark Begich, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, in that entire period—a postage-stamp sized black and white image. That's it.
Meanwhile, images of Republicans pop up repeatedly. Ted Stevens' appears in 7 pictures, mostly larger ones, and mostly in color. Don Young's florid visage graces the pages 5 times, mostly in color; and the same with his Republican challenger Sean Parnell: 5 images, most in color.
Of course, some skewing toward the Republicans would be expected this election, because Stevens has been indicted, prompting coverage. Still, the corruption story needn't always be covered without any attempt to seek comment from his likely Democratic challenger. And several of the articles only about Stevens did not so much deal with his legal troubles, as with fulsome coverage of his proclamations of innocence and honor.
The Congressional race, too, might have legitimately warranted a bit more coverage on the Republican side, since the Young-Parnell race was perceived as close. And too, it was inherently interesting to see a primary challenge of a sitting Congressman.
But none of these nuances can explain the extreme disparity in coverage the News-Miner presents to its readers. Republican candidates are routinely featured and photographed on the front pages, while Democratic candidates are routinely shunted to the jump page, to a couple of grafs at the tail end of the article, where they and their views are mentioned as apparent afterthoughts.
In the paper's coverage of the most important debate in Fairbanks, the color photo of the U.S. Senate candidates showed only Republicans contenders. Moreover, not one single statement was attributed to any Democratic candidate in the entire article. The reporter noted that not all candidates were present, and I assumed Mark Begich was not there. It turns out he was. The appearance of the mayor of Alaska's largest city, who was at the time the likely Democratic nominee to challenge Ted Stevens in a nationally watched race, was totally cut out of the News-Miner's coverage.
But if the News-Miner wouldn't report on Begich when he had visited Fairbanks … they would report on him when he hadn't. In a story published on Sunday, Aug. 10 (p. B-1), a reporter covered two candidates who visited Fairbanks for the Tanana Valley State Fair. The front page of the B section was devoted to long-shot Republican challenger Vic Vickers meeting and greeting fairgoers. On the jump page, the reporter noted:
"Just a few yards away, U.S. Senate candidate Mark Begich also spent the afternoon chatting with locals and listening to common concerns around the Interior.
"Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, stopped by the fair only after a tour of the flood damage around town."
The problem with the story—a small thing, hardly worth mentioning—is that Begich was not, in fact, there. Not at the fair, not at flood-damaged locations around town. Alaska Airlines was having difficulties that morning, and Begich's plane was grounded in Anchorage. As a campaign staff member explained in an email and on the phone to me, Begich tried to get to Fairbanks for hours, but was unable to do so. How could such a story get written, filed, edited and printed? It's a classic case of press release reporting with no editorial oversight. A News-Miner editor acknowledged the story was faked, but declined to comment on the record.
For my money, it was a dumb move by a rookie reporter and not very important. The lack of editorial supervision is important. But most important is an institutional bias at the News-Miner that results, year after year, in chronic inattention to Democratic candidates. If the paper wishes to be taken seriously, it might give some thought to producing serious journalism. If Democrats care about winning, they might pay a bit more attention to what is happening in Alaska's second largest city at the only daily newspaper in the northern half of the state.
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Dan O'Neill is the author of three books, The Firecracker Boys, A Land Gone Lonesome, and The Last Giant of Beringia. He has lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, for thirty-three years.