Worldwide media cast glare on Wasilla

Depending on what they read, those living outside the Mat-Su Valley and Alaska may believe Wasilla to be the idyllic American small town, a nondescript strip mall on the way from Anchorage to Fairbanks or a haven for Last Frontier redneck hillbillies.

Since U.S. Sen. John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin to the nation as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket, Wasilla has been under the media’s microscope. As reporters flood into town to learn more about Palin’s past — she’s a local girl, standout basketball player for Wasilla High School, Miss Wasilla 1984, former city council member and former mayor — they’re also giving millions of viewers and readers their first impressions of Wasilla, Alaska.

Some, like the Chicago Tribune, have been taken by the area, highlighting the natural beauty that surrounds the city. Others, perhaps expecting to magically be transported into the fictional world of television’s “Northern Exposure,” have been less than impressed.

The Seattle Times describes Wasilla’s growth and sprawl in a less-than-flattering light and The Times of  London    seems to believe Wasilla’s a haven for the state’s seedier element. It describes the city as “defined by a series of out-of-town stores, a huge lumber yard, a ramshackle bar named the Mug Shot Saloon with Harley Davidsons parked outside, and a lake, by the side of which is Palin’s house.”

While what some of these reports say is true — Wasilla has been affected by growth, sprawl and is beginning to attract national big box retail — it’s also not accurate. It’s as inaccurate and unfair as it would be for anyone else to define England by a stereotypical lack of dental hygiene.

Anyone spending any amount of time talking with area residents would have a hard time judging the character of a city by quick glances though an automobile window from the Parks Highway.

Alaskans are proud and independent. We’re also intelligent, well-spoken, highly skilled and ferociously political. This is what we know of ourselves and have to show the rest of America. Wasilla has suddenly been thrust from being an obscure dot on the map to the main attraction in a media fishbowl. Palin is not a rose that defied the odds by growing from a patch of weeds; she’s one of many diverse blooms that create a lovely local garden.

In the mean time, perhaps those like that reporter for The Times of London can stop to smell the flowers, and by doing so realize Wasilla is defined by more than one “ramshackle” watering hole.