Democracy weakened with loss of outstanding news organizations

There’s been some sad news in the journalism business lately, both nationally and closer to home, as two groundbreaking and independent voices announced they’ll fall silent.

Al Jazeera America had the deck stacked against it from the start by trying to bring an Arab-based news operation to the U.S. The organization was hampered by a persistent belief in this country that it was somehow aligned with the religious fundamentalism that has plagued the Middle East in recent years.

In fact, the cable news channel and online news outlet has been a rare beacon of impartial coverage, one whose work often far surpassed that of more established U.S. brands. The company was relentless in its reporting and often gave readers and viewers unexpected insights into global and regional topics they couldn’t get elsewhere.

This was a notable accomplishment, as Al Jazeera America did good work even at a time when the likes of CNN and Fox News descended further into the world of click bait and politicized noise that epitomizes today’s mass media reporting. The company hired solid, local reporters to cover events on the ground, including notable coverage of Alaska issues from Anchorage writer Julia O’Malley.

Closer to home, the Alaska media landscape shrunk by one plucky paper on Feb. 24, when the Redoubt Reporter announced its founder is putting the paper on indefinite hiatus. The loss of any newspaper is tough to take, but this was an especially difficult blow, as the Frontiersman and Redoubt Reporter had a special relationship. For the past several years, the Kenai Peninsula-based paper has been printed here in Wasilla, and we’re sad that its pages will no longer be rolling off our presses.

More than the loss to our business operation, we are especially sad because the paper provided an alternative news source that often produced simultaneously moving, humorous and informative pieces that expertly mixed hard facts into compelling human narratives. Founder Jenny Neyman is a former co-worker of three Frontiersman staff members — editor Matt Tunseth, publisher Mark Kelsey, and reporter Steven Merritt — with Tunseth even contributing a couple stories to the paper over the years.

Neyman is an old-school journalist with serious reporting chops, and Alaska is losing one of its clearest and most eloquent voices as she moves onto her next adventure. Her tenacity in keeping the paper alive despite competition from a larger, corporate-backed Peninsula daily was an inspiration to journalists across the state. We know how much work the essentially one-woman-paper has been for Neyman over the years, and would like to wish her all the best as she takes some extremely well-deserved time off. She and her paper will be sorely missed.

It’s no secret that the news business has struggled in recent years, and these latest two departures from our world are no gentle blows. The fewer authoritative and honest voices there are to report the news, the weaker we are as a democracy.

That being said, we’d like to also take this opportunity to thank our readers and acknowledge just how important your support is to the continuation of what we do here at the Frontiersman. While we know readers may not always agree with, or like, what appears in our pages, we appreciate just how fickle this business can be and are grateful to have the support of our community.