We’ve come a long way over the decades

As the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman enters its 64th year of publication, it has us thinking about how much the information business has changed, especially recently.

In the olden days of the last millennium, the Frontiersman was a mid-sized, twice-weekly paper covering the places and faces of the Mat-Su Borough. As recently as the 1990s, the paper was black-and-white with spot color ads, and it was printed at the Anchorage Daily News’ production plant.

But in this past decade, the Frontiersman has acquired its own printing press, added home delivery and expanded its coverage to include a Sunday print edition, a website, a YouTube channel, an E- Newsletter, and Facebook and Twitter news feeds.

When we began printing the paper at the production plant next door to the main office at 5751 E. Mayflower Court in 2005, Anya Petersen-Frey compiled a look back at some of our history.

“… Milestones include: the first use of color in 1967, when a blue masthead was introduced; in 1979 computers were added to the newsroom, followed in 1983 by the use of the first color photograph on the front page. In 1999, the paper became fully paginated, so all pages are now computer-generated. After becoming a once per week publication in 1949, the paper returned to a twice-weekly publication in 1984, appearing on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In August 2002, a Sunday edition was added. The Frontiersman began home delivery for the first time in its core areas of Palmer and Wasilla two years ago, in April 2003.”

This year the changes at the newspaper center around our evolving use of social media like Facebook and Twitter to gather and share news with our readers. These online platforms have revolutionized the way we gather information and give us an opportunity to interact in real time with readers.

For example, a Facebook reader left a note asking for directions to the New Year’s celebration at the new Big Lake Ice Arena on Lions Court. A note last week asked where Santa Claus would be meeting with Valley children in the final days before Christmas. And another reader left a note about a team of six dogs lost — and found — on the Iditarod Trail.

When we wanted to know who the people are who give us the gift of the Valley Christmas tree on the Glenn Highway, we asked Facebook readers. It took less than an hour for one of you to connect us with Jason’s cell phone number.

Sometimes your comments on Facebook also lead directly to news stories, such as a Valley Life feature about the Christmas village set up every year at Happy Dawn’s Thrift Store. It was Dawn’s niece who left us a note on Facebook suggesting we profile her holiday display.

Last week after the lunar eclipse we posted photos from longtime friend of the Frontiersman, Butte astrophotographer Jim Egger. His photos on our Facebook page led another reader and photographer to post an image he compiled that showed the moon as it passed through the earth’s shadow as a series of dramatic photos arcing through a black night sky.

Sometimes we use this new tool for something as routine as checking the spelling of people’s names.

A small group of longtime Alaska journalists craft the stories in each issue of the Frontiersman. Maybe veteran reporters Andrew Wellner, Greg Johnson, KT McKee, or Managing Editor Heather A. Resz have interviewed you for a story. Maybe you know Jeremiah Bartz because he wrote sports stories about your son or daughter throughout their high school career. Maybe Photography Editor Robert DeBerry has taken a photo that’s now part of your collection of family keepsakes.

Although we meet dozens of our neighbors each month in the course of reporting Mat-Su Valley news, sometimes we still feel like the title character in the Wizard of Oz; hidden from public view behind a green drape, reduced to just a byline at the top of the story.

In large part, Facebook eliminates this anonymity by giving readers a chance to interact with our news team directly.

As we survey the past year, we are a bit boggled by the shear number of ways the community has come together to use our Facebook fan page as a tool to gather and share news.

We look forward to a new year of working with readers to use these tools to create new ways to gather news and tell the stories of life in the Mat-Su Valley. We invite you to join the conversation at facebook.com/frontiersman.