{"id":1735329,"date":"2022-11-11T13:02:44","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T18:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1735329"},"modified":"2022-11-11T13:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T18:02:47","slug":"in-alaska-daily-hilary-swank-takes-on-polarization-politics-and-local-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-alaska-daily-hilary-swank-takes-on-polarization-politics-and-local-media\/","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018Alaska Daily,\u2019 Hilary Swank Takes On Polarization, Politics, And Local Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-alaska-daily-hilary-swank-takes-on-polarization-politics-and-local-media%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1735329&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>If there\u2019s anything Hollywood loves more than movies about the movies, it\u2019s shows and films about journalism.<\/p>\n<p>We certainly don\u2019t need any more TV shows about news shows (HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Newsroom\u201d and Apple TV\u2019s \u201cThe Morning Show\u201d come to mind), but every once in a while, there\u2019s a show about media that gets a few things poignantly right. ABC\u2019s \u201cAlaska Daily\u201d is one of those.<\/p>\n<p>Created by Tom McCarthy \u2014 the director who brought us \u201cSpotlight,\u201d which ranks with \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men\u201d in the realm of good journalism films \u2014 \u201cAlaska Daily\u201d follows a Hallmark-style premise. After her big scoop falls apart upon publication, New York City journalist Eileen Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) can only find a job at a tiny newspaper in Alaska, run by her boss from years ago. Her brash attitude and tough exterior slowly soften as she reluctantly learns to open up to people and collaborate with her coworkers.<\/p>\n<p>Now halfway through its first season, \u201cAlaska Daily\u201d is a solid network drama for those who like local journalism, crime shows, or Hilary Swank. Perhaps because it\u2019s marketed to a broader audience, instead of streaming exclusively online, it hovers near the political center.<\/p>\n<p>To appeal to liberal views, cast members have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instyle.com\/hilary-swank-alaska-daily-interview-2022-6666228\">pushed back<\/a> on the idea that it contains a white savior narrative, and one plotline involves a native woman working to take down a racist cop. More conservative viewers might appreciate Fitzgerald\u2019s disdain for \u201cwoke wussies more interested in eating their own than reporting the news\u201d \u2014 even if it\u2019s meant to illustrate her aversion to collegiality. Another reporter\u2019s directive, \u201cWe are equal opportunity diggers,\u201d would seem comical coming from a show about The New York Times, but here, it\u2019s an encouraging reminder of what local journalism is for.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlaska Daily\u201d provides a defense of local journalism at a time when layoffs continue to plague some of the only outlets dedicated to day-to-day issues that really matter to their readers. At the end of the first episode, Fitzgerald encourages another reporter to continue pursuing a corruption story, telling her, \u201cYou think The New York Times is going to cover this? The Post? No. This is exactly why local journalism matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While her colleagues report on everything happening in the Last Frontier \u2014 from a cabbage contest at the state fair to the burning down of a local diner \u2014\u00a0Fitzgerald has come to the Daily Alaskan to report on missing indigenous women. The paper didn\u2019t have enough resources to pursue these cases in the past; now, years later, Fitzgerald aims to expose the police negligence that allowed a murder to remain unsolved \u2014 and maybe even find the killer.<\/p>\n<p>Her plotline, based on real reporting by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica, floats on a sea of serendipity, as stories in most journalism dramas do. Fitzgerald happens to have met a \u201cpoet-pilot\u201d at a bar just before she needs to charter a plane to track down a source. Her reporting partner Roz Friendly (Grace Dove) happens to have a half brother who works at a police department that is stonewalling their public records requests. And so on. Whether it takes some quick thinking or a little deus ex machina, nothing will keep Fitzgerald from her story.<\/p>\n<p>If you can bear some suspension of disbelief, you might find the show intriguing. Filling out the plot are a cast of supporting characters, other reporters at the Daily Alaskan, whose stories, like Fitzgerald\u2019s, make the case for local journalism.<\/p>\n<p>Journalism is meant to be a profession that holds the powerful, whether they be politicians, police, or whatever else, to account. We see this less and less in the national media, which tells us that the biggest scandal of the Obama years was that the president once wore a tan suit. Alaska Daily may be a little too aspirational, \u00e0 la the \u201cWest Wing,\u201d but it holds out hope for a better world, even if its vision is a little cheesy.<\/p>\n<p>One episode finds the owner of a local diner despairing over political polarization. Her restaurant, a community hub, holds a sign that warns visitors against politics, religion, and drama. She instructs staff to turn off the TV when the news gets grim. And when a verbal altercation leaves one man storming out of the diner, she shakes her head. \u201cJust another angry person. It\u2019s the world we live in. It\u2019s only getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When she decides to sell her diner to a burger chain, a fight breaks out at a town forum discussing the sale. Who knew people felt so passionately about pancakes? That night, the diner is up in flames, and the arsonist, it turns out, is the owner herself, driven to it by the division in her own community.<\/p>\n<p>If you can get past that level of in-your-face topicality, then you won\u2019t mind the rest of the show. \u201cAlaska Daily\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there\u2019s anything Hollywood loves more than movies about the movies, it\u2019s shows and films about journalism. We certainly don\u2019t need any more TV shows about news shows (HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Newsroom\u201d and Apple TV\u2019s \u201cThe Morning Show\u201d come to mind), but every once in a while, there\u2019s a show about media that gets a few &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":798,"featured_media":1735332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1735329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1735329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/798"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1735329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1735329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1735332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1735329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1735329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1735329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}