Алясканың «Fairbanks Daily News Miner» газеті

Daily newspaper in Fairbanks, Alaska

The Fairbanks Daily News Miner is a morning daily newspaper serving the city of Fairbanks, Alaska, the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the Denali Borough, and the Yukon Koyukuk Census Area in the U. S. state of Alaska. It is the farthest north daily in the United States, and one of the farthest north in the world. The oldest continuously operating daily in Alaska, by circulation it is the second largest daily in the state. It was purchased by the Helen E. Snedden Foundation in 2016. The Snedden family were longtime owners of the News Miner, selling it to a family trust for Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder, founders of the Media News Group in 1992. The News Miner was founded as the Weekly Fairbanks News in 1903 by George M. Hill and assumed the News Miner name in 1909, under editor William Fentress Thompson, when Zachary Hickman sold his newspaper, The Miner News, to the Fairbanks News. Thompson guided the paper through tough economic times as the gold near Fairbanks was mined out. During this period, the News Miner absorbed Fairbanks' other newspapers and became the sole publication in Fairbanks. During the 1920s, the News Miner experimented with aerial delivery to remote mining camps, becoming one of the first newspapers in the world to make regular deliveries by aircraft. After Thompson's death in 1926, former Fairbanks mayor Alfeld Hjalmar Nordale became the paper's editor. In 1929, the News Miner was purchased by Alaska industrialist Austin E. Lathrop, who operated it under a series of editors until 1950. In that year, the paper was purchased by Charles Willis Snedden, who proceeded on a course of modernization. Under Snedden's leadership, the News Miner became one of the first papers in Alaska to print in color and survived a fire and the biggest flood in Fairbanks history. The News Miner has employed several notable Alaskans, including Sen. Bob Bartlett. Its mascot, Sourdough Jack, has been featured on the cover of every daily paper since 1952. The News Miner has received numerous awards and recognitions during its history, particularly from the Alaska Press Club, which recognizes achievements by Alaska newspapers on an annual basis.

The Fairbanks Daily News Miner is a morning newspaper published daily in the city of Fairbanks in the U. S. state of Alaska. Because Fairbanks is located at a latitude of 64.838 degrees north, the News Miner offices are located farther north than those of any other daily newspaper in North America. The newspaper has a daily circulation of between 9,000 and 12,500 copies (sources vary), and a Sunday circulation of about 12,000. Overall readership statistics are somewhat higher. The News Miner operates a web site, Newsminer. com, which records roughly 250,000 unique visitors per year, according to Alexa. The News Miner's circulation area encompasses about 179287 square miles (464,352 km2) in central and northern Alaska. The circulation area includes the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the Yukon Koyukuk Census Area, the northern portion of the Denali Borough, and portions of the Southeast Fairbanks Census Area. Major settlements in the circulation area include the city of Fairbanks and the towns of North Pole, Delta Junction, Healy, Fort Yukon, and Tok. There are no other daily newspapers in the News Miner's circulation area, but Fairbanks and southern portions of the Denali Borough are secondary circulation areas for the Anchorage Daily News, a daily newspaper based 360 mile (579 km) south, in Anchorage. The paper's coverage centers on local news with moderate reporting on state issues that affect Fairbanks and the surrounding area. Local sports, particularly the Alaska Goldpanners (charter members of the (Alaska Baseball League), Fairbanks Ice Dogs (North American Hockey League), and the various sports teams of the University of Alaska Fairbanks are covered regularly by the newspaper. The News Miner produces several specialty publications in addition to the regular paper. Two publications, Latitude 65, a weekly arts supplement released on Thursday; and Sundays, a feature reporting section published on Sundays, also are produced by newspaper staff. Several annual publications — a visitors' guide, winter survival guide, and others — also are released by the newspaper on a regular basis.

In 1901, trader Ebenezer Barnette sailed up Alaska's Tanana River in hopes of establishing a trading post on the trail connecting the coastal town of Valdez with the gold mining community of Eagle. Due to low water, however, the steamboat Barnette chartered was unable to continue up the river. Discouraged, Barnette deposited his cache of goods on a riverbank of the Chena River and sailed downstream with the intent of making another attempt to sail up the river during the following year. In 1902, miner Felix Pedro struck gold at a spot about 15 mile (24 km) north of the spot where Barnette had left his supplies. In May 1906, McChesney sold the Daily News to Fairbanks' founder, Ebenezer Barnette. Later that month, an enormous fire destroyed the Daily News press and much of Fairbanks. Rather than wait for replacement equipment, Barnette purchased the press of a newly arrived editor, William Fentress Thompson, who had intended to set up his own newspaper. As part of the purchasing deal in August 1906, Thompson was allowed to publish an evening paper—the Tanana Daily Miner—while the Fairbanks Daily News was published in the morning. The deal lasted only through September, as Thompson and Barnette conflicted on a personal level. The Tanana Miner was reduced to a weekly newspaper, then Thompson was deposed as editor of the Fairbanks News in June 1907 and took the Tanana Miner to the settlement of Chena, outside Fairbanks. Barnette, meanwhile, became embroiled in a series of legal troubles. He faced opposition from the owner of the Fairbanks Times, A. L. Anderson, who had fought Barnette about several gold claims near Fairbanks and purchased the Times to compete against Barnette. In 1907, Barnette was accused of embezzling money from the Fairbanks bank he operated, and he was sued by the man who had funded the venture that led to the founding of Fairbanks. During the lawsuit, it was revealed that Barnette had been convicted of larceny in Oregon. As his legal bills added up, Barnette decided to lease the Fairbanks Daily News to a group of local businessmen. On June 15, 1908, Barnette ended the lease agreement by selling the newspaper to J. Harmon Caskey and Henry Roden. That same year, the campaign to elect Alaska's first delegate to Congress was under way, and one of the candidates, Jack Corson, purchased one third of the newspaper. Corson's campaign manager promptly was named the editor of the Daily News, and the paper switched to actively supporting Corson's candidacy. During this time, William Thompson — best known as W. F. Thompson — began gathering investors to purchase the Fairbanks Daily News. After Corson's candidacy failed and Thompson amassed $15,000 from investors, he purchased the Daily News in March 1909. On March 18, 1909, the Daily News published its last issue. Four days later, it reopened under the name Fairbanks Daily News Miner, an amalgam of the names of the Daily News and Thompson's previous operation, the Tanana Miner. He chose the name over his first idea, the Daily Alaska Miner.

When Thompson assumed majority ownership of the renamed Fairbanks Daily News Miner in early 1909, it was one of three daily newspapers in Fairbanks. The other two were the Fairbanks Times and the Tanana Daily Tribune. Competition among the three newspapers was intense, and they often clashed about issues such as city council meetings, a permanent bridge over the Chena River, and the mineral prospects of the town of Iditarod, where gold had just been discovered. The intense rivalries were driven by the declining economic situation in Fairbanks, as the initial gold findings that inspired the Fairbanks Gold Rush began to wane. From the time Thompson took control until shortly after the Second World War, the News Miner lacked a dedicated connection to the Associated Press. In the early years of the Thompson administration, he had a dedicated correspondent in Seattle whose job was to read the early editions of the Seattle newspapers, then hurry to the telegraph office and summarize what he had read to Thompson on the other end of the telegraph cable. This system later was replaced by a dedicated contract with the Alaska Communications System, but that contract limited the News Miner to no more than 9,000 words per day of messages. Bartlett had worked for the paper during school vacations, but he made journalism a full time job following graduation. For four years, Bartlett was the only reporter (other than the editor) who regularly wrote local stories. In late 1930, Bartlett was made the paper's assistant editor in lieu of a raise that the paper couldn't afford to pay. Bartlett remained the paper's assistant editor until 1933, when he became the secretary to Anthony Dimond, Alaska's delegate to the U. S. Congress. Bartlett became the delegate to Congress in 1945, and in 1958, when Alaska hosted its first election for state office, Bartlett was elected one of its first two U. S. senators.

In October 1928, the News Miner cut costs by moving to a new office. This allowed the purchase of a new Linotype machine, and further upgrades were promised when on November 8, 1929, the News Miner was purchased by Austin E. Lathrop, an Alaska industrialist. Though Lathrop promised to inject money into the News Miner, his strong Republican leanings opposed those of Nordale, a confirmed Democrat. Nordale resigned in April 1930 and was replaced by Bernard Stone. Stone and Lathrop turned the News Miner profitable before Stone was replaced by Charles R. Settlemier in 1936. In 1935, the News Miner purchased two cylinder presses to replace the old flatbed press still in use. Owing to shipping difficulties, however, the presses and the new crew needed to operate them did not arrive until 1936. By that time, the News Miner was preparing to move into the new Lathrop Building, built by and named after the newspaper's owner. As the Great Depression hit the United States, Fairbanks bucked the poor economic trend. Thanks to the Alaska Railroad, large gold dredges could be brought in, and these returned the area's gold mines to profitability. In 1938, Lathrop took advantage of the good economic situation by reviving the Alaska Miner as a weekly supplement to the News Miner. The Miner covered happenings in the gold mining camps outside Fairbanks and was focused on areas outside the city. In 1939, Fairbanks radio station KFAR was founded, and it shared the Lathrop building with the News Miner, which occupied the bottom floors of the building. In January 1941, a disagreement between Settlemier, one of his reporters, and the editor of the Alaska Miner resulted in several changes to the News Miner. Settlemier was replaced as editor by the reporter, David B. Tewkesbury, and the Alaska Miner was discontinued. Its editor, E. F. Jessen, created Jessen's Weekly, a separate newspaper, to compete with the News Miner. The Weekly lasted until 1968, when it was closed by the Internal Revenue Service. The same year that Jessen founded his weekly newspaper, the United States became involved in the Second World War. Travel to and from Alaska was restricted, and after Japan invaded the Alaska islands of Attu and Kiska, the News Miner was censored by the U. S. Army. Fairbanks benefited from a military construction boom as the United States built the Northwest Staging Route to ferry Lend Lease aircraft to the Soviet Union. The boom left the News Miner short staffed, but it continued operations throughout the war. Just before the Japanese surrender that ended the war, News Miner editor David Tewkesbury died. He was replaced by Art Bremer, a reporter. The post war boom caused a sudden shortage of newsprint, as paper mills were not able to meet the demand of a growing number of newspapers nationwide. This shortage caused the News Miner to run short until Lathrop used his industrial connections to divert a shipment from a newspaper that was going out of business. The post war years also saw the News Miner take a more active role in territorial politics. Prior to the 1948 election, Lathrop believed Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey would handily defeat Democratic incumbent Harry Truman. To take advantage of the anticipated governmental shift, Lathrop instructed the News Miner to ramp up its pro Republican editorials. In order to assist that process, he appointed William Strand, a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, as the News Miner's new editor. Though Truman won the 1948 election, the News Miner stayed politically active in endorsing Republican candidates and issues. This ended only with Lathrop's death on July 26, 1950.

One week before Lathrop's death, he negotiated the sale of the News Miner to Charles Willis "Bill" Snedden. Snedden was an efficiency expert and former printer who had been employed by Henry Kaiser during WWII. After the war, he began troubleshooting newspapers. Through 1949 and 1950, Snedden did an efficiency study of the News Miner and recommended about $100,000 in upgrades. Lathrop was unwilling to spend that much on the newspaper, and Snedden suggested that if Lathrop was unwilling to upgrade, Snedden would be interested in purchasing the paper. The two men worked out a verbal agreement before Lathrop was killed in a coal train accident. One of Snedden's first actions was to readdress the paper's stance on Alaska statehood. Lathrop and the News Miner had been strongly opposed to statehood, but after Snedden took control, he analyzed the issue and came out strongly in favor of Alaska statehood. The News Miner continually published editorials in favor of statehood, and encouraged other newspapers across the U. S. to do the same. In 1955 and 1956, when the Alaska Constitutional Convention took place at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the News Miner set up special telephone lines from the convention chambers to the newspaper's office. Daily reports were printed, recording the delegates' progress. On the day the U. S. Congress voted to have Alaska admitted as a state, Snedden arranged for a U. S. Air Force jet to fly copies of the News Miner, the Anchorage Times, and other Alaska newspapers to Washington, D. C. On the morning after the vote, each congressman had an Alaska newspaper proclaiming statehood. The quake was felt in Fairbanks, and it took 40 minutes for communications to be re established with the Associated Press office in Seattle. When the connection was restored, the News Miner sent the first reports of the earthquake to the outside world. The quake also destroyed the offices of the Anchorage Times, the leading newspaper in that city. The News Miner offered its press facilities to the Times, and the two papers shared a masthead as Anchorage recovered from the tremor. This fact saved the News Miner two years later, when a massive flood swept through Fairbanks. The water was three inches deep throughout the paper's offices and even deeper in the press and boiler rooms, which were slightly below that raised level. The flood halted production for a time, and the Anchorage Times reciprocated the post earthquake favor by publishing the News Miner's masthead on its editions and posting occasional stories from Fairbanks until electrical power was restored to the town. Chuck Gray, the last publisher of the paper under Snedden's ownership (he served from 1989–1992), was retained as publisher emeritus in an advisory capacity. Paul Massey was named the first publisher of the post Snedden era. He was replaced by Marilyn Romano in 2003. Romano took a job with Alaska Airlines in 2011 as regional vice president. Kathryn Strle became the interim publisher/general manager. In 2014, veteran newspaper executive Marti Buscaglia was named publisher.

In January 2016, the News Miner was sold to the nonprofit Helen E. Snedden Foundation.

Since 1952, the News Miner has featured a small cartoon figure named "Sourdough Jack" at the bottom of its front page. The drawing of Sourdough Jack is always paired with a comment on a news story, pun, or joke, apparently having been spoken by the figure. The idea for Sourdough Jack came from News Miner editor John J. Ryan, who said, "People had many complaints about the town. He could make fun of that stuff and that would give people a chance to laugh at their problems." Sourdough Jack's name came from Ryan's nickname (Jack) and the traditional nickname given to an old miner (sourdough). In 2009, the paper won several commendations from the Alaska Press Club for photography, sportswriting, features writing, and other accomplishments.