Bias showing, the ADN is back to its old tricks of trashing conservatives — this time a nominee of a conservative mayor

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Denali Disposal doesn’t compete with the Municipality’s Solid Waste Services. It’s owned by political and civic activist Bernadette Wilson, who was the co-chair of the Bronson for Mayor campaign.

Wilson’s father, Dan Zipay, who was the founder of Alaska Waste, has just been named the director of the Muni Solid Waste Services. Until recently, he was a 12.5 percent shareholder in Denali Disposal, where he was a silent partner.

But you wouldn’t know it from reading the Anchorage Daily News, which says Wilson was the “campaign manager,” rather than co-chair of the mayor’s campaign.

There is a big difference: A manager is typically a paid position and that person works 8-15 hours a day during the campaign, while the other is volunteer and advisory in nature.

The Anchorage Daily News, sniffing out a scandal, throws shade on Zipay, on the bandwagon to bounce him during the confirmation process. Already, Assemblyman Chris Constant is telling the ADN he is going to “get to the bottom” of this.

The newspaper went to some lengths to go on the attack. Its original headline was markedly different than the one it posted the next day.

Between the first headline and the attack headline, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Kyle Hopkins, who has a penchant for biased reporting, gave it his own spin as he posted it on Twitter:

The time stamps tell the story of a newsroom on a mission to destroy. The first story showed up Aug. 17, and six hours later the Kyle Hopkins’ spin was on Twitter. Just a few hours later the newspaper changed the headlines to attack Zipay and Wilson, using Hopkins’ talking points.

Wilson and Craig Campbell, who is now Bronson’s chief of staff, were the campaign co-chairs.

Brice Wilbanks was the Bronson for Mayor campaign manager, and he is now the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, working for Campbell. Wilson took no job in the Bronson Administration, and in fact stepped back from the Bronson campaign in February to focus on her business.

On July 30, Denali Disposal shareholders voted that Zipay would relinquish his 12.5 percent share in Denali Disposal.

Importantly, Denali Disposal receives no contracts from the municipality, does not compete with the municipality for work, but is simply a private disposal company operating in Anchorage.

Alaska Public Media didn’t make the “mistake” that Hopkins, reporter Emily Goodykoontz, and the copy desk at the ADN made.

APM wrote: “Zipay is a part-owner of Denali Disposal, a private trash collection company, which is run by Bernadette Wilson. Wilson is Zipay’s daughter and was also Bronson’s campaign chair.”

The state records that show Zipay as a 12.5 percent owner of Denali Disposal do not reflect the update, which occurred more than three weeks ago, Wilson said.

Read Iron Dog Champ Dan Zipay appointed head of Anchorage Solid Waste

17 COMMENTS

  1. Democrats have been using their privilege to show their own bias who they hire whenever they have a Governor, Mayor, or Assembly, or City Council position. So! I don’t really care… who Bronson hires. He has the Mayor office, so he can hire who and his team deems fit for any position.

  2. Yay for the day that ADN closes its doors. And I have no doubt that it will happen sooner than later. The failure of the paper is in part caused by it not publishing news in a fair and balanced manner. And while the paper has a right to use the editorial page to publish its biased opinions, it’s cherry picking the letters to the editors so that the only ones published are liberal, has, along side of its bias in news reporting caused it to lose many subscribers.
    Print and home delivery of newspapers is probably doomed in today’s tech age: but ADN will likely fail long before others.

  3. It’s a tight market for political appointees in Alaska, but this one doesn’t pass the smell test (Morgan didn’t pass the competency test). It’s not looking good for the mayor either. It’ll be interesting to see how the election donation miscues play out.
    Like the man says, “Follow the money.”

    • The Berky appointed Director of Anchorage Health department, had a degree in public administration and was CEO of Big Brother Big Sister. Not a peep from ADN in the middle of a pandemic on competency. Mr. Morgan actually worked with health care systems and has years of experience. He simply refused to regurgitate the ever-changing, confusing CDC guidelines and demanded more science.
      Mr. Zipay works in the field, is apparently giving up his ownership stake, and his former company has no dealings or competition with the Muni. Give the man a chance!
      While we are “following the money” how much did the Muni pay Mark Begich for housing homeless at the Aviator hotel??? We never heard about that….

  4. Why are businesses paying to advertise in the ADN? Why are people subscribing to it? Let them go bankrupt!

  5. ADN was supposed to be a bit more Conservative, or at least more mainstream, when Fairbanksan Johne Binkley purchased it several years ago. Since Mr. Binkley has no chance of ever winning a state-wide office, he is grooming his son Ryan for a future in Alaska politics. That means, feeding the Democrats and liberals lots of red meat for their biased stories. Here’s one worth reporting on:
    .
    Last week, Governor Dunleavy selected another Fairbanks businessman, John Reeves to sit on the Alaska Railroad Corporation Board. Binkley and Reeves are arch enemies and are decade-long combatants in a right-of-way dispute up in Fairbanks. The six-foot nine-inch Reeves recently prevailed at the Alaska Supreme Court. Binkley, who also owns Godspeed Corporation, Alaska Riverways, and a gold dredge tour, now owns a piece of the brand new Ward Cove dock facility in Ketchikan, which is an exclusive tie-up for Norwegian Cruise Lines. Among other Binkley interests are current ARRC board member and past Alaska Cruiseship President. Mr. Binkley failed at becoming governor and US Senator.
    .
    If Dermot Cole wants to guest write an opinion piece for ADN, he should look into why Mr. Binkley has been unchallenged as an ARRC board member for 30 years, when the usual term is only for 5 years.
    .
    With Mr. Reeves now on the Board as a Dunleavy appointee, and Binkley directing his newspaper to Recall Dunleavy and support Bill Walker, it will be fun to watch upcoming railroad business. Soon, we’ll see who is the better brakeman and who gets to carry the oil can.
    .
    As they say, “that’s politics.”

    • And I always thought Mr. Binkley was more of a Stage Director, not a Conductor. If Binkley has been on the railroad board for thirty years, shuttling tourists from Anchorage into Fairbanks to pay for his tourist attractions, I wonder who’s been covering all of the freight costs? Sounds like Dunleavy has put on new 6’9″ Engineer into the locomotives.?

      • Maybe Dunleavy finally grew a pair. And Reeves sounds bigger than Dunleavy. This is a story that Binkley’s ADN is NOT going to report. LMFAO.

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