If the Recall Dunleavy Committee puts out a press release, readers can count on the Anchorage Daily News to genuflect — with a front-page story.
Just one month since the Recall Dunleavy Committee won a front-page story about its “reboot” of the recall signature gathering, (which is to say they had lost momentum and needed to regain it), the group has gotten yet another front-page story intended to give the group the added momentum needed to reach the over 71,000 signatures required to put the question to voters.
All it took was a press release.
Back in January, the group had just over 50,000 signatures. Since the group hired signature-gatherers to stand in front of stores in Anchorage and the Mat-Su, the number has increased to what is now reported as 55,613.
Is this the new journalism standard that says every time the Recall Dunleavy group puts out a press release, the ADN will respond with a front-page story? It appears that way.
Keep Dunleavy, a group that formed a year ago, is still a viable entity and is ready to stand up as an active group if it’s needed, according to MRAK sources. The group was ignored by the ADN report.
Another group, called Stand Tall With Mike, is also registered with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, but was a legal team to fight the recall in court. It lost the battle in court to prevent the recall from proceeding and is not active.
Keep Dunleavy, like Recall Dunleavy, is not required to disclose its financial positions with the Alaska Public Offices Commission since there is no active campaign until the recall group files its signatures with the Division of Elections, and after those signatures are certified and a date set for an election.
Dunleavy isn’t the only governor operating under the threat of recall. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has been under even more pressure. The Recall Newsom group has gathered more than 1 million signatures. It only needed 900,000 to get the recall of the governor on a statewide ballot.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York is also facing a growing call for recall, after a coverup of his role in the nursing home deaths of thousands of New Yorkers who were forced to live with Covid-19 patients in proximity. He was a recent recipient of an Emmy Award for his press conferences.
The TV Academy in November presented Cuomo with the International Emmy Founders Award in recognition of “his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his masterful use of TV to inform and calm people around the world.”
