By DAN FAGAN
Most journalists understand following the money is the quickest way to answer the question of why.
Journalists should be asking the owner of the Anchorage Daily News, Ryan Binkley, why his paper has endorsed the insanity that is Ballot Measure 2.
Anyone with a lick of sense, and without a direct financial incentive in the measure passing, could never favor such a foolish, convoluted, and ridiculous proposal.
But Binkley does have a financial interest in the initiative passing. The very same Lower-48 left-wing billionaire backers dumping a bunch of cash into the operation of the ADN are also pouring multiple millions into supporting Ballot Measure 2.
Radical Leftist and billionaire John Arnold based out of Houston, Texas, has dumped $3 million into Alaska to help pass Ballot Measure 2. Arnold has been described as the mini George Soros. The shoe certainly fits.
Arnold has also donated millions to the liberal group ProPublica. ProPublica pays to boost the salaries and research costs of the fledgling and failing Anchorage Daily News.
If the paper came out against Ballot Measure 2, it would likely jeopardize the ADN’s desperately needed funding from the left-wing Arnold.
But Binkley has even more financial incentive to back Ballot Measure 2. Hedge fund billionaire Dirk Ziff, based in Florida, dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Alaska to promote Ballot Measure 2.
Ziff also pays the salary of an ADN reporter according to Brett Huber, with the Defend Alaska Elections campaign.
“As the largest newspaper in the state of Alaska, The Anchorage Daily News has a civic responsibility to be transparent with the public,” said Huber. “At the very least the ADN should have disclosed this conflict of interest. Recusing themselves from offering an endorsement would have been the honorable thing to do.”
Huber says the Defend Alaska Elections campaign opposing Ballot Measure 2 has submitted five different editorials in the past month and yet the paper has refused to print any of them. He says every other paper in the state has run one of their editorials.
The ADN backing Ballot Measure 2 is even shadier considering the paper is using other endorsements during this election cycle to shake its perfectly deserved reputation as a liberal rag.
The ADN has endorsed Republicans Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Congressman Don Young. The paper also came out against Ballot Measure 1, a tax hike that would devastate Alaska’s economy and enrich the proposal’s biggest financial donor, attorney Robin Brena.
So, why would the paper come out in favor of Ballot Measure 2? Follow the money!
Don’t look for KTUU or Alaska Public Media to call out the ADN for its glaring conflict of interest. The left-leaning media typically watch out for their own.
Many hoped once the Binkley family took over Alaska’s largest newspaper, the ADN would abandon its long-held, consistent, and overt left-wing bent. At the very least we hoped the paper would try to be fair. It has not.
Many of the same old crusty liberals that ran the paper under previous owners McClatchy Inc. and Alice Rogoff are still in charge.
Ryan’s father John has long been a crusader for conservative ideas and values. Apparently, based on the ADN’s continued left-leaning reporting, Ryan holds a different world view.
Or maybe Ryan’s just trying to keep his business financially afloat during a time when newspapers are dramatically downsizing and failing across the country.
A well-known conservative I trust told me once of a conversation she had with Ryan.
She confronted him on his paper’s continued left-leaning bias. She reports Ryan told her he feared losing the paper’s subscribers if they changed their coverage since most of them are liberals.
If Binkley endorsed the insanity that is Ballot Measure 2, he should at the very least let his readers know he was doing so to help his bottom line.
Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show in Alaska on Newsradio 650 KENI. Dan splits his time between Anchorage and New Orleans.
Dan, good article but you don’t understand the depths. Ryan Binkley is a proxy owner of ADN. He doesn’t call the shots. That would be Papa John. Captain, Senator, Representative, President, CEO, would be Governor, would be US Senator, Chairman, Partner…….the man collects titles like you collect stories for MRAK.
Consider this: President of Alaska Cruise Ship Industry, Chairman and CEO of Alaska RR Corporation, Chairman of Alaska Redistricting Board, Chairman and CEO Alaska Riverboat Ways, Chairman and CEO of Godspeed (partner with NCL for the new Ketchikan cruiseship dock), silent owner of the Anchorage Daily News.
If a person is not able to get elected by a trusting electorate, what does he do? He corners all other markets that bring money, money, and more money to him. Indebtedness brings money. Need brings money. Influence brings money. Pretty soon, everyone wanting to do business in Alaska, whether it be in tourism, transportation, or in politics, will be required to throw money into the Binkley cash register. That includes the Anchorage Daily News. These are nothing but cash registers for the man who no longer needs your vote.
Pretty fair assessment. I always wondered why Binkley needed to be so self-important. I’d never vote for him…..for anything.
Wow. Where would we be today if Johne Binkley had become governor?
Sarah Palin would be serving drinks to tourists on the AK RR and Frank Murkowski would be the choo choo oiler.
After reading this from Andy, who would ever vote for John Binkley?
Tacitus “Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges. The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.”
John Binkley is one of the “electors” that will cast Alaska’s electoral college votes. Should Trump win Alaska, can we depend on John to vote as he should?
“If Binkley endorsed the insanity that is Ballot Measure 2, he should at the very least let his readers know he was doing so to help his bottom line.”
I don’t think that would work. Surely such a public acknowledgement would pi__-off the ADN’s sugar daddy.
The ADN is a leftist rag. Why else would the newspaper endorse Sullivan and Young? Follow the money.
To my understanding, Gross outspent Sullivan 15-1 in this election. George Soros or his ilk also poured mega-buck into the Galvin campaign. So FTM doesn’t really work on that one.
And to think I used to think of the Binkley family as respectful Alaskans not Los Anchorites.
Ryan and company need to be careful. The only reason we still take the ADN these days is due to the comic strips. Our last subscription renewal was in October. We will let it lapse after 28 years subscribing. Hope their lefty buddies make up the difference. Cheers –
The State of Alaska executive branch pays thousands upon thousands of dollars each year to the Anchorage Daily News – completely unnecessarily. Both very expensive (much higher cost than homeowners pay) print subscriptions for every department and every state agency, but publication costs for public notices absolutely no one reads. Anyone can look into this and see this to be the fact! And exactly why do state employees need to read the Anchorage Daily News anyway?!
Wow- Thanks.
Maybe he should return to the river boat business and leave real life to people who can handle it. Oh, wait, there is no river boat business. Pot shops are still open. Maybe he could use his influence money to get lost in his own mind.
LOL. Good post!
That’s why I use ADN to start a fire in my wood stove. That’s is one of two things it is good for the other is private.
Prop 2 may also be the way back into politics for the Binkley family, since their stewardship has destroyed what was already a sketchy set of conservative bonafides…
These people. Never enough to do well, they have to have power over their neighbors. It’s a sickness of the mind, and the soul.
Isn’t that called sociopathy?
ADN endorsing Ballot Measure 2? Insane!
ADN endorsing Sullivan and Young? Insane!
ADN following the money? Insane!
Dan Fagan coming up with another dingbat plot to destroy the world? Insane, but totally understandable.
Actually, insult is not argument. It merely demonstrates a lack of any rational basis for your position. “Dingbat” and “insane” are essentially a concession that you have no fact or rational argument to dispute his position, just invincible though baseless contempt.
Is this the same situation with Porcaro that Kara exposed on Measure 1?
If Binkley endorsed the insanity that is Ballot Measure 2
One of the things I hate about liberals (or progressives, or whatever they try to call themselves now) is the constant emotive-based opinions stated as fact, as if the rest of us should just “accept” their worldview if we are sane. But on Prop 2, it’s the conservatives like Fagan who are playing this game.
I’ve never heard a good logical argument against Prop 2 yet. I voted against it just because I think it might help liberals sneak people in and I don’t want to risk it. But I actually doubt this and think educated, conservative people could use this system well to get hyper-conservatives elected. I bet Miller would have beat Lisa this way, for example. But I really don’t know, and guys like Fagan make conservative non-Republican guys like me get more skeptical about my fellow cons every day. It’s hard enough to keep social conservatives and libertarian conservatives in the same fold already.
MK has a point here. As the right gets more and more isolated by their extreme ideology, they will increasingly become a smaller part of the electorate. That’s a good thing, as it is for any extremist ideology, and perhaps Miller might have beaten Lisa, he might as easily been relegated to the anonymity he so richly deserves.
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I canceled a few years back, but watch for a positive change. I see articles from the Washington Post and the NY Times every day, both carry the water and feed misinformation (at best) to the rest of the mainstream news. With a change to honest sources for their articles I would consider subscribing again, but…..
I’m shocked, shocked to learn there is dirty political money feeding the ADN…
“The ADN has endorsed Republicans Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Congressman Don Young. The paper also came out against Ballot Measure 1, a tax hike that would devastate Alaska’s economy and enrich the proposal’s biggest financial donor, attorney Robin Brena. So, why would the paper come out in favor of Ballot Measure 2? Follow the money!”
Good observation, so why not follow the money on the endorsement of Dan Sullivan, Don Young, and coming out against Ballot Measure 1? Guess no need to look closely when you agree?
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