David McChesney joined Wick Communications as publisher of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman in Wasilla, the newspaper group reported in a press release on Friday. His first day is June 19.
Unmentioned in the press release is that McChesney is also the new publisher for the Anchorage Press, which went entirely online this year, serving the extreme leftist reader in downtown Anchorage, while the Frontiersman serves the most conservative part of the state with print editions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
In the words of former Anchorage Press and Frontiersman editor Matt Hickman, “alternative weeklies are newspapers targeted at an audience that tends to be younger, more interested in the arts than money, spends more time walking or biking than in cars while on their way to coffee shops and bars, which, conveniently, is where you find publications like ours distributed most. Alt-weeklies are meant to advocate for the disenfranchised and disrupt the status quo. There should be no surprise that audience tends to tilt left, politically.”
The Anchorage Press was the publication that promoted the “Prometheus theory” in 2018, which stated that now-Gov. Mike Dunleavy was a closeted homosexual.
From the Midwest, McChesney’s background encompasses a range of experiences in both the newspaper and technology sectors. After graduating with honors from Ohio University, where he obtained a bachelor of science degree in visual communications with a specialization in photojournalism, McChesney served as the director of technology for Nixon Newspaper Group in Peru, Indiana.
In 1998, he founded 1UP, an internet software company that facilitated publishers’ digital transitions. Prior to joining Wick Communications, he was briefly the director of publisher engagement for ePublishing in Chicago until 2021.
Expressing his enthusiasm for the role, McChesney stated, “Community newspapers in a rural setting is where my heart has been since I started in the industry. Wick Communications’ Frontiersman in Wasilla, Alaska, is about as perfect a location as I could have imagined for my first publisher’s position. I am excited to get started!”
He, too, mentioned not a word of excitement for his new role at the alt-left publication in Anchorage.
