One and done: ABC cancels ‘Alaska Daily’

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ABC has canceled the television drama series “Alaska Daily” after one season, according to Variety publication. The series, advised by Anchorage Daily News Publisher Ryan Binkley and leftwing ADN writer Kyle Hopkins, starred Hilary Swank as a reporter who left her New York City reporting job after a “fall from grace” and joined the staff of an Anchorage newspaper “to find both personal and professional redemption.”

The series ran one season, with 11 episodes. Filming was done in British Columbia starting last August and concluding in January of 2023.

The series was loosely inspired by the 2019 Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica series of stories, “Lawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska,” which was an anti-Gov. Dunleavy hit job during Dunleavy’s first term in office that was meant to feed the recall efforts by Democrats. It won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.

But the series has flopped with the public, whose understanding of journalism is markedly different than it was during the Watergate era of the 1970s, which spawned the thriller, “All the President’s Men” in 1976, which was about the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.

According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 70% of Democrats, 27% of independents, and 14% of Republicans have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the news media. Thus, the make-believe life of an Alaska reporter may not be as interesting to the public as the Hollywood entertainment class believes it to be.

58 COMMENTS

  1. One of the dumbest shows ever on TV. If Hilary Swank couldn’t make it go, then it was a bomb from the start. The ADN should stick to something more enlightening like Dungeons and Dragons. The ADN’s hero, Bill Walker, hasn’t been seen since his ugly election defeat last November. And Byron Mallott is in a fire pit with chains, forced to watch little girls in their Girl Scout uniforms. The ADN really knows how to pick em.

    • They should have put Sarah Palin as the lead actor. They might have gotten one more season out of this farcical show. ??

  2. anything slipping out of Ryan Binley and leftie Kyle Hopkins is mere folly.
    Those two live on a different planet. Pulitzer Prize is a leftie reward for lying.
    ADN is no different than the rest of the national wish wrapper industry.

    • Anyone know why Johne Binkley bought the ADN and put his son Ryan in charge? I thought they were a Republican family from the Interior.

  3. I made it through a few episodes before canceling it personally. The phony Air Force corruption line on the fighter jets did it for me. Seems to me that the last thing journalists should be doing is making up dramatized fiction about real stories. They’re already accused of doing exactly that with the real stories.

  4. Anchorage Daily News writers have won Pulitzer prizes before, all based on made up stories, so that prize means nothing. Their so-called series include more fiction than truth. Anyone dumb enough to think that what they read in ADN actually is original and true should be sentenced to watch endless reruns of Seventh Heaven.

    • Would you like fries with that prize?
      Journalism lacks so much diversity due to the middle/upper income white students attracted to the schools over the possibility of “making a difference”, that they have to manufacture minorities.

      • Well, there is also the fact that it is right in there with the “studies” as a major; just show up occasionally and pay and you get the degree.

        • eg. ….”Northern Studies”@ UAF. You can even get a master’s degree in it. Doesn’t qualify you for anything. As Art says, attend a class or two per month, and pay for the class. Become a woke, educated idiot from UAF.

      • Journalism is racist? Is that what you’re getting at?! Isn’t journalism one of those jobs where the person is supposed to turn off personal views and just report facts? Seems like it shouldn’t matter WHO reports the news as long as the news is all that gets reported.

  5. “70% of Democrats trust media.” That says it all. They are incapable of analytical thinking and are easily brainwashed.

      • And you think that because you either don’t believe anything you read from the media or that you call anything that you don’t agree with “fake news” that that somehow makes you sagacious or incredulous?

  6. Last time “Alaska” saw it was a box office hit was when North to Alaska starring johnwayne was showing.
    Everything else has been a flop.

    You know what the problem? Not enough reading and a decline in literature quality. Movies are just like books. Its makers must be readers and know what are good books. A good movie had a good storyteller team (producers, director, writers, actors) All raised up to love and appreciate reading or storytelling. But when read the news it not supposed to be storytelling.

    • Agree. Too much produced today is mindless sound bites and shallow meaningless titillation.

    • Jen, now hold on a minute, what about Steven Sagall’s ” On Deadly Ground”?

      Michael Caine was in it also, probably one of his worst roles besides Jaws 4.

  7. It’s hard to watch a show that has no sizzle, makes a joke of Anchorage and makes a joke of trauma. I was watching the show because of Swank. I wanted a real Anchorage and a real Alaska because it’s so beautiful and the main story about missing women is extremely important. The canceling of the show is no suprise because no one on the writing team took it seriously.

    • There’s a movie about the Butcher Baker killer, shot in Anchorage. The Frozen Ground.

  8. Now read to your kiddos, dated literature before 1999.
    Every child deserve to be sharp, quick-witted, and smart. Not slow and
    dumb.

    • I still love Northern Exposure. Oddly, it might be one of the reasons I moved here. And where I live *is* strangely similar to the fictional Cicely, AK. First person I met here was named Joel…

      btw- Too bad they could not get it together for the 2018 reboot.

        • Whittier? Girdwood? Chicken? Homer? Plenty of places.

          When Rob Morrow left the show and had the couple replace him… this would have been a great opportunity to pull a “Dallas” Maurice wakes up from a deep sleep… still in his lounge chair… on his lap is a list of possible docs to come to Cicely. At the top of the list is Joel Fleischman… Maurice pauses for a second…. then says “that would have been something.. but Cicely would never be the same…”

          As for Dallas…. an spisode where J.R. flies up to wheel and deal against the oil controlling family in Alaska… and only gets out of Alaska by the skin of his teeth.

  9. Also, on a more minor note…I think many viewers are tired of these “Alaskan” movies/shows that aren’t even filmed in Alaska. Many of my outside family members look at that first on new Alaskan material and if turns out not to be even filmed here it’s a no starter for them. People from the outside want to see Alaska…not Canada!

  10. The biggest laugh is that is was filmed in BC. A series about Anchorage, but they couldn’t make it all the way up the west coast TO Anchorage.

  11. Duh! No surprise there. Watched a few episodes and decided it was a waste of time. Essentially it depicted the lower 48 elitists idea of what they think Alaskans are like. If I were any ADN reporter I would be embarrassed to have that show even remotely associated with the paper. The whole story focused on the New York reject, showing the inept Alaskan reporters how it’s done. It is just sad that the very real topic of assault on native women in villages was just a side show to allow them to jump from one stereo type to the next.

  12. The first episode showed a lot of footage actually filmed in Anchorage. The rest mainly showed Canada. Hillary Swank was lifeless — highs and lows all dulled by antidepressants, perhaps? The pilot episode had a one night stand culminating at a home on the Turnagain Arm, that was probably in Canada instead. The globalists who own the media have used sex to subvert society since the ’60s.

    The LGBTQ and feminism themes, and how white people are so bad ran throughout the show.

    Some episodes were stupid, like the woman who burned down her restaurant in Anchorage.

    Violence, rape, etc. in native communities is blamed on inept white law enforcement, which perhaps could be better, but the main problem that’s completely ignored is Shamanic native culture in which incest, suicide, rape, etc. is accepted because of the demonic nature of their religion, a type of witchcraft, which can often be felt when drumming their native dances.

    I tried to watch the entire series, recording most of it, but only made it through about five episodes. If they had filmed it mostly in Alaska, I would have watched it regardless of the heavy, put-down-white-Alaskans propaganda.

    The main problem is what they don’t tell, and how they continually demonize white Alaskans as the problem, when Shamanic Native culture is the main problem.

    It’s all about the ADN virtue signaling how virtuous they are while they destroy Alaska by what they say, and especially what they never report on.

    The ADN is an evil, destructive force in Alaska. Having their own TV series doesn’t change that fact.

    Having said the above, the main problem in Alaska is the lack of real Christianity. Few Christians and even pastors actually abide in Christ, which makes Christianity an easy target.

    The solution is real Christianity, you all.

    Lets be free together, instead of bound by demons in our lives too.

    The only way to overcome the demonic empowered left is to be empowered by Christ — being on the bright side. Otherwise ‘woke’ will continue to destroy our beloved state.

    • A big no thank you to your Christianity solution. One can be against the woke mob without the need to align with one of the most destructive and divisive forces in the history of mankind.

      • Care to comment on Islam also? Shinto Japan in the 30′ and 40’s. As noted… atheistic communism? May want to calibrate those numbers?

        • They are all vile and destructive, but Christians tend to do it under an veil shrouded in hypocrisy. Elder abuse, child abuse, murder and pillaging; the most powerful and worshipped, are frequently the most deviant and abusive.

          No organization in the history of humanity has been more deceptive, restrictive, abusive, fraudulent and hypocritical than Christianity. The worst deeds done in the history of humanity have been performed by Christians. Deem an entire race of humans as less than human and torture and murder them? Christians did that.

          Trust your children to be cared for and kept safe by a responsible adult to only have them assaulted, abused and traumatized in an ultimate betrayal of trust and innocence? Christians did that.

          Sell fraudulent holy water or prey upon seniors with terminal illness by selling them miracles, fleecing them of their money and remaining time on earth? Christians did that.

          No calibration needed, Christianity was the original woke mind virus dating back 2000 years.

          Maybe that offers a little perspective to why so many people snicker and wonder how such smart people on a day to day basis, can be such sheep and turn their rational minds irrational so easily.

  13. What in Hades happened to the Binkley Family or have they been full tilt leftist and I never realized?

  14. The show should have been labeled as Fiction, and joined the ADN in the library under the Fiction section where it belongs.

    Fiction is usually defined as the product of imagination that an author carries in his mind

    . While on the other hand, nonfiction is the process of writing informative content that is based on some facts

  15. Go woke….

    It was a horrible show full of lame plotlines, sloppy writing, lazy acting, stupid subplots, and pathetic cheap shots. Hmm. Maybe this does sound a bit like Anchorage after all.

    The studio executives will blame the unwashed viewing public for turning off their propaganda. I’ll bet you they still get their full quota of social credits for the equity, diversity, and inclusivity of their stars, staff, storylines, scenery, and dialogue.

  16. The greatest thing about “Must Read Alaska” is the comment section full of so many great minds and ideas. So many whine about big government, leftist boogeymen and atheists. Take a look in the mirror. Do you guys understand what “freedom” means? What about “privacy”? Where in the Bible does Jesus tell his Christian followers to judge and condemn? Freedom means that someone can do, be or feel however they went as long as they are not harming anyone, whether someone else likes it our not. As the Montana state legislature recently showed, privacy is the right of a woman to have SOLE autonomy over her body, not big government telling her what to do based on what way the Supreme Court leans. I hear more hatred and judgement spewed from those that say they follow the teachings of the Bible. Look in the mirror. Handle your own business. Be a better you if you can. You are not patriots. You are not better than those you condemn. You are human. One over 8 trillion that have walked the earth. We are not special. We are all part of the problem. “Man up” and do something real. Or don’t! At least that way I still have ignorant comment drivel for entertainment.

    • Looks like Downing got under the skin of someone who works for the ADN. Is that you, David Hulen?

    • ‘We are all part of the problem.” Wait, aren’t we just another animal on the planet? Why aren’t human primates considered part of nature? Are mountain gorillas part of the problem? “We are not special” yet some think we can “save the planet”. Do those people just want dominion over their fellow species? Do those that say they follow the teachings of Darwin actually believe in survival of the fittest? Isn’t survival of the fittest the ultimate freedom for any species? In nature don’t the fittest have the best ability to deceive?

    • Some are being refined. “He remembers we are dust”. Some are becoming gold dust. If it is not for you that is your choice. The smelting rejects the slag. It goes somewhere else. It’s like that. A bit of endurance is required.

    • “Freedom means that someone can do, be or feel however they went as long as they are not harming anyone”
      Frankly asking as a former fetus, what about my life and freedom? Shouldn’t I take it personally if you get to decide whether to dispose of me before I even get a taste of the freedom you so value??? Abortion Mr. Boogeyman is the convenient solution to avoid the consequences of your actions, suffered by the one without power or a choice!

  17. I watched all of the episodes, hoping they might get some real Alaska issues as well as not branding the unnamed governor refereed to in the series as uncaring and distant. Alaska has a unique brand of friends and neighbors’ politics that could have held a lot of interest. If the series would have explored the different cultures and not concentrated on angry whites it might have been something Alaskans might have understood. And of course it should have been filmed in the Great Land. So many things could have been done, but weren’t. As others have said in the comments section, the lower 48 does not understand nor apparently cares to understand or appreciate a very special place on earth.

  18. Binkley and Hopkins would do better with an Alaskan version of The Kardashians. Now that would be worth a look! Or a Jerry Springer Alaskan series at least.

    • Scott Kendall as the new Jerry Springer in Alaska.
      Now that would be a hoot!
      ?
      He should do it. He knows how to get everyone fighting and dividing. He’d need some big body guards, though. He’s a little pudgy guy, who looks kinda weak.

  19. I was stunned when they announced the show. Even more stunned when friends at the office watched and glowingly talked about it at the office. I stopped getting the ADN when then Editor-in-Chief Howard Weaver published his “How to blow up the pipeline” terrorist manual on the front page. The entire front page. In 30 years, I have never interacted with the ADN where they got the facts–or the story–right.

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