Rashah McChesney, owner of the Chilkat Valley News in Haines, Alaska, discusses the challenges and rewards of running a small-town newspaper in the digital age. She also talks about her work with the Alaska News Coalition, a nonprofit that aims to support independent local news organizations across the state.
Chilkat Valley News owner Rashah McChesney works from her office on Main Street in Haines on Jan. 23, 2025. McChesney also recently co-founded the Alaska News Coalition, a nonprofit that aims to boost local journalism in Alaska .
The next morning, McChesney’s deadline day, her malamute Klondike strutted around her office while she talked shop with a local reporter. The reporter asked how McChesney planned to describe the incident. McChesney made the move even as news organizations across Alaska and the U.S. increasingly struggle to stay afloat amid soaring costs, declining readership and the explosive rise of social media.by Pew Research Center. And of those who do get their news from daily newspapers, the vast majority access the content online.by Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.
All of this might make McChesney, a 41-year-old millennial, seem like a bit of an anomaly. But she says she decided to go all-in on local news in Alaska for a simple reason. McChesney said it’s been exciting to work alongside publishers of other Alaskan papers, including the Wrangell Sentinel and the Ketchikan Daily News, to reduce the likelihood that any more communities will lose their newspapers.That work is made even more interesting by the place where it happens. Haines is known for being politically divided and highly engaged. McChesney thinks that can make reporting challenging. But she also thinks it’s indicative of something bigger.
Journalism LOCAL NEWS JOURNALISM ALASKA NONPROFIT DIGITALIZATION
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