While catching up on some projects over the phone with Diane Benson yesterday, she observed to me how strange it is that young Levi Johnston has been able to get an apprenticeship through the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, on the North Slope of Alaska. According to Benson, the program has a long waiting list. She questioned how Johnston might have gotten to the top and into an "open" slot so fast.Was it "white kid welfare," as she and others have characterized similar occurrences, or was it a special favor to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose daughter, Bristol, Levi is alleged to have fathered a child with.
Yesterday, the Alaska Standard carried an article by Dan Fagan on this. Fagan did what reporters at the Anchorage Daily News or KTUU-TV should have done immediately after first references to Johnston's participation in such a program surfaced. As I put it, last week, Pat Dougherty is too busy sending reporters to observe smashed up tiny Snowzillas outside of City Hall, and chasing after me to come up with real stories, especially if the truth might diminish the ADN's tabloid myth of Sarah Palin.
This morning's Anchorage Daily News carried Fagan's article as an op-ed. Seeing as the Alaska Dispatch, the Alaska Standard and Alaska Report are rapidly outdoing the ADN in breaking coverage, let alone dollar for dollar news coverage, there is a lot of irony in this.
Good job, Dan.
Update - Saturday 9:35 a.m: Here it is January 3rd, 2009, and the ADN political blog hasn't made an entry since last year, and their so-called newsreader hasn't made an entry since the second day of winter....
