Summertime Politics

As summertime moves along, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay inside and work, like updating this blog, when there’s so much fun to fit in before the snow flies.  Fishing, hiking, camping, road trips…they all take priority with the days getting shorter and shorter.  I was thinking about this and I wonder how big the corruption scandal looming over Alaska would be if these investigations would have started in December.  It’s kind of topsy turvy that most dirt in Alaska is exposed in the long, light days of summer when most people have no time to keep up with the whole story and the long, dark days of winter is when we all have little better to do than pay attention and ask questions.  Summer is about play in Alaska, we don’t want to work or pay attention to anyone else’s job either.

Last night on KTUU Jason Moore had a story on the relation of Mayor Begich to a land deal that involved re-zoning, monetary gains, and the kiss of death these days - Ted Stevens.  “Facts” from the story came from Ray Metcalf, a long time dirt digger with a great track record. I listen to Ray when he talks because if he says there’s dirt somewhere, most times he’s right. So when I heard that he was accusing Mayor Begich of being tied to Stevens in a dirty deal I was shocked. I’m a long time supporter of Mayor Begich and firmly believe him to be one of the “good guys”.  He can be whiney and his ambitions for the city are a little too expensive for our pocket books at the moment but I don’t believe him to be unethical or disingenuous in any way.

Fortunately, the Bob & Mark Morning Show found big issue with this as well and contacted both parties for a face to face conversation.  I have that conversation available for download so you can listen for yourself. But I guess what my point is that KTUU, the leading news source in the state opened the evening news with a very long story strongly slanting a negative shadow on Mayor Begich with complete inaccuracies and more or less tying him to the Stevens debacle.  And these weren’t ‘my word against yours’ type of mistakes. These were ‘facts’ that are public record and easily researched.  An irony here is that KTUU’s current promotion spots highlight that “It takes time to get the whole story”. Yes, it certainly does, even in the summer when you would rather be fishing. And I hope they take as much time correcting their errors on tonight’s broadcast. As popular as Bob & Mark might be, I have no doubt that the KTUU News Hour has a much broader audience and they owe them The Whole Story.

Mayor Mark Begich calls the Bob & Mark Morning Show

Mayor Begich talks with Ray Metcalf

And on that note, I have been out of town fishing and only came back in for supplies. I will be leaving again tonight and I’ll be back Sunday to catch up on all the Sarah news.