The newsroom of the Alaska Daily in “Alaska Daily” (Thursdays, ABC) includes a screen showing the website’s current traffic and top stories. Although we do see an old-school print edition at one point, this new series from “Spotlight’s” Tom McCarthy is firmly set in modern times.
It’s not the first screen story to accurately portray modern journalism, but it’s still in the minority. You’re more likely to see a Pollyanna portrayal of a young fashion magazine copy editor living in a cushy apartment in the big city.
Last frontier of probing journalism
“Spotlight” (2015) is set at the turn of the century at a large paper, so it plays like a thank-you letter to a dying breed of investigative journalism. “Alaska Daily” — likewise based on a true story — starts by showing us how the government can take advantage of smaller newsrooms (and therefore the citizenry).
“Alaska Daily” (2022)
Thursdays, ABC
Creator: Tom McCarthy
Stars: Hilary Swank, Jeff Perry, Grace Dove
But it convincingly suggests that Hilary Swank’s Eileen Fitzgerald, a nationally known reporter formerly based in NYC, has enough guile to change things in Anchorage. (The show is filmed in Vancouver, natch.) Perhaps it’s the last frontier of investigative reporting.
Editor-in-chief Stanley Cornick (Jeff Perry, who speaks deliberately like Sam Waterston and reminds me of one of my former editors) once oversaw a newsroom of 100; now it’s down to 25. I’ve worked in such small newsrooms that 25 sounds good to me. With all-purpose helper Gabriel (Pablo Castelblanco) assigned to drive Eileen around before she gets a car and a place to live, we get echoes of the old days when skilled reporters were valued.
For starters, though, we see the industry’s struggles and flaws. Bob Young (Matt Malloy) is more concerned with maintaining a positive relationship with the Anchorage Police Department than digging into it. But the APD brutally takes advantage of him: The paper can’t even get basic police reports!
Downsized but not out
Young, both the senior reporter and acting news editor (someone else is on maternity leave), isn’t portrayed as completely incompetent. Rather, we understand how this situation could arise.
The Alaska Daily, in a big windowed building when newspapers were king, now rents space in a strip mall a half-notch above Saul Goodman’s. The newsroom looks how a modern newsroom looks, with desks spaced around a big area (hinting that it formerly held more desks), and various defunct equipment stashed about. It’s quiet, because there aren’t enough employees for it to be noisy.
To the surprise of reporter Roz (Grace Dove), with whom Eileen is collaborating on the probing of a spate of missing/murdered Indigenous women, Eileen turns an unused office into a war room for this one story.
The greenness of some of the staff at this capital city paper reflects modern times, when many veterans have left the field – willingly or otherwise. Cub reporter Yuna Park (Ami Park) gets her first taste of having to report facts that will ruin someone’s life.
In a nice little scene, Eileen explains to Yuna that it’s up to the people to decide how to treat the corrupt state officeholder, not her. Yes, people might shoot the messenger, but it’s still Yuna’s job to be the messenger.
The bigger mystery
Adding melodrama, Eileen is herself in danger of attack, as she gets threatening phone calls. It’s perhaps related to her last story at NYC’s Vanguard, which exposed a gunrunning federal official. She leaves when her uber-cautious editor pulls back the story for “re-reporting.”
McCarthy — who writes and directs the first episode — shapes “Alaska Daily” like a serialized mystery, but he keeps his spotlight on the reporters. We see the thoughtful deliberation of experienced newspeople.
But he makes room for idiosyncrasies, with Eileen leading the way as a classic bulldog reporter who nonetheless understands modern journalistic concerns (even if she doesn’t like them). Indeed, her force-out at Vanguard comes partly from the publication’s concern about the public image of Eileen herself. She’s essentially “canceled.”
McCarthy knows how reporting is done, the spaces the job is done in, and why the job is important. Reporters will appreciate the honest and respectful portrayal.
Those less interested in snapshots of reality and more in plain ole entertainment will note that the missing-women plot is barely rolling through episode one. But “Spotlight” serves both masters; it’s remarkably tense, personal and epic for a procedural. Viewers can trust that “Alaska Daily” will eventually spin a yarn worthy of page one.