The Managing Editor of the Alaska Dispatch News says a Western Alaska Bureau should be up and running by the end of the month. The new bureau will be based in Bethel and will be staffed by veteran reporter Lisa Demer.
“Lisa’s been a reporter in Alaska for 20 years and has covered a lot of different topics. And the thing about Lisa, I’d say that whatever she’s covered politics, she covered social issues, extensively, she’s covered, you know, lots of different kind of stories. And she does it with accuracy, nuance, depth – she listens. She’s very enthusiastic about doing it,” said Hulen.
She worked for the Anchorage Daily News until the online news outlet, Alaska Dispatch, bought the paper from McClatchy Newspapers for 34-million dollars in April. The organizations combined and changed the name to, ‘Alaska Dispatch News’ in July. Hulen says basing a reporter in Bethel is part of an overall shift in strategy for the news organization.
“You know when the two staffs combined we essentially had double the number of reporters/photographers as either operation had on their own. And so we’re really able to cover things that we could not have done before, separately. And one of the things that we’re really committed to doing is just better and deeper statewide and rural coverage,” said Hulen.
The Alaska Dispatch News is considering setting up additional bureaus in remote Alaska, Hulen says. He could not confirm locations but discussed Barrow and Nome as potential locations for future bureaus.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
