The day this issue hits the streets marks the beginning of “J-Week” here in Anchorage, the Alaska Press Club’s annual conference that culminates in an awards banquet Saturday night. But even before it’s begun, a controversy has erupted within the ranks of Alaska’s press corps.

Two years ago the Press Club initiated a new honor, the First Amendment Award, renamed this year after two journalists who launched the Tundra Times in 1962, Howard Rock and Tom Snapp. Attorney John McKay, a First Amendment lawyer and counsel to many a journalist and newspaper, was the inaugural recipient; last year Anchorage Daily News editorial cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl received the award. This year Juneau-based husband/wife journalists Gregg and Judy Erickson are being honored with the award. But this year there’s also a runner-up, being presented with a “special recognition” award. The recipient is Anne Kilkenny, author of an email about Sarah Palin that went viral in the days after the announcement that John McCain had picked Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign. As a result, Kilkenny received a deluge of media attention.

“Anne Kilkenny may not think she was courageous, but she willingly shared information that helped Americans make one of our most important political decisions—election of our president and vice president—without fear of personal consequences to her or her family,” Press Club president John Creed wrote in an announcement. “That’s the First Amendment in action.”

A screen grab from the Alaska Press Club website

The award has sparked a debate amongst journalists in Alaska. Dan O’Neill, a former Fairbanks News-Miner columnist and nonfiction author, says, “Kilkenny’s commentary, like any good opinion piece, presents facts and a subjective review of those facts. It is not, somehow, a desecration of the canon when the writer of an opinion article expresses her bloody opinion! The most amazing thing about this dust-up is the apparent need to explain to practitioners the difference between opinion journalism and news reportage.”

But many in the profession disagree with the assertion that Kilkenny’s email in any way approximated journalism. “I can’t believe [the Press Club] had the bad sense to do this,” says Representative Mike Doogan (D-Anchorage), formerly a long-time columnist for the Anchorage Daily News. “I don’t believe that this—whether you agree with [Kilkenny’s email] or not—meets any standard of journalism that I’m familiar with. What the Press Club is doing giving an award to this person for this email is just mind-boggling. John McKay has been a lawyer who’s represented journalists and journals for most of his working life; he’s not a guy who wrote an email full of opinion that went viral, and if they’re not able to make that distinction, they should resign.”

Doogan points out that honoring Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident who’d been extraordinarily attentive to city government at the time Palin was mayor of the town, reinforces the assertion by conservatives that the media inherently has a liberal bias. “It is called the Alaska Press Club,” he says. “Howard Weaver [a former ADN editor] used to say, ‘if you mess with something you get some on you.’ Every journalist in the state’s gonna get some on them for this stunt.”

Flashlight contacted board members of the Press Club to ask about the controversy, and what the process was that earned Kilkenny the award. Bob Martinson, a freelance photographer and board member, said that he’d nominated Kilkenny for the First Amendment award. “I have been under the understanding that anyone who truthfully speaks out, with no fear of repercussions, about important subjects that can change the world, save a life, etc., should be applauded for it—journalist or not.”

Rhonda McBride, reporter for KTUU and a vice president of the Press Club, wrote an essay on the Alaska Dispatch news site (which also features Press Club president Creed’s defense of the decision) explaining her thoughts on the Kilkenny award. “Personally, I feel it takes away from the power of the [First Amendment] award to have ‘honorable mentions,” she wrote.

“I think it’s a bad idea for a journalism organization to give awards to community activists, because it could be perceived that we support the cause of the activists,” McBride continued. “The media has already been accused by the governor of having an agenda against her. This, on the surface, might seem to support this claim.”

Other journalists feel that if the goal was to recognize “citizen journalists” who’ve spoken out and broke new ground then perhaps it would have been better awarded to Andrew Halcro, the former legislator and current talk radio host who ran against Palin in the 2006 race for governor. Halcro broke the Troopergate story involving the dismissal of Walt Monegan as head of DPS and exposing the Palin families efforts to have the governor’s ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten, disciplined. (Disclosure: Flashlight suggested Halcro for this year’s First Amendment Award when asked, but never wrote a formal letter of nomination.)

“If you’re going to give this one person an award, you open up this Pandora’s box of who else this award could have been for, and obviously Andrew Halcro comes to mind,” says Tony Hopfinger, co-editor of AlaskaDispatch.com. “I’ve been telling people for months that in my mind he made journalism history in Alaska. When he did Troopergate, you have to remember the climate at the time he broke it: Palin was still very much supported by Alaskans, it was not fashionable to bash her. Even if he had his own beef with Palin, if you put that aside and look at the reporting, he got it done, was accurate, and it turned out to be true enough to spawn a legislative investigation.”

Hopfinger notes that when Kilkenny’s email began circulating, national reporters didn’t know anything about Palin and were still rushing to Alaska to report on her, so Kilkenny’s email filled an information vacuum. “This [Kilkenny award] can inflame tensions with the Palin administration because we don’t have solid ground in making this decision. I don’t think simply a chain letter qualifies. [Kilkenny] wasn’t in control of the vehicle of the information; Andrew Halcro had to make a choice.”

Since printing Press Club president John Creed’s statement defending the reasoning behind giving Kilkenny the award on Alaska Dispatch, Hopfinger says he’s “surprised by a couple board members and their reaction to being questioned about this, including a really harsh email I got from one member. This is our industry, we are all part of the Alaska press. People don’t know the difference between Alaska press and the Alaska Press Club; I’m not a member of the Alaska Press Club. If a controversial choice is made and I don’t agree with it, I should be able to voice that. I shouldn’t be called names for looking at it.”

Press Club president Creed took issue when Flashlight stated that Kilkenny was receiving the award for writing an email. “That’s a gross mischaracterization of what she accomplished, and I hope you will be fair and accurate on that account as well,” he wrote. “She also did dozens of interviews with national and international media. In other words, the national media were as interested in a Wasilla housewife for scoops as they were in the Alaska press, professionals who had covered Sarah Palin for years.”

Flashlight would like to point out to Creed that Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher’s story has close parallels to Kilkenny’s. They both expressed opinions at just the right time, and subsequently the media descended. Given Creed’s liberal leanings (an email he sent to Fairbanks News-Miner managing editor Rod Boyce expressed, “I hope Bill McAllister starts whining again about how unfair the press is because the Alaska Press Club gives awards to Sarah critics. Anything you can do to help that along would be greatly appreciated.”), the Joe the Plumber comparison is likely insulting to him, but Flashlight’s just sayin’.

Still, others disagree, to the point of criticizing fellow journos. “She is being recognized for fearlessly exercising her First Amendment right with a timely, valuable and influential commentary,” O’Neill wrote to Flashlight. “Frankly, I think some of the professional journalists could take a lesson from Anne Kilkenny in how to write a forthright, intelligent and well-argued commentary.”

bjk@anchoragepress.com