Curious ‘Blue Alaskan’ Reveal Raises More Questions than it Answers

Usually it takes someone years to make the leap from journalism to public relations. Matthew Beck made the transition in about 12 hours.

Until two days ago known only as the anonymous “Blue Alaskan,” Beck revealed his name at the end of a discussion about journalism and blogging during the “Hello Alaska” podcast hosted by cartoonist/political activist Pat Race and political journalist Matt Buxton. The announcement was teased for days by Race on social media, where the left-wing blogger’s true identity has been the subject of speculation, conspiracies, conjecture and even a poorly devised bounty attempt.

That Beck was an unknown commodity rather than some insider politico was mildly interesting, and the admission laudable for the fact that Beck appeared to be owning his work for the first time and opening himself up personally to the same inspection and accountability his rival journalists and those they scrutinize must face.

But far more interesting was what wasn’t revealed about Beck and his true motives after Beck was announced as the new spokesperson for the Alaska Democratic Party. The announement came less than a half-day after the podcast was released, despite Race saying it was taped in late March. On Twitter, Race admitted he and Buxton had “embargoed” the announcement of Beck’s new job, but didn’t specify exactly when he and his co-host learned Beck was going to work for the Alaska Democrats. However, in its press release, the party did note that Beck had “already been onboarded” as of Wednesday — implying he’d been hired before the podcast aired.

All of this isn’t a particular issue for Race, the Alaska Democrats or even Beck, all of whom freely admit they’re working to get Democrats elected. But it’s not a great look for Buxton, who is one of Alaska’s best reporters and generally adheres to best ethical practices. In this case, it appears he was (either wittingly or otherwise) sitting on legitimate news that wouldn’t otherwise be subject to an “embargo” scenario. In newsrooms, embargoes are often used when an organization has information it wants to release publicly at a particular time, and news organizations jointly agree to respect that deadline and not publish anything until then. That definition doesn’t seem to fit when it comes to revealing Beck’s appointment as the new Dems’ spokesman, which is a legitimate news item and wasn’t released widely to other media. That means the podcasters weren’t acting in any journalistic capacity at all by protecting Beck’s upcoming job, but in the service of Beck and the party.

Twitter personality and Juneau Board of Education member Will Muldoon was one of the first people to point out the problem with the timing of the two events.

“So the big reveal was a soft opening to a partisan comms job announcement?” Muldoon asked on Twitter.

Muldoon went on to point out that the podcast and Beck seemed to be engaging in the same kind of partisan pseudo-journalism that’s become the brand of right-wing outlets like Must Read Alaska and its publisher, Suzanne Downing.

“Isn’t this just a reverse Downing with more steps?” wrote Muldoon, who isn’t known as a punch-puller. “Well done lads, pure class all around.”

Race pushed back at Muldoon’s criticisms, but eventually admitted he and Buxton knew about Beck’s upcoming job but were “asked not to say anything about it before an official announcement.”

Buxton seemed to admit the error of his ways.

“Lessons learned,” he wrote.

However, he also went on to brush off any criticism as some kind of attack on his “hobby podcast.”

“When do we get to clown on y’alls hobbies?” he asked.

For an extremely smart guy that’s an appallingly vapid and reactionary take. It was probably written quickly and with a fair amount of emotion and should be taken with that in mind, but it’s still worth discussing because it’s a profoundly unfair attack on someone offering valid criticism. Simply calling something a hobby doesn’t absolve you from crititique, and this holds particularly when said “hobby” overlaps almost completely with the professed hobbyist’s day job. In this case, Buxton is trying to argue he can be a journalist 99% of the time, but when he’s breaking news on his podcast nobody can criticize him because that would be akin to dissing his model train layout. Matt Buxton is a hell of a lot smarter guy than I am, and even I can see that doesn’t wash.

(It’s worth noting that we still don’t know much about Beck besides his name. Race and Buxton waited until the end of their podcast to reveal his identity, and didn’t really follow up with any questions about his background. Similarly, the AK Dems’ press release mainly focused on outgoing comms director Jeanne Devon and included zero biographical information about Beck.)

As of today, the only media outlet to cover this story has been Downing’s Must Read Alaska, which in typical fashion used coded language by headlining the story “Matthew Beck, the Blue Alaskan author, comes out of closet and is new comms director for Alaska Democrats.” That’s pretty obviously a homophobic dog whistle — one immediately picked up on by one of the legions of anti-synapse luddites wallowing in her comment section, who predictably responded to Downing’s article by speculating Beck might be gay.

That kind of shit is par for the course for Downing, a world-class cynic who makes her living tricking Alaska’s dimmest mouth-breathers into believing she’s one of them. In reality she’s a cunning cynic and schyster who pretends to align herself with the MAGA wing of the Alaska Republican Party because it means connections, clicks and countless contributions to her growing media empire. What she does isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda, and at this point even she doesn’t really deny that fact by hosting political fundraisers and donating to political campaigns.

Equating Downing’s drivel with the bumbled mishandling of the Blue Alaskan reveal would be unfair to Buxton, whose career has been marked by steadfast dedication to covering some of the wonkiest and hardest-to-decipher legislation coming out of Juneau. Although it’s defensible to say his political opinions lean left, he’s never been a partisan water-carrier and this podcast episode is a clear departure from his usual work. I suspect he was a bit blindsided by the whole thing and probably would have done things differently if he had the chance.

But the episode illustrates why the thing we need most right now in Alaska are objective, nonpartisan voices who can be trusted to reveal news and break stories regardless of their political ramifications. The Blue Alaskan would have us believe the only counter to people like Downing (and the even farther right Alaska Watchman) is to create media spaces that are equally biased — only in the other direction.

As the Blue Alaskan showed, there is certainly room for partisan operatives within the media sphere. Writing anonymously, Beck drew awareness to the operations of organized right-wing groups such as “Save Anchorage” and highlighted those groups’ objectives. That kind of watchdogging is vital to our democracy, and it’s work that can be done by partisans and nonpartisans alike.

But the fact he jumped immeditately into political work gives us great insight into his true motivation, which is heavily biased toward not simply illuminating the truth, but actively working to advance certain political causes and politicians. Sorry, but nobody like that can ever be fully trusted no matter how many news stories they break.

There must always be writers who reject the argument that suggests journalists must wear their political stripes on their sleeves and that objectivity is used by legacy media as a smokescreen or cop-out. It’s not. Now more than ever we need journalists who are skeptical of the powerful and who challenge the carefully sculpted narratives of the political class. Obviously we all have our own personal belief systems and values; none of us can truly be unbiased in anything we do. But we need strong independent voices rather than what we seem to be getting: ever-escalating armies of right- and left-wing keyboard warriors battling to out-blog each other. That’s not exciting or valuable journalism, it’s just politics as usual.

There’s been plenty of discussion in recent years over the “true” definition of journalism, and just who gets to decide what qualifies as journalism and what doesn’t. The truth is there’s no real definition, and anyone who would even try surely doesn’t have the authority to do that level of gate-keeping. But what is abundantly clear is we need more people in journalism who don’t give a shit about placating political parties or preserving relationships with politicians and instead only want to serve the public.

It’s a shitty job, but we need someone to do it.

This column is the opinion of Matt Tunseth, an Alaska freelance writer who has previously worked as editor of the Anchorage Press, Chugiak-Eagle River Star and Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspapers and as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and (Kenai) Peninsula Clarion newspapers.