Alaska Gold

Katherine Fanning's Anchorage Daily News has a circulation of 15,500, a staff of 20 (including the receptionist) and an editor-publisher who, until her husband died in 1971 and left her in command, could have rated herself as little more than a cub reporter. The morning daily does not have its own presses, rarely runs more than 20 pages an issue and has long been overshadowed by its afternoon competitor, the Times (circ. 45,000). Yet last week Fanning's tiny paper edged out some of the nation's leading dailies to win journalism's most esteemed award, the Pulitzer gold medal for public service.

The Daily News won its medal for a 15-part expose of the rise to wealth and power of Alaska Teamsters Union Local 959. In 18 years, the paper discovered, the local grew from an undistinguished 1,500-member unit to an aggressive organization some 23,000 strong, with tentacles reaching into every aspect of Alaska's economy. Rewarded for their solidarity with high wages and a blizzard of benefits, Local 959's members include workers on the Alaska pipeline, policemen, hospital employees, bakers, stevedores, lab technicians and clerical workers--or one out of every ten working Alaskans.

Fanning and Executive Editor Stan Abbott launched the series when they began to suspect that the chief local beneficiary of the pipeline boom was the Teamsters. Three newsmen--Howard Weaver, Bob Porterfield and Jim Babb --were assigned full time, leaving only five reporters to cover the rest of the news. In the next three months, the trio accumulated files on 600 individuals and 250 union-related corporations.

The reporters did not find evidence of widespread corruption, nor did their series lead to indictments or inspire government investigations. "But we uncovered a dark and murky area," says Fanning. "There is an aura of brute strength in the Teamster leaders that tends to inspire fear. By making the borders of Teamster power more visible, we made it easier to contain."

The Pulitzer gold medal is something of a personal vindication for Fanning, who has constantly advocated investigative reporting by her staff. The daughter of a Joliet, 111., banker, she came to Alaska with her three children in 1965 after divorcing Marshall Field IV, owner of the Chicago Daily News and Sun-Times. In 1966 she married Lawrence Fanning, a Field editor, but instead of settling in Chicago they stayed in Anchorage and bought the Daily News for $450,000. Under Kay Fanning's guidance, the paper has been fighting to reverse a long circulation slide and last year signed a money-saving joint printing, advertising and circulation agreement with the Times.

Unchanged, however, is the paper's willingness to assume unpopular editorial positions; it champions gun control (anathema in Alaska) and stricter environmental protection laws. The Daily News generally supports Democrats and endorsed George McGovern for President in 1972. But Fanning does not let the paper's politics get in the way of its Pulitzer-caliber journalism: her reporters presently are investigating fund-raising practices by state Democrats.

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