The Newsweek article on Wasilla

Newsweek recently ran an article on Wasilla to get the rest of us up to speed. Just in case, well, you didn't know what a hick town it was:

You certainly can have a great time swigging beer in two bars that are allowed to stay open until 5 a.m. It was Mayor Palin who rejected attempts to make them close earlier. (If Palin had completely had her way, in fact, you could have sidled up to the bar with a gun.) At the Mug-Shot Saloon, you can memorize the expletives on the collection of bumper stickers next to the well of bottles. But once you leave, you might want to watch your back: in a state that is consistently in the top 10 of the nation's most violent per capita, Wasilla has among the highest per capita violent- and property-crime rates in Alaska.

The crime rate in Wasilla is pretty high. How high is it? Why, it's very similar to the city that Senator Obama comes from (and represents)... Chicago!

Here is the crime rate for Wasilla, and here is the crime rate for Chicago.

• 2005 rate of violent crime in Wasilla (extrapolated, of course) 1,199.7
• 2005 rate of violent crime in Chicago 1,195.7

Those numbers are, statistically speaking, the same.

Anyway, back to the article:

In 1999, when Wal-Mart was the place to shop in Wasilla, a couple who worked there decided to get married in the aisles of the store. Shoppers convened, and tour-bus passengers stopped and gawked. Palin, who was then mayor of the 5,000 or so residents of the town, officiated. Later, she told a reporter that she had to hold back tears. "It was so sweet," she said. "It was so Wasilla."

So I read stuff like that, and I conclude that the author
1) Doesn't like Palin
and
2) Really looks down on the residents of Wasilla

I got curious. As someone with a background in journalism, I smelled a whiff of bias. But I am a journalist, and I wasn't going to accuse Amanda Coyne of bias without reason.
At the end of the article, Newsweek tells us who Amanda is:

Coyne is a freelance journalist based in Anchorage. She’s the cofounder of alaskadispatch.com, an online magazine where commentators have been both supportive and critical of Palin.

Naturally, that made me even more curious. So I dropped by Alaskadispatch.com, where you can find the following headline:

"What Palin sees in Wasilla "

Over a photo of a 'gun loan' store.

Go to Alaska Dispatch and read the headlines yourself.
Of course, that just made me even more curious as to who Coyne is. I clicked on the "About" section of the website, and found this:

Amanda Coyne teaches writing at Alaska Pacific University, free-lances for magazines, and blogs for HuffingtonPost.com. She was a writer and editor at the Anchorage Press from 2001 to 2005. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, Bust, Alaska Magazine and other publications.

Huh. That's kind of curious.
She blogs for Huffington Post (not exactly a centrist pub) the Guardian (who opening loves Obama) the New York Times (who has already elected Obama president) and Bust. How'd she end up working for Newsweek?

Below that, came the answer that I was looking for.

Tony Hopfinger is a free-lance writer and correspondent for Bloomberg News and Newsweek. Between 1996 and 2005, he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Idaho, California and Alaska, including the Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Press. His work has appeared in Walrus Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Magazine, The Seattle Times and other publications

So Tony, her compatriot, is also a free lancer for Newsweek.

With that in mind, I wondered what Amanda normally writes about. Here are some of her articles from the Huffington Post:

• Alaska Chants for Oh, Oh, Oh, Obama,
• Life Is A Picnic For Democrats In Alaska,
• Another Alaska Republican Covered In Scandal

Starting to get a general picture of who wrote the article on Wasilla for Newsweek?
Here are some of the articles she wrote for the Alaska Dispatch:

• Sex allegations against Allen may come up in Stevens's trial (written with Tony)
• Alaska's Growing Pains (an article written for the Guardian)
• Taking the perp walk at Anchorage Baptist Temple (I can't describe this article. You have to read it yourself.)

To Amanda's credit, she did write this profile of Palin in 2006. She reprinted it on her website in August of 2008. What did she think of Palin at the time?

Palin has so far prevailed against all odds, and against her own party's mainstream, which not only is against her but at times lately has seemed to be trying to dismantle her campaign. Alaska's Republican Party has had its share of meltdowns, but no politician has stepped from its ashes like Palin, a small-town, angel-faced mother of four, an avid hunter and a fisher with a killer smile who wears designer glasses and heels, and hair like modern sculpture, who's taking it to the boys ever so softly. Whatever happens on Tuesday, her popularity has shown that good-old-boy politics, even in Alaska , in the GOP, may be yesterday's news.

Note the tone of Amanda's coverage on Sarah's "killer smile", heels, and hair.
(There are a lot of things that journalists don't like about Sarah. But part of it, for some reason, is the fact that she's stylish and pretty. I don't get that.)

Anyway, it answered my question of how Newsweek suddenly decided to do a story on Wasilla using a journalist from outside of their realm. They ended up using a writer who honestly doesn't seem to like Wasilla, nor Palin.
Go figure.