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Introducing News Mat-Su
November 28, 2013
(l-r) Ra'Shell Frederickson, Bre'Ann Frederickson, Debra Weland, Mike Weland and Bradley Frederickson.
By Mike Weland
Publisher

It might seem odd that someone in the lower 48 is launching a site purporting to aspire to bringing back all the best qualities of small-town news reporting to a borough in Alaska over 2,300 miles away.

I pray you'll bear with me. It's my granddaughter's fault.

I have had a love of writing and journalism as long as I can remember, and a memory of the best parts of local journalism, when news of Aunt Jane and Al's 50th wedding anniversary made the front page and you could get to know a community and the people who comprised it by picking up the local paper.

I cite the paper, the very source of the word, "press," as it's the news media that gave me my start in journalism, first as a paperboy carrying them to each house on my route, later as an editorial assistant at a major northwest daily for seven years.

But I wanted to be a reporter.

I'm a high school graduate, Fletcher, Oklahoma, Class of 1976, I served honorably in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. But I never went to college, a major obstacle in today's world of journalism.

I started looking at small town weeklies as a way to perhaps get my foot in the door, and took a job as reporter at the Bonners Ferry Herald in North Idaho. It was less than a third the pay I'd been making, but I figured I'd gain experience, build a clip file and within a year or two go back to work at a daily, this time as a reporter.

At the Herald, I didn't have a copy editor, and before long I wasn't just writing stories on every topic imaginable, I was the layout editor as well.

Despite covering a small, rural county, I covered some big stories, won a few journalism awards and loved what I was doing. Too much, in fact. I loved small town reporting, and came to love this town and the people who comprise it. When I got a couple of offers to return to a daily, I chose to stay here.

Sadly, there's not much money in being a small town reporter. As in all media, expenses were rising, and the editorial budget was the first expense to be cut. News became more regional, emphasis turned toward looking at news with an eye toward calling it advertising. To publish the obit of a loved one, it came to where you had to pay a fee.

I stayed in town, but went from print to radio, and when I, the local DJ, was replaced by syndicated programming such as Rush Limbaugh, I was fortunate enough to be hired as county zoning administrator. Still, I kept my hand in the news biz, even started a new position in the county as public information officer.

I did a lot of local freelance, even helped launch an online news site with a friend, but the focus was regional. On March 1, 2011, I decided to launch my own website, www.newsbf.com, mostly as a hobby, to see if local news would still find an audience.

It did, especially when readers recognized I was giving news at the speed of radio as well as the depth of coverage available in print. I could warn of traffic accidents or hazards within moments, in time to allow plans to be changed. When I incorporated social media, any one with a cell phone could receive alerts, and they often provided me up-to-the-second news from the scene that I could publish in time to make a difference to others.

 On April 22, 2012, I had a stroke that put me in the hospital, robbed me of most of the use of my left side and left me unable to do my job with the county, forcing me to take medical retirement. At 53, I wasn't ready.

While in the hospital, I learned to type with one hand, and when I returned home three weeks later, the first thing I did was start updating newsbf, something I still do faithfully. Not only for the 18,000 times people from around the world visit on an average day, but because it's something I can do that people seem to benefit from and appreciate.

It gives me purpose, keeps me going.

Late last year, my wife, Debbie, and I got a shock. Our daughter, Ra'Shell, who moved to Talkeetna years ago with her family and had supposedly given us all two of our grandboys, was expecting again. Our granddaughter was born April 29, and several weeks later, Ra'Shell, our youngest grandson Bradley, a high school sophomore, and our first and only granddaughter, Bre'Ann, came to Bonners Ferry to visit.

When they left, Debbie was near distraught, facing an empty nest all over again. She didn't want to miss the years with Bre'Ann that we'd missed with her big brothers.

She wanted to move to Alaska. During our 30 plus years of marriage, Debbie followed me far and wide, wherever my work took me, and I realized that it's now my turn to follow her. Not that I'm averse; I lived there for a year in 1969 and spent a month training in Fairbanks in 1980. I loved Alaska, so much so it was the first place I put on my "dream sheet" when I enlisted. Uncle Sam thought better and sent me to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

I've always wanted to return, but the opportunity never arose, until now.

So next spring, probably in May sometime, we'll be pulling up stakes once again from the place we've known as home longer than any other, and moving to the Mat-Su.

By then, I hope a few people have discovered this website, that folks come to like it and share their news and stories with me, that when I get there I might still have something I can do that makes me want to get up of a morning, and that I can hit the ground running, so to speak, to provide my new neighbors an enjoyable, trusted and accurate source of local news and community pride.
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