KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
It looks like there was enough public outcry in Kodiak that the Anchorage Daily News has reversed its decision to stop shipping its paper here on a daily basis. But keeping the service will come at a small cost.
In early December, Roger Weinfurter, the circulation director for the Daily News, announced that Alaska’s largest paper would suspend shipment to rural Alaska after December 28th because of increasing costs. He said it costs $25,000 a month to air freight the paper every day.
The only other option would have been to subscribe by mail, which would cost between $500 for fourth-class mail and $2,000 for first class mail. Delivery times would be between one day and two weeks after publication.
But December 28th came and went, and the Daily News was still available at grocery stores and coin-operated boxes in Kodiak, one of the larger communities that was slated to lose service.
A note from the Daily News taped to the news stand in the Safeway Liquor Store downtown thanked the people of Kodiak for contacting the paper and telling them how important the paper was to them.
The cost for the paper is going up, though. The Monday-through-Saturday edition increase by a quarter, to a $1.25, while the Sunday paper will be priced at $3.
There is no word on if other rural communities in Alaska will get such a reprieve. The Daily News planned to suspend service to all locations served by air except for Fairbanks, Valdez and Juneau. Remote areas on the mainland road system, such as Homer, would still receive the paper because of lower trucking prices.
