An alternative newspaper based in Anchorage is coming back from the dead.
The Anchorage Press's new owners announced in June that they were restarting the paper, after its previous owners, Wick Communications, ceased publication in 2022.
The new owners are Veri di Suvero and Nat Herz, two familiar faces in Alaska nonprofit leadership and journalism, respectively.
Seattle-based Noisy Creek, owner of alt-weeklies The Stranger and the Portland Mercury, rounds out that ownership group.
Di Suvero led the Alaska Public Interest Research group as its executive director from 2018 to 2025, during which the consumer-advocacy nonprofit achieved significant reforms to public policy, on things like predatory lending, access to Alaska Native languages and issues with the state's utilities.
Herz is a former reporter at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media, and he also owns and operates the Northern Journal.
As Herz told Alaska News Nightly host Casey Grove, the hope for the rebooted Anchorage Press is to get back to its alternative, mid-'90s roots.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Nat Herz: There's a really long history of really cool stuff that the Press used to do. We, as part of this acquisition, got the hard copy archive, and I was just going through. They've got amazing missed connections and personal ads. They've got a police blotter. They've got Susie Buchanan, who was a longtime staff member, dressing up as a member of the band Kiss and going to a Kiss concert. There's that whole fun, edgy, alt vibe.
But then there's also a tradition of journalism that went on in the Anchorage Press that I think we're also really hoping to carry on, investigative work, accountability and entrepreneurial reporting. And then I also think we really see the press, historically, and our vision for the future, is that it's a place to have writers articulate their own voice and identity in a way that maybe isn't as easy to do in sort of more mainstream media.
We're definitely not here to knock mainstream media. It's just different, right? And I think we want some new voices, some different voices, some different ways of people voicing their lives and realities and experiences.
CG: I have to admit, I did work there. I started there 20 years ago, straight out of college, my first professional job in journalism. So there's that disclaimer. But I did wonder, the news business can be rough, and obviously in our time in journalism newspapers have suffered greatly. Quite a few of them have gone under. So what makes this different now? I mean, when you see other newspapers folding, and you're starting up another one, how does that work?
NH: Yeah, this is an annoyingly good question. Yeah, why would anyone restart and invest money in a dead tree newspaper, which is what we're doing? We're going to be publishing in print once a month.
I'm not going to say we have a silver bullet and the panacea to all of the media business's problems, but I think we are bringing a new business model to this, which combines a sophisticated and savvy business partner based out of Seattle, a business called Noisy Creek that owns a number of other alt weeklies across the country. They've been really successful in tapping into a network of national philanthropies supporting their work.
We are also going to sell subscriptions and sell memberships. We want to potentially have other revenue sources through live events, digital ads, and then we're going to sell ads for our print paper. And I can't tell you that we know that this is going to work, but we what we do know is that this is similar to the way that Noisy Creek has run their other businesses, and that they are not losing money.
CG: How close are we to having a printed paper? And I say that as somebody who remembers going to cafes and even bars around Anchorage, and you would see people reading the actual printed Anchorage Press. When will we see that?
NH: Well, one of the really fun parts is we really see this as almost like a community trust, where we're rebuilding this institution with help and support from literally dozens (of people). We have more than 130 folks who have expressed interest in working with us or volunteering, and there are already folks who are like, "Yeah, we want to be the ones to drive the piles of newspapers around to places like Middleway Cafe." We just picked up a wire rack from Wild Man's in Cooper Landing.
And so I probably should not give you the exact target date that we are going to launch our print product, because I would hate to disappoint folks, but I think I can safely say 100% before the end of 2026, and I think as soon as September, you may see us hit newsstands.
