Oscar winner Tom McCarthy created “Alaska Daily” to shine a light on journalists and the work they do.
Viewers, he says, “need to understand not only the work journalists do but who they are and what drives them. We’ve seen recurring violence against reporters that’s come after years and years of targeted and systemic demonization and dehumanization of these people in an attempt for a power grab.”
His film, “Spotlight,” showed how much work it takes to ferret out a story. But “Alaska Daily” goes deeper. “I thought, ‘Let’s try to open this up and really understand these people…and how they see everything in their lives through the lens of their craft and their passion.’”
His tour guide into the world is Eileen Fitzgerald, an investigative journalist who leaves her New York life behind and joins the staff of the Daily Alaskan in Anchorage. There, she gets immersed in a story about missing and murdered Indigenous women and shows how one source leads to another and, ultimately, a story.
Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank plays Fitzgerald. “”She’s a truth seeker,” Swank says. “She wants to make sure that justice is done and that people see the truth in situations and people who are corrupt. People don’t want to be lied to anymore.
“When I learned about the missing Indigenous women about six months before I spoke to (McCarthy), I was so angry and so horrified. We had a day player last week who said, ‘My mom went missing.’ It’s not just something that we’re telling.”
“Alaska Daily,” she adds, should be able to inform as well as entertain. “When you learn something while you watch, that’s the best of all worlds.”
McCarthy says he was inspired by a series of stories written by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica that took a hard look at the missing and murdered crisis.
“To set a journalism show in Alaska and not take some time to examine that would almost be negligent,” he says. “It was a terrific opportunity to put such an important topic onto mainstream TV and maybe start a conversation with the ‘lower 48,’ as Alaskans like to refer to us. Maybe with this show we could make some that was not only compelling but could raise some interesting questions.”
To help her find a connection with Alaskans, Swank’s character is paired with a native reporter. Their approaches are different, but “their strengths complement one another,” Swank says. “In the beginning, they definitely butt heads. It takes both of their strengths to get the job done.”
Grace Dove, who plays the Alaska native, says it’s not uncommon to see reporters come to the state and do stories like this “for the wrong reasons. “They bring up these stories for the attention. They don’t put in the work that it’s going to take to support Indigenous peoples. To see this go on to network television, it’s incredible.”
McCarthy says the heart of “Alaska Daily” is local reporting. “That’s something I wanted to drill down on and why it’s important, why it matters.”
“News deserts,” he says, pop up because there are no local journalists or newspapers in small towns that can identify the personalities of their community. “We’re losing the ability to have these conversations locally. That’s something I really wanted to focus on.”
“Alaska Daily” airs on ABC.
