About the award:

Recipients of the Alaska Press Club Public Service Award marshal resources above and beyond what is expected. The mere existence of a publication or a program is not sufficient grounds for nomination.

Anyone may nominate a journalist or newsroom for their service to the public. Individuals may nominate themselves or their newsrooms.

Deadline for nominations is March 6, 2026

Please email a letter, up to 250 words in length, explaining the purpose of the reporting and the result. Supporting materials may also be provided. The work described in nominations may have been entered in the Alaska Press Club Contest as well. Email nominations to alaskapressclubinfo@gmail.com.

There is no contest entry fee associated with this nomination process.

Past Award Winners:

2024: Lina Mariscal, publisher and editor of Sol De Medianoche, a Spanish-language newspaper that has been serving the Latino community in Anchorage for the last nine years. 

Lina, a grandmother who also runs a busy bakery, has built this newspaper through hard work, ingenuity and an unshakable commitment to her community, doing everything from writing, to distribution to selling advertising. She’s been taking journalism classes to sharpen her skills and last year received a $100,000 Press Forward grant to support her efforts to deepen the bench of bilingual journalists. 

We’d like, in particular, to recognize her leadership with the Tu Voz Importa (TVI) campaign. Developed as a small initiative to explain ranked choice voting, TVI evolved over into a platform focused on covering local politics for a Spanish-speaking audience. The project expanded into a series of articles, infographics, and social media posts in both English and Spanish that inform community members events such as the 2024 election and local municipal elections, increasing civic engagement and participation. 

As a person who came to Alaska without being able to speak English, Lina knows well the isolation and disenfranchisement that can happen when people can’t get news in their preferred language. 

“For my community, knowledge is power,” she said when we interviewed her for this nomination. “When you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” 

2023: All one-person newsrooms across the state.

This award sparked a lot of discussion among the board. Our discussion centered around this moment in journalism, where Alaska has many communities without a local news presence, and many others — even in places that have a rich local news legacy — where the local news presence is in a more precarious position than it has ever been. In those communities, there is sometimes just one reporter or editor at a media outlet who is making sure that places’ stories are being told by someone who lives there. They work long hours, almost always more time than they’re paid for, doing work that is necessary but rarely glamorous and often under-appreciated. Ironically, they are also some of the reporters and editors who are least likely to be able to attend this conference, as there is often no one to back them up while they’re away. They are in the gap providing an essential service to their readers, listeners and viewers, and their communities owe them a debt of gratitude — and so do we.

2022: Claire Stremple and Lex Treinen

The press club sets high standards for the nominations that receive this award, and this year we had two nominations that we felt were above and beyond in their reporting and impact. With that in mind, we have decided to award two nominations for this year’s public service award. Our first honoree for public service reporting in 2022 is Claire Stremple with KTOO for her reporting that broke the story of the state’s food stamp backlog. Her community-based reporting and relationships with sources brought light to a state problem that affected thousands of Alaskans whose voices needed to be heard. Our other honoree is Lex Treinen, with Alaska Public Media, for his reporting with American Public Media to dig into the resume of the Anchorage Health Director Joe Gerace. Their deep dig into documents and history found many fabrications, and led to Gerace’s resignation the day the story was to be published. This collaborative reporting project sparked the beginning of a hard look at the municipality’s hiring practices and vetting of candidates, particularly one so vital to the city’s operations during a pandemic and homelessness crisis.

2021: The Staff of the Anchorage Daily News

The ADN received 2021’s Public Service Award, with special recognition for reporters Annie Berman, Zaz Hollander and Morgan Krakow and graphic artist Kevin Powell for their detailed, near-daily reporting on COVID-19 statistics and trends in the state of Alaska. The nomination stated that this team has given the most comprehensive and consistent picture of the virus to Alaskans throughout the pandemic, in particular with more than 4,000 charts and graphics that illustrated hot spots, case numbers and hospitalizations. This kind of reporting can be grinding, confusing and monotonous, but these reporters consistently offered sharp, accurate stories and graphics that made Alaskans smarter about their own risk assessment and the way the virus was taxing community resources. This team’s work was a clear example of public service journalism.

2020: No Award

2019: No Award

2018: Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News

Judges’ Comments: Kyle’s investigative piece “From Criminal to Cop and Back Again in Alaska’s Most Vulnerable Villages,” shed a light on sexual abuse and crimes committed in rural Alaska by public officials. Kyle continued to report about abuse in rural villages across the state and wrote several follow-up pieces, including one about Nome officer who was rehired onto the force after punching a homeless woman and gaps in VPSO training. The Alaska Press Club would like to recognize Kyle Hopkins’ efforts to uncover the truth and go above and beyond his duties as a journalist to tell the stories of survivors of abuse in rural Alaska. There were several strong, deserving nominations for the Public Service Award this year. We recommend that two honorable mentions be given. The first is to radio reporter Teresa Cotsirilos, a reporter for KYUK radio in Bethel, who chronicled the saga of an overburdened Village Police Officer in the rural community of Mountain Village. Her series followed Officer Anna Bill through efforts at rural justice and suicide prevention, and culminated in a conversation with Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan about challenges facing those in law enforcement positions in rural communities.

The second honorable mention we recommend is to columnist Charles Wohlforth, whose work for the  depicting major problems in mental health treatment rocked the state’s system and the struggling Alaska Psychiatric Institute. In the course of Wohlforth’s reporting on issues at API and other facilities, the state saw the resignations and departures of several top health officials who were responsible for oversight of the institutions where problems had been brought to light.

2017: Alaska Public Media’s Anne Hillman and The Solutions Desk.

Here’s what the contest judge said of the team: Anne Hillman and the Solutions Desk of Alaska Public Media are the winners of the Public Service Award. Their work was consistently innovative, imaginative and going where other reporters – and the public – will not go. For example their forum in the Spring Creek Prison (Seward) “Community in Unity,” which gave voice to the voiceless: Prisoners in one of Alaska’s toughest prisons.The prisoners in the piece are working for what they call restorative justice. Justice for both victims and offenders, begun behind bars, something unheard of in everyday media – or the courts. For most of Alaska, prisoners are alive only in newspaper clippings or on television in prison garb. They are dangerous cliches, shadows. “Community in Unity” made them present with a story to tell – a story of hope. Hillman and Solutions had several Alaska Public Media “Talk of Alaska” justice shows that were impressive because of the difficulty of the material.  “Succeeding After Prison” for example. Many listeners no doubt believe that is impossible;  the show demonstrated that returning to society, for some people, is within reach. Hillman and Solutions created healthcare pieces that bring the complexity of healthcare right into the living room. Particularly mental health. The Talk of Alaska show “Preventing Suicide With Strength and Resilience” is an example. Gene Roberts, the legendary editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said “Make the reader see.” Hillman and the Solutions Desk do that. They understand how to tell difficult stories and tell them well.