Remembering Lew Williams in a new light

Most people outside of Alaska have probably not heard of Lew Williams, retired publisher of the Ketchikan Daily News. He died May 3, 2008. Mr. Williams was well known inside Alaska and I *thought* I knew his public persona pretty well. But I was wrong.

In my nearly 10 years in Alaska, I knew Mr. Williams mostly as 1) Someone who never saw any development project he didn’t like and 2) often equated opposition to President Bush with anti-Americanism at best and treason at worst.  One example:

2/11/2007

“Then the Bush haters piled on, especially those, such as Biden, who are running for president in 2008. Other resolutions were offered against the troop buildup. None of them were binding, and none came to the floor of the Senate.

House members will try next to embarrass Bush and encourage our enemy.”
————

However, in the course of his obituaries, I learned that he was passionate about local ownership of newspapers and actually scorned at least one Outside offer to buy his Petersburg paper so that he could sell it to someone in town. As recently as 2006, he wrote about the importance of local newspapers. As I’m a big fan of local media, I have to salute his commitment to local news production and I mourn the loss of another voice for independent media.

God bless, Mr. WIlliams.