Kay Fanning's Alaska Story Memoir of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Newspaper Publisher on America's Northern Frontier

Kay Woodruff Field, 38, an ex-debutante once called "the Grace Kelly of Chicago," loaded her three children into a battered station wagon and headed north to Alaska in 1965 after her divorce. Looking for a new life, she found it at the Anchorage Daily News, a morning newspaper struggling against the powerful Anchorage Times, voice of the establishment. She and her new husband, Larry Fanning, bought the News, ignoring predictions that the paper wouldn't survive. Kay explained later: "Profit is not the purpose of the press..the free, unfettered flow of ideas is." Public interest became the paper's specialty. This is the story of a courageous publisher who backed gun control, environmental protection, and Native rights - controversial issues in a conservative state. Fanning refused to bend under pressure from advertisers and politicians, and won a Pulitzer Prize. Kay Fanning died before finishing her memoir. Eighteen personal stories about her written by friends and colleagues complete the portrait of a gracious, compassionate, and persistent newspaperwoman of integrity who left an indelible mark on Alaska.Fanning, Kay is the author of 'Kay Fanning's Alaska Story Memoir of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Newspaper Publisher on America's Northern Frontier', published 2006 under ISBN 9780974501475 and ISBN 0974501476.