February 19, 2026 Seward Folly

Op Ed by Evan By Evan Swensen

_{Image: Los Angeles Library}

On February 4, the Washington Post laid off more than 300 journalists — one-third of its 800-person newsroom. The sports section is gone. The books desk is gone. The metro desk — the reporters who covered the city the paper was named for — shrank from forty to roughly a dozen. Former editor Marty Baron called it one of the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.

Meanwhile, in Seward, Alaska, somebody started a newspaper.

The name came from Bev Dunham. She is ninety-three years old. She owned and edited the Seward Phoenix Log for decades. Before any of it, she edited a student paper at Seward High School. It was called Seward’s Folly. The new paper carries the name forward. In a country where newsrooms are vanishing, Seward decided to build one.

I have published books for forty-eight years. More than five hundred titles. The ones I remember are never the bestsellers. They are the ones where the author knew why they
were writing. A retired teacher in Kenai who wanted her students to understand the salmon cycle. A grandmother in Fairbanks who wrote down the family stories before they disappeared. Purpose came first. The platform followed — or it didn’t. The words still mattered.

The Washington Post forgot its city. Jeff Bezos bought the paper for $250 million, then spent $40 million on a documentary about the first lady while his newsroom bled. Democracy, the Post’s masthead says, dies in darkness. But democracy does not die in
darkness. It dies in indifference. And indifference begins when a community loses its
voice.

Starting a newspaper in Seward in 2025 is either the bravest or the most stubborn act of
faith in Alaska. It says this place matters. These people matter. Words have the power to hold a community together. The power of authors is not about fame or reach. It is about
purpose. Why are you writing? For whom? To what end?

Seward answered. The rest of the country should pay attention.

Evan Swensen is a prior-to-statehood Alaskan, pilot, and book publisher in Anchorage. He is co-author of The Power of Authors, which examines how purpose-driven writing changes lives and communities.