What is Northern Journal?

Northern Journal is written by me, Nathaniel Herz, a reporter in Anchorage.

After nearly a decade of working in daily journalism in Alaska, for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media, I was ready to slow down and tackle the kinds of stories that always seemed to slip through the cracks. I started this newsletter in November 2022 as an outlet for reporting on my areas of biggest interest: public lands and waters, energy, fisheries and government and politics.

You can read the newsletter for free, and I’m committed to keeping it that way, because I want the information I collect to be available to as large of an audience as possible. I’ve partnered with the Alaska Beacon, a nonprofit news organization, to distribute my work and make it available to any other outlet in the state for free; my recent stories, for example, have appeared in the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Public Media, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and Arctic Today.

This is where you come in. Northern Journal is something of a bet, or a leap of faith: that the things I’m curious and care about are sufficiently interesting and important to a large enough group of Alaskans that I can collect enough money in voluntary contributions to pay for my health insurance, mortgage and other expenses. By supporting this newsletter, you’re supporting stories that might otherwise go unreported because of the demands of the daily news cycle.

If you like what you’ve read here, and you want to keep seeing stories like these, please consider a voluntary membership, which costs $100 for a year or $10 a month. If you’re not interested in a membership, you can still subscribe to the newsletter, and share your feedback and story tips. Contact me at natherz@gmail.com or 907-793-0312.