Right Wing 'Seattle's Dying' Propaganda Comes to Anchorage
A strange yet familiar-sounding Facebook page popped up last year on Christmas Day, calling itself Anchorage is Dying. The accompanying Anchorage is Dying website, created last December, offers access to a Save Anchorage Private Members Only Newsletter. The website appears to have been created by 1mpactstudios, which has done political work for candidates Christine Hill, Roger Holland, Ron Gillham, and others. A Fixing Anchorage, Fixing Alaska Facebook page also appears to be related.
The Anchorage is Dying Facebook page hosts an hour-and-a-half-long heavily criticized "Seattle is Dying" video produced by KOMO. Must Read Alaska perhaps telegraphed the future weaponization of the right-wing narrative when they published, "Seattle is dying; will Anchorage follow suit?" on March 21, 2019.
The Anchorage is Dying Facebook group writes that it "spliced scenes" of the video to show "how bad Seattle is, how the Seattle City Council, lack of policing, & bad mayors leave a city in despair and how the city has no hope in sight." Unsurprisingly, the video's description also includes links to websites that aim to recall Felix Rivera, Anchorage Mayoral Candidate/Anchorage Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar, and Christopher Constant, which the social media page refers to as "(He Who Can Not Be Named, or Pointed At)."
The 'Anchorage is Dying' theme seems primarily based on the now heavily criticized Seattle is Dying propaganda video. The video claims to have "explored" homelessness in Seattle, but media outlets and homelessness advocates in the city criticized KOMO for what they said was an "inaccurate and biased picture of the issues" and that the contents of the documentary were motivated by the "right-wing agenda" of the nationwide Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has little interest in local Seattle politics but benefits from spreading a negative image of the liberal, west-coast city. Tim Harris of Real Change called the video "misery porn" and a "hit piece" on homelessness.
In March 2019, Crosscut reported that a "homeless man" depicted in the documentary wasn't homeless at all and that KOMO's video "inaccurately portrayed" him as such. Non-profit news site Crosscut met with the man in the apartment he had been living in for nearly four years. Like many other people filmed by the KOMO news team, they were never spoken to on camera.
The original and controversial Seattle is Dying video, which the Anchorage is Dying Facebook group "spliced," excels at being emotionally compelling even if there are doubts about its accurate depiction of the homeless situation in Seattle.
I reached out to Anchorage Assemblyman Christopher Constant about the video, its content, and the Anchorage-related Facebook pages hosting the video. In a statement, he wrote:
"Many aspects and claims made in the video have been debunked by individuals who appeared in the video. A careful watch of the propaganda piece called Seattle is Dying reveals a carefully crafted narrative intended to mislead.
The most interesting lie in the story is the claim that the East Coast system of criminalizing individuals and medicating them falls apart on close inspection. Every worst-case story told in the documentary resolves around methamphetamine usage. The adjunctive medications shown in the video don't work for meth addiction, only alcohol, and heroin. The tale they are telling sounds true but is a lie."
A sequel to the Seattle is Dying video caused a firestorm last year. While the original video proposed locking up homeless addicts in a prison island near Tacoma, Washington, for "forced substance abuse treatment," the villain in the sequel "Fight for the Soul of Seattle" is the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), a Seattle-based supportive housing and homeless shelter provider with over forty years of experience working with the homeless community.
There are plenty of holes in KOMO's latest conservative narrative as they never sought comment from DESC to confirm their outlandish claims, which DESC says impugned their motives and organizational mission.
Anchorage residents should be alarmed and aware of what's circulating across local social media and how it's being used to spread fear and to paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our situation here at home.
The weaponization of misinformation is real.
