Alaska Dispatch files for bankruptcy and falls into teabagger hands, essentially at the same time.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:

Alaska's largest newspaper filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Saturday evening and new owners — an Alaska family that made its fortune hauling freight and tourists on the Yukon River and its tributaries, and a company that owns rural newspapers in the state — have been lined up. 

In a prepared statement Saturday, Alaska Dispatch News LLC owner Alice Rogoff, who also has served as publisher, said it was a "truly bittersweet" moment for her, though she is relieved the newspaper will live on under new ownership. Her four-paragraph prepared statement didn't name the new owners, though the group interested in buying the paper issued a statement Saturday. 

"We've worked hard to help illuminate the issues of our day and provide a platform for points of view from across Alaska," Rogoff said Saturday. "Yet like newspapers everywhere, the struggle to make ends meet financially eventually caught up with us. I simply ran out of my ability to subsidize this great news product. Financial realities can't be wished away."

I have not really been paying a whole lot of attention to the Dispatch these days so I have mixed feelings about this.

What I am not so mixed about is who the paper is being sold to.

The potential buyers, working together, are a company composed of siblings Ryan Binkley, Wade Binkley, James Binkley and Kai Binkley Sims, as well as Alaska Media LLC, which owns three rural Alaska newspapers. The group is led by Ryan Binkley and Alaska Media owner Jason Evans, according to a statement the group issued Saturday. Former Anchorage Daily News publisher Jerry Grilly, who retired as president and CEO of the Denver Post in 2012, is a consultant to the group, Ryan Binkley said.

These Binkley siblings are the children of former state senator John Binkley, a hard core teabagger who ran interference for Sarah Palin during the Troopergate fiasco.

Okay so people will likely say that just because the dad is a Right Wing douchebag does not mean that the kids have the same political outlook.

Sure, but this buy out is costing millions, and I am fairly certain that big daddy still controls the purse strings. Especially for s purchase this large.

Add to that the fact that Papa Binkley is seriously talking about running for governor of Alaska, and suddenly this seems like a Trumpian move to establish a propaganda outlet for Right Wing views and positive coverage of a preferred candidate.

Or hey, maybe I'm wrong and this is completely on the up and up.

(P.S. I'm not wrong.)