An icon of Alaska journalism died June 18 after a battle with endometrial cancer.
Elizabeth Arnold started her reporting career in Bethel in the 1980s, working for the Tundra Drums. She later moved to public radio, reporting for KTOO in Juneau, then National Public Radio.
Those that worked alongside Arnold say she would travel anywhere to tell a great story. Her work covering Congress, politics and the environment took her around the globe – to the remote mountains of Mongolia, the Himalayan Mountains and Sri Lanka.
Then in 2009, she was ready to start a new chapter of her career, teaching journalism to students at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
UAA Journalism and Public Communications professor Paola Banchero said Arnold was her professional sidekick. She remembers when Arnold applied for a position in the department.
“I heard her on the radio throughout my young adult life. I really thought she was a great reporter way before I even dreamed that she would be my colleague,” Banchero said. “I thought [it was] a real feather in our cap. She just really added to the quality of our program.”
Banchero said Arnold was strict on deadlines and ethics and “utterly thrilled” to see people succeed.
On top of her career, Arnold was a committed mother who loved and was deeply proud of her son, Jack, Banchero said. In an essay for NPR in 2004, Arnold shared what it was like raising him in Alaska, taping cardboard to windows during the summer so he could sleep at night.
Arnold taught audio classes like podcasting and radio news reporting to hundreds of students over the years. Many of them say she influenced them to pursue careers in the field, including Taylor Heckart. Heckart pursued journalism not knowing if it’d be a good fit, but after taking a First Amendment and media ethics class with Arnold, she was hooked. She’d call her mom after class to tell her what she learned.
“The media ethics class was so cool, because it was like all these different journalism scenarios I'd never thought of,” she said. “It was fun problem solving about the career I realized I really wanted.”
Arnold’s passion for accurate journalism was infectious, Heckart said, and she took her classes because of it. Heckart remembers Arnold as a mentor who pushed people to their fullest potential.
“She was willing to give me a bad grade when she felt that I deserved it, because she knew I could do a good job. She was so honest in that way, and it made you want to succeed even more, because her approval and her praise, it meant the absolute world,” Heckart said.
Arnold was a founder and board member of the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism. She was also a founding member of the Alaska News Coalition, a nonprofit created to ensure economic sustainability of newsrooms across the state.
Larry Persily, a longtime Alaska journalist who met Arnold while working in Juneau in the 1980s, said he never heard one of her stories that felt incomplete.
“Elizabeth realized it's important to say something, to recall the story, to share it,” Persily said. “She was a pretty amazing person in terms of her skills, this combination of persistence and determination and thoroughness.”
In her free time, Arnold was an athlete who was a devoted volunteer with the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage. She also rode Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Susan Feeney, a former NPR editor, political reporter and close friend of Arnold’s, said her work brought color and context to listeners around the world. Arnold, known as Betsy to friends, was unstoppable when it came to asking tough questions, she said.
Feeney lives in Seattle, a more than three hour plane ride away from Anchorage, yet their friendship stayed strong over the years. It’s what Feeney will miss most.
“She was a very, very loyal friend. Honestly, she would go to the ends of anything for her friends, and so that feeling that you have a friend that always has your back, that was a great thing,” Feeney said.
Arnold received numerous prestigious awards for her work, but in April, she received the Alaska Press Club’s First Amendment Award for her decades of ethical journalism and more than 15 years of teaching.
While accepting the award, she said this one was particularly meaningful. “I love teaching. These kids, they come in and they're like, ‘I have all these opinions’, and then I twist their little heads. They come out of class and they’re like “Oh my god, no? What?”
Arnold was 66 years old. She’ll be inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame later this year.
