I’ve been thinking about holidays and events in February and my brain latched onto Groundhog Day as something with potential: notions of repetition, cycles, the drudgery and difficulty of recognizing something is wrong and fighting against the universe to somehow set it right. The pandemic has felt like a cosmic Groundhog Day, as every year we wake up hoping it’s “the year it’s over” and thus far we keep being surprised by another surge in cases.

But that’s not actually what the holiday is about. It’s a pretty simple celebration of spring and the end of winter. The movie Groundhog Day, while certainly not the first story to set an unfortunate protagonist in an endless cycle of repetition, is a Western cultural touchstone of that idea. It has far outgrown its eponymous holiday in its influence.

It’s always fascinating what works and what doesn’t in catching the interest of any given group, to see how ideas grow beyond their intended space. Alaska Business Publishing Co. is a member of the media, so naturally our success is connected to our ability to reach an audience, whether that’s our readers, our sources, or our advertisers. How one grabs attention is a big question in today’s media landscape, and it’s one that we discuss internally on a regular basis.

This is, in part, because one of our best-known (and infamous) covers wasn’t hailed for its quality but was instead the center of a controversy. Those unfamiliar with the magazine—and its at-the-time all-woman editorial team—questioned if our January 2017 cover (featuring World Trade Center Anchorage Executive Director Greg Wolf in a Rosie the Riverter pose) was anti-feminist or just tone deaf.

“Well,” some might say, “your cover garnered national attention. All press is good press.” But is it? For those outside of our circle of influence, who never had any association with our publication, it’s possible now that their only association is one of sexism. I can promise you that is never the impression we want to leave with our audience.

Frankly, by now the majority of those who were caught up in our cover controversy on a national level have probably forgotten that we’re a publication at all, or they assume that we’ve gone under, as many local news and media outlets have.

We haven’t, though, and we aren’t. Alaska Business Publishing Co. had a good year in 2021. We had the kind of year that let us expand our editorial and production teams and reinvest in our employees. We had the kind of year that let us look at additional resources for upgraded photography, editorial projects, and community outreach.

While I don’t have any concrete research as to why we’re in the black, I think it comes down to two things: our strong network of partners and prioritizing promoting economic growth in Alaska over just scoring page views.

Thank you for building up Alaska with us. It is something to celebrate.