Award-winning Alaska journalist Kyle Hopkins knew early on that journalism was his thing. Moreso, he knew he had an affinity with journalists and wanted to surround himself with them.
Hopkins visited Wrangell over the weekend to mark Sunday’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Awareness Day, in collaboration with the Wrangell Cooperative Association. He also talked with Wrangell High School students Friday about the value of storytelling.Hopkins said that a lot of public safety and criminal justice failures allow people to get away with sexual assault in Alaska, including murder.
Hopkins was born in Sitka and spent his childhood in Southeast Alaska. He said when he was a kid it was easy to assume adults would fix these types of problems. But now, as an adult, the severe problems still exist. He said journalism can help with that by putting spotlights on the failure of systems, like criminal justice.
Hopkins said he and his team worked with people to tell their own stories in their own words about being sexual assault survivors.