Is Alaska Daily based on a true story?

Alaska Daily sees Eileen Fitzgerald look into a case of a missing Native American woman. Is the story based on truth? Sadly, there is some truth to this.

There are certain stories that you watch on TV that feel like they could be real. You don’t want them to be, but you just know what human nature is like. That’s the case with Alaska Daily.

The series follows a disgraced reporter who ends up in Anchorage, Alaska. She’s pulled in by a former colleague who has a case for her. It’s all about a missing Native American woman. The police trail has gone cold, although it’s more like the police just haven’t bothered to investigate properly.

Eileen teams up with Roz to get to the bottom of the story. It’s not the only one, either. There are other missing and murdered Native American woman, one of them being Roz’s cousin. Is Alaska Daily based on a true story?

The true story behind Alaska Daily

This is sort of based on a true story. The journalists are not real people. They are completely fictional for the storylines. Likewise, the names of the missing and murdered women are fictional. The storyline itself is sadly not fictional.

The series is loosely based on the real Anchorage Daily News investigation. It looked into the sexual assault and violence against the Indigenous women around Alaska. While these women were missing, the police would do nothing to find them.

It is not just an issue in Alaska. This is a situation across North America. Canada has a group under the name of “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).” They push for those who have gone missing to be treated seriously before it’s too late. The police tend to stop the search, or they don’t put the effort into finding the killers of those who are found murdered. I highly recommend reading Red River Girl: The Life and Death of Tina Fontaine by Joanna Jolly just to get an initial read into the epidemic.

Getting the stories of the tribes and the people was always going to be important. T’set Kwei Vera Starbard and Andrew MacLean are two of the writers on the series who are both indigenous from the Lingít and Inupiat tribes respectively. They educated the Alaska Daily writers and producers about the different tribes, communities, ethnicities, and much more.

Hilary Swank talked to Newsweek about her role and the real stories behind the series. The real case blew her mind, and it was the big reason she wanted to take on the role.

What do you think of Alaska Daily so far? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Alaska Daily airs Thursdays on ABC and on Hulu the following day.