Alaska Daily Star Grace Dove Appreciates The Show's Commitment To Telling Indigenous Stories

With shows such as "Grey's Anatomy," "The Good Doctor," "Big Sky," and "The Rookie," ABC has remained a major presence in the television landscape over the past few years. Thus, their newest series, "Alaska Daily," drew a lot of interest from viewers of the channel (per Hollywood Reporter).

The show is created by Tom McCarthy, best known for his work on the 2015 journalist drama film "Spotlight," which landed him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar (via IMDb). It stars another Oscar winner, Hilary Swank, as journalist Eileen Fitzgerald, who moves from New York to Anchorage to write for a fictional paper called the "Daily Alaskan." In the process, she gets embroiled in the story of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the state.

One of Swank's main co-stars is Grace Dove, who plays a local journalist at the "Daily Alaskan" named Roz Friendly. Roz and Eileen get assigned to work on the story together, as Roz is already familiar with the details of what's happening in Alaska. In a recent interview, Dove, who is Indigenous, spoke about her role on the show, expressing appreciation for its commitment to telling Indigenous stories. Here's what she had to say.

In an interview with PowWows, Grace Dove spoke about her role in "Alaska Daily," saying that everyone on the show had the same goal: to tell stories rarely seen on television.

Dove spoke about her own experiences and how she has worked towards telling Indigenous stories over the past few years. She noted that "Alaska Daily" had a far-reaching platform, thanks to being on ABC, which meant that they would be able to reach people who hadn't heard the stories of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women before watching the show. Dove added that the show was striving to ensure the stories were told properly. She noted that the writer's room for the series had two Indigenous people from Alaska among its staff, as just one example of the creative team's desire to ensure "it's done right."

The actress concluded by saying that, despite the weight of the stories being told in the show, playing Roz and working alongside Hilary Swank has been a lot of fun.

The two Indigenous Alaskan natives Grace Dove mentioned as part of the writing team are named Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, who's part of the Inupiaq tribe, and Vera Starbard, who's part of the Tlingit tribe.

In an interview with Juneau Afternoon, both Starbard and MacLean spoke about their work on the show. MacLean said that he was approached by Tom McCarthy, creator of "Alaska Daily," when McCarthy was working on the show's pilot. Having never been to Alaska at the time, McCarthy approached MacLean, who read the pilot's script and offered his input. When ABC picked up the show, McCarthy reached back out to MacLean, asking him to be a part of the writer's room.

For her part, Starbard said she was recruited to the show by Kyle Hopkins, an executive producer who has also been a journalist for the local newspaper Anchorage Daily.

In an interview with Forbes, McCarthy cited Hopkins' reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women as inspiring him to create the show. McCarthy elaborated that he realized the topic was not being discussed at the level it should be, encouraging him to shine a light on it. He also commended MacLean and Starbard's work on the show, noting that both "have taken great pains to really educate us on what we have to know."