Press Freedom in Alaska

Alaska has no anti-SLAPP statute. If someone sues you over something you said — a review, a complaint to a regulator, a news story — you defend it the long and expensive way, however baseless the claim. 10 of 51 jurisdictions are in the same position.

The overall score is two parts coverage to one part protections, as IFS weights them.

What Alaska actually gives a defendant

The five protections IFS scores. A statute can cover every kind of speech and still leave a defendant paying their own lawyer for two years.

• Case pauses while the motion is heardNothing: 0 / 20
• Plaintiff must show the case has meritNothing: 0 / 12
• Denial can be appealed at onceNothing: 0 / 25
• Winning defendant recovers legal costsNothing: 0 / 40
• Courts told to read the law broadlyNothing: 0 / 3

Incidents logged in Alaska

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has logged 4 press-freedom incidents in Alaska since 2014, of which 2 are since January 1, 2021.

• Assault3

  Physical attacks on journalists covering a story

• Chilling Statement1

  Officials threatening the press publicly

This is a count, not a score. It tracks where the protests and the newsrooms are as much as where the law is hostile, so a big state will out-count a small one whatever its statute says. An incident can carry more than one category, so the categories sum to more than the total. Nothing here is added to the anti-SLAPP score.

Where this comes from

The grade and the five component scores are the Institute for Free Speech's 2025 Report Card entry for Alaska. Incident counts are the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, used under CC BY 4.0. Both retrieved September 19, 2026. The score is IFS's own judgement and is not part of the FreedomRankings score.

Anti-SLAPP law is one part of press freedom, not all of it — shield laws, public records law and how Alaska courts actually rule are not scored here. None of this is legal advice; talk to a lawyer about an actual dispute.