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Gov. Sarah Palin hired experienced Alaska journalist Bill McAllister to be the new director of her rapidly changing communications office.

He is currently a reporter at KTUU-TV, Alaska's top television station, and previously was a state government reporter for the Empire.

McAllister will likely start work later this month, said Rosanne Hughes, who is currently Palin's top communications officer.

"We're thrilled, we really are, that's going to be great," she said.

Hughes will be moving to a job handling external communications for the governor. That includes focusing on communities, groups and organizations statewide, she said, rather than day-to-day media duties.

Remaining a deputy press secretary will be Sharon Leighow, who has been with Palin since she became governor in December 2005.

The job change means that all three of Palin's top communications people will be based in Anchorage, where Palin has shifted much of her activity as governor.

"Sharon and I are both going to be based in Anchorage, as will Bill," Hughes said.

All three will be traveling on a regular basis, however.

Hughes said that, especially during the legislative session, members of the communications office would be back and forth to Juneau regularly.

"We'll be spending a lot of time in Juneau. It is our capital city," she said.

Juneau Rep. Andrea Doll said she doubts Palin intends to slight Juneau, but simply spends a lot of time traveling.

"She's not tied down, she goes rapidly from one place to another," Doll said. "I think we just have to get used to the way this governor operates."

Doll said in the last week she ran into Palin and her daughters on the Perseverance Trail, and in Barrow meeting with local leaders.

McAllister replaces Hughes, whose initial appointment as communications director was announced May 1. The job had been vacant for some months before that. Hughes will move to the newly created position of director of external communications.

Palin's first communications director was Meghan Stapleton, also a former Anchorage television reporter. She has first said she would be living in Juneau much of the year, but changed her plans when she became pregnant and later left the position.

A deputy communications director who had been based in Juneau, Beth Leschper, has moved to the Department of Labor.

"She's still in communications, just in a different capacity," Hughes said.

Leschper had been the only communications officer based in Palin's Capitol office.

McAllister worked at the Empire from August 1999 to July 2002. He has also worked for KTOO-TV's "Alaska Week" program, and written for the Anchorage Daily News as a columnist and for the Alaska Budget Report.

McAllister's first job in Alaska was working for the Chilkat Valley News in Haines from 1995 to 1997.

• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or e-mail patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.