A small “movers & shakes” news brief in West Hawaii Today confirmed that David Bock, editor of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, took over “day-to-day operations of the newsroom” of WHT on April 25, the same day longtime editor Reed Flickinger was laid off.
Bock will be the “roving news director” managing the two newspapers on opposite sides of the island.
Tiffany Edwards Hunt, publisher of Big Island Chronicle, had the best reporting last week on the changes at the newspapers, both owned by Stephens Media.
“After Flickinger left WHT, remaining staff Thursday in the Kona office, including his wife who works in the advertising department, were in tears, and the Big Island journalism community was abuzz, speculating about the meaning,” Hunt reported.
She also followed up with the Pacific Media Workers Guild, which represents unionized employees of the Tribune-Herald.
Carl Hall, executive officer of the Pacific Media Workers Guild based in San Francisco, wasn’t aware that Flickinger had been let go, but said he was “aware of the ongoing consolidation of the Big Island press operation.”
Hall said he was aware the printing press operation moved from the Hawaii Tribune-Herald to the Kona side, and negotiations for the company to subcontract production work.
“We are going to try and defend jobs on the Big Island and quality jobs in journalism,” Hall said. “It is unclear how (the editorial restructuring) is going to affect business, how stories are going to be assigned, how the staff is going to be structured.”
At issue is the fact that Stephens Media staff working for WHT in Kona are non-union, while those at HTH are union workers.
These moves follow the recent resignation of the editor of Big Island Weekly, the pseudo-alternative paper also owned by Stephens Media.
Apparently Bock will also be managing the weekly’s newsroom as part of his considerable roving.
One media observer on the Big Island is wondering whether the “ongoing consolidation” will eventually result in a merger of the the T-H and WHT newspapers. Both papers are now printed in Kona, and already share classified ads and some news stories. Is some more complete merger coming up?
I suppose it’s not like the potential loss of competing newspapers, but…. Are two Stephens papers better than one? What do Big Island folks think?
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A couple weeks ago the Honolulu Star-Advertiser took over management of The Garden Island (Kaua’i’s newspaper). TGI is now regularly publishing some of the SA content. Yesterday (Sunday) the Star-Advertiser had a huge special section about the demographics and lifestyle on the Big Island. Maybe that special section comes at a timely moment intended to let everyone know that Star-Advertiser would also like to take over the Stephens Media operations on the Big Island. There is already an ongoing relationship where SA and Stephens can publish each other’s content (and often do so). Today Kaua’i, tomorrow the Big Island — can Maui be far behind? After all, the octopus has 8 tentacles, and Hawaii has 8 major islands.
Ken, if that was a takeover effort, it was quite weak. little about Hilo beyond college registration stats, zero on astronomy and widespread ag research and emerging new crops. West Hawaii is a mystery.
Mostly off- beat feature stuff. I submit beyond Dave Smith and sometimes Tiffany Hunt this island is uncovered, much like pre WW II.
Don’t forget Damon Tucker.