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Star-Bulletin sports writer Dave Reardon sent along these comments yesterday:Would a "homer" publication report that yesterday's UH football practice was full of "bad snaps, bad reads, dropped balls and blown coverages," as the Star-Bulletin did today (Friday)? Or that June Jones' wife filed for divorce on Wednesday (an appropriately placed brief item on page A-3)?Since we're not in bed with the University of Hawaii's athletic department, we retain our right to be objective, report news and be critical.
The sports reporters at our print competition are also critical on occasion. It is not their fault that their management has "partnered" with UH.
I wish these folks whose anonymous feedback you throw out there would have the guts to put their names on their criticisms, as we must every day in the paper.
Aloha,
Dave ReardonI should add one clarification in defense of writers whose comments have appeared here anonymously. Sometimes those comments have been signed, but I have omitted the names unless there was an explicit agreement to do publish them. I'm taken this approach since a couple of early experiences where correspondents were upset to see themselves publicly identified by name.
And this from another reader concerning the Advertiser's shifting broadcast alliance and its impact on reporting of news:
KHNL trumpeted news of the alliance in Thursday's 10 p.m. 'cast (I missed the 6), and either immediately following that story, or one story later came the story about McDonald's Restaurants taking out a full-page ad "in this morning's Honolulu Advertiser" to announce (blah blah blah about the company's position on the contest scammers).What News 8 either didn't know, or was blinded to, or chose to ignore by virtue of their new alliance, was that a similar full page ad had appeared in the Star-Bulletin THE DAY BEFORE.
Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser has dropped it's cooperative agreement with KHON, the top ranked broadcast news station in our market, and has forged a new agreement with KHNL, the upstart NBC affiliate which has been forging a reputation for style over substance.Neither this "partnership", nor the similar tie between the Star-Bulletin and KITV, have yielded anything exciting to date, and there wasn't anything in this latest announcement to whet the appetite of news junkies.
Says Advertiser editor Saundra Keyes: "I suppose we're in the baby steps today of what this partnership will mean for both of us."
The Star-Bulletin launched another promotional deal, this time with Papa John's Pizza, according to an ad spotted yesterday. Order a pizza and you'll get a free paper, although I'll bet that it gets registered as a paid sale for audit purposes.
And writers from both American Journalism Review and Editor & Publisher are preparing updates on the Honolulu newspaper war. E&P seems to have a shorter lead time and should be out first.
Ms. Wally is back in ultra-assertive mode. She's decided that it's her duty to instill fear in Mr. Leo, a 12-pound male who, in turn, picks endlessly on Silverman, who patiently endures and then goes next door and beats up on Sam, a mellow gold cat who lives with one of our neighbors. The domino effect in action.
And Lindsey, after weeks of daily naps on our bed, has suddenly become scarce. He checks in with me several times a day, but almost immediately heads back outside and disappears. Oh, there he is now, scratching at the screen beside the front door. So I just picked him up, carried him into his private dining room (my bathroom) and provided a fresh bowl of food. He'll finish most of that bowl, then curl up on my bath mat for a morning nap while we head out on our morning walk.
And so it goes this Friday morning in Kaaawa.
Found on the web: A little story about another David Black company making news back on his home turf, when the Black-owned Island Publishers refused to print the cover photo for a University of Victoria women's newspaper.The photo featured "a woman baring her breasts over a black latex bodice, while her naked, prepubescent daughter dances beside her," according to an article (with a photo of the offending illustration) in the University of Toronto's Varsity Online. The cover had to be modified before it could run on Black's press.
Exactly when this happened is a bit vague. The article appears to date from February 2000, although a note on the top of the page indicates it was posted online last month.
And back in Honolulu, the Star-Bulletin's email system fell victim of so-called "spammers" yesterday after an Internet site described it as vulnerable.
Unsolicited ads for products like the "snore eliminator" started flying around the world bearing a Starbulletin.com address.
According to a notice sent out by webmaster Blaine Fergerstrom: "We were listed as an "open relay" by a spam-blocking site. This means that we are susceptible to spammer hacks that allow a spammer to "spoof" our email address and use our server to send mass email."
The S-B email system was even shut down for a while as an unsuccessful attempt was made to install new software capable of blocking unauthorized messages, but the move proved more difficult and time consuming than anticipated and had to be deferred. So if you happen to get one of these long advertisements courtesy of the Star-Bulletin, just hit the delete key.
An alert reader spotted this headline in a KHNL (Channel 8) news report, which was still online this morning:
"State Begins Handing Out Money From Tabacco Settlement"He quips: Tabacco? Is that how Jessie Helms pronounces it?
"3rd generation clutterers." That was my sister's reaction to my description of cleaning out the kitchen's mystery drawer on Sunday. Seems it runs in the family.And, from another friend, this confession:
as for drawer treasures, ummmm, i'm at 13 years and counting. i graduated long ago from drawers to boxes, on top of which are stacked more boxes and still more boxes. i have a closet full of boxes and an entire wall reinforced with boxes. the last time i went near a drawer, i found eyeglasses that looked very much like the ones you were wearing in that 1970s photo on your web site. if i recall correctly, when i saw mine, and realized i used to wear them, i screamed. in my medicine chest, i have a pair of contact lenses i bought in 1977. why do i still have them? well, you never know.... but that's nothing. i'm a piker. little league. small time. my grandparents, who never had a car, had a garage. and the entire garage was full. of -- you guessed it -- boxes. in one of them, i found a pay stub for my grandfather's wages in the coal mines. i can't remember the year or the work period covered, but i do remember the amount: eleven dollars and six cents. so it goes. it's like falling from a cliff. we cling to whatever we can, not sure of what might save us. or if anything will. c'est la vie.On yesterday's issue of electromagnetic radiation at UH, several people wrote to say everything's been reviewed and judged safe. Perhaps, but the FCC's own web site features some unsettling responses to frequently asked questions. While attempting to be reassuring, even the FCC acknowledges that the link between electromagnetic radiation and cancer can't be dismissed. "Results to date have been inconclusive," they report.
The Advertiser ran a story on the UH questions this morning, as did the Star-Bulletin.
Once again, there's a story behind the one dutifully reported recently, when a lot of newsprint and broadcast bandwidth was devoted to friendly coverage of the power boost given to the University of Hawaii's student-run radio station, KTUH, which jumped from 100 to 3,000 watts.But there's at least one group very unhappy about the power boost--the women, including faculty and staff, who have offices on the top floor of the UH Social Science Building are concerned about potential hazards because they work just below the KTUH rooftop antenna as well as other communications antennas, including a cellular phone tower and equipment for the PeaceSat system. My partner, criminologist and Professor of Womens' Studies Meda Chesney-Lind, occupies an office on the floor.
A letter describing the problem and requesting an investigation is on its way from the director of the Women's Studies Program to occupational safety and health officials.
Fueling the women's concern--a very high proportion of women on the floor have been hit with cancer, and several have died, and they fear the high incidence of cancers could be linked to electromagnetic radiation from the rooftop installations. They can tick off the names of those afflicted, and it's immediately sobering and quietly frightening.
They had no advance warning of the change, and are concerned that there was no review of potential hazardous impacts on people who regularly spend their working hours in close proximity to the combined effects of the various antennas.
Media coverage that was a bit more critical and inquisitive might have stumbled over these concerns, another real story behind the story.
A quick comment on the issue of advance notice came back this morning from a longtime supporter of KTUH:
I take issue with your statement that they "had no advance warning of the change". How could they not? The power increase has been in the works for years and has been repeatedly been referenced in Ka Leo, UH's own newspaper, as well as the Honolulu Weekly prior to the increase actually going through. KTUH itself has been trying to "hype" the increase for at least a year before it took place. Surely someone in that building knew that something was going on.Only one comment was received in response to the issue of the ad placed by Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser in the UH football media guide.
The sports reporters both print and broadcast have always been "homers" anyway so what's the big deal?
Since when has objectivity been part of the package when it comes to UH sports?Good point. Any other comments? Just email me.
It was good music and free Star-Bulletins at yesterday's slack key festival held at the Kapiolani Park bandstand. SB/MidWeek banners on the sound tent provided a high level of visibility.
The Advertiser's decision to run an ad in the UH football program's media guide featuring its own sportswriters covering the sport raised eyebrows among some observers, who question whether it undermines the objectivity of their reporting.
One comment: "To have the two guys who cover you in your own media guide implies that they are "yours" and that they will write good stuff about you."
I don't have a strong feeling on this one, but would be interested in comments.
And I finally finished a visual review of our fabulous anniversary adventure from last week, so gluttons for punishment can just click here and check it out.
Everyone's got one. A mystery drawer, a black hole of household oddities, the center of domestic gravity where every little thing eventually ends up. Ours exceeded its capacity months ago, so that the task of getting the drawer open and then closed again had taken on Olympic proportions. Until yesterday, when Meda launched a scorched earth attack on its hidden recesses, beginning with an unannounced full-drawer dump of the entire contents onto the counter. Click on the photo (right) for a closer look.
Then came the process of slowly digging through and analyzing the layers of accumulated s-t-u-f-f. It was a dry pen graveyard. Final resting place for remnant sheets of those temporary postage stamps designated with letters and no clues as to their actual value. A carefully saved card announcing the "New Oceanic Cable Channel Line-Up" effective September 1, 1993."Keep for easy reference," it advised. Apparently we did.
There were the three bottles of fossilized liquid paper, an impressive rubber band collection, several outdated address books dutifully saved "just in case", three calculators no longer used, three screwdrivers of varying lengths, a pair of giveaway miniature Swiss army knives, assorted key chains sans keys, several keys to locks that exist nowhere in this house. At least three letter openers--one a tourist gewgaw from Belize, rescued on a whim from a thrift store, one in the shape of a cat, one with the initial "L", and one of Koa--none of which has ever been close to an unopened envelope.
Still more. A pack of United Airlines playing cards. Notes with the names of new neighbors who have long since moved again to parts unknown. Extra cat collars, including a couple too small for any of our cats. Three containers of pencil leads for automatic pencils neither of us have used for a decade. Gray tape. Always more gray tape. Two flea combs. A jeweler's loop. Batteries of varied sizes and vintages, some of which might still have a bit of juice. Instructions for a remote control that no longer exists to control a television set that was on the receiving end of the feline "piss of death" years ago. Sheets of terminally cute address labels received unsolicited from organizations seeking to leverage them into donations, featuring teddy bears, horses, kittens and puppies, a happy face, butterfly, flowers. Oh, don't forget the moose. A half-empty pocket pack of Kleenex tissues. A partially used 12-pack of Trident Advantage sugar-free gum that had been attached to a bottle of Listerine we purchased back in 1998, according to the small print. Two loose screws, obviously carefully saved, origins unknown.But order has been restored, at least for now. Anyone know the gestation period of drawer junk?
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