The Advertiser weighed in to the Rex Johnson porn email issue with an editorial yesterday that took a firmly middle-of-the-road position. Bad Rex, but not too bad.
Rex Johnson, Hawai’i Tourism Authority chief, should face some consequence for the lapse in judgment leading him to misuse government e-mail.
But the right consequence for this particular misstep lies somewhere between getting off scot free and the draconian response of demanding Johnson’s resignation.
The editorial mentions that the HTA board is scheduled to meet today to consider Johnson’s future with the agency, and the Advertiser’s soothing words are clearly aimed at swaying the board towards a “discipline but don’t dismiss” solution.
The editorial doesn’t mention the Advertiser’s new “Eye on Hawaii” series of forums on “the key issues facing Hawaii.” According to an invitation sent out “to our most valued customers”–in this context, that appears to mean those who buy lots of ads in the ‘Tiser–the forums will highlight “key business leaders sharing their perspectives on what lies ahead and how we can best position ourselves to successfully deal with these economic challenges.”
And Rex Johnson is one of four panelists slated to be part of the inaugural “Eye on Hawaii” session on Thursday morning. In addition to Johnson, the panelists are David Carey, CEO of Outrigger Enterprises, Mark Dunkerly of Hawaiian Airlines, and Chason Ishii, president of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties.
If the HTA board decides at today’s meeting to seek Johnson’s resignation, that would clearly be at least somewhat disruptive of Thursday’s Advertiser forum.
Oh, did I mention that Thursday’s forum will be moderated by Jeanne Mariani-Belding, the Advertiser’s editorial page editor?
Which raises the question–Was the editorial influenced by the Advertiser’s own financial investment in its new form series? And was Mariani, as editorial page editor, influenced by her scheduled performance before the newspaper’s top customers? Perhaps the ‘Tiser should have sidestepped this appearance of conflict or disclosed it to readers while offering it’s potentially self-serving view of Rex Johnson’s misdeeds.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out what to make of Advertiser editor Mark Platte’s Sunday column, “A farewell to many treasured colleagues, one in particular“. After a rather perfunctory mention of the 54 “victims of severe downsizing”, Platte spends the remainder of the column extolling the life history of editorial cartoonist Dick Adair prior to arriving at the Advertiser. It seemed to me a very odd way of reflecting on the meaning of the 54 layoffs. Perhaps it was a backhanded way of highlighting what the newspaper industry is losing as it sheds layers of experience from newsrooms across the country. Or maybe it was just a distraction to keep from thinking too much about the corporate pressures behind the layoffs.
Odd.
Meanwhile, ‘Tiser reporter and blogger Kim Fassler has announced her resignation from the paper effective at the end of this week. She was not one of those laid off, but I understand that Kim’s mother, who had been with the Advertiser for over 15 years, was one of those “victims of severe downsizing”.
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“draconian”? oh give me a freaking break. oh, you poor, overpaid privileged white man.
arrrghhh!
so… what happened with the shirt?
After 2o years with General Electric, I can tell you that it would not be unusual in a regular corporation to weigh an executive’s transgression against past contributions, but more important, potential future contributions, and then decide what to do.
I say “more important” because it’s probably a bottom-line driven decision. Something like, “ok folks, here we are with this: is the company better off with him, or better off without him?”
In a more public situation this may not be possible, but I don’t see a problem with HTA deliberating on what’s best for the organization and for tourist promotion, and then going ahead and doing it.
If tourism is good for Hawaii, and if they make the best choice, whatever that may be, then in theory, anyway, their decision should benefit the industry and our economy.
I’m not saying the choice should be to keep him. Maybe there are others who could produce as well. Just that a decision may be based on more important things than public snarking at the fact that porn was involved. The public is entitled to be concerned, and also to have the HTA make the best decision given the situation now before it.
Ha! The laughable thing about Platte’s latest insipid column (at the Advertiser we call them The Plattitudes) is that he HATED Dick Adair’s work. He’d complain all the time about how he was saddled with “this crappy artist.” The company bent over backward to get rid of Dick. The only way they were able to do so (because layoffs are done via seniority in departments) is to insist that Dick was the sole member of his department. Platte almost certainly is directly responsible for Dick Adair losing his job.
Platte is the most amazing hypocrite. What makes it even more offensive is that he’s a fanatical born-again Christian. As is Mariani-Belding, by the way. Needless to say, both are right-wing Republicans. Why is it that no one has asked them about their suppression of stories on the origin of the flayed corpses exhibited in that show “Bodies” at Ala Moana? O, we ran one wire story with a little local comment — but that was in error. Platte later delivered himself of a Plattitude on the subject and, buried in it, was the reason we run so many ads for the exhibit and so few stories on just whose corpses those are — we have an “advertising relationship” with the company that bought the corpses from the Chinese police.
You have no idea what goes on at that paper.
i just wanted to say, to LarryG, that i appreciate your comment, and think it made me a little smarter … without trying to sound coy or condescending.