Some UH Manoa faculty are feeling a bit whipsawed by Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw’s dual public announcements last week. First was her budget broadside predicting layoffs of “a significant number of personnel”, including lecturers and other faculty.

This was followed shortly by an invitation to a coffee hour introducing eight new administrative appointments, including a new vice chancellor for academic affairs, six new staff in that office, and another public information officer in Hinshaw’s office.

The talk of faculty cuts while the administrative ranks continue to swell, most at salaries well above the typical faculty member, has drawn criticism from the faculty union on prior occasions. I would expect more will be coming.

The Star-Bulletin informed subscribers this week that it is ending afternoon publication and becoming a morning newspaper.

In a letter dated April 3, subscribers were told morning delivery will begin on Monday, April 13. At the same time, the newspaper will convert to a tabloid format like MidWeek.

Congratulations to all the award winners in the annual Hawaii Publishers Association competition. I stumbled and missed the news when they was announced several days ago.

Speaking of the Star-Bulletin, check out the soft launch of a new blog, HonoluluAgonizer.com by S-B writer Burl Burlingame.

The Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge has much more of the story on that $20,000 from Focus On the Family Action for lobbying against civil unions in today’s newspaper.

About the new site, Burl says:

I am experimenting with this, and don’t want to get political or newspapery. The subject is a little bit of humor, some cartooning, some photography with a dash of history and social comment. No kitty pictures. Neither newspaper is doing humor or cartooning now, so maybe there’s a niche. I dunno. I can’t post items every day. Just when the muse amuses me.

Finally, even the woes of the newspaper industry can create opportunities. Two Gannett managers, facing manadatory furloughs, have created a web site so to facilitate house swapping during furlough-inspired vacations (dubbed “furcations”). The site was the subject of an Editor & Publisher story this week.