How about those results in the special election to fill the District III vacancy on the Honolulu City Council? They provide another two newspaper moment.
I read the Advertiser’s story with interest this morning and quickly realized that it never reported the actual vote. How many votes did the winner get? Advertiser readers don’t know because the story only reported the percentage of the vote received by each candidate, and even that was rounded off to a full percent.
The Star-Bulletin, on the other hand, included a table with the actual vote count in the middle of the front page, a welcome bit of key information.
I was surprised last night when Island Insights on PBS Hawaii announced a repeat broadcast of a program on renewable energy originally broadcast back in February. This time around, host Dan Boylan announced the program had been funded by Hawaiian Electric. I may just be cynical, but that sounds to me like a conflict, leaving the viewing public with a reasonable suspicion that the perspective was slanted by the interests of the company that paid the bills.
Good on PBS Hawaii for disclosing the funding relationship with HECO. Not so good, though, that the conflict situation was not questioned at the front end. It came across as too much like an infomercial for the company.
The Star-Bulletin ran a story yesterday on a local woman who is “one of 30 women honored nationally by Working Mother magazine as “Working Mothers of the Year” for balancing careers, families and self-development.”
Not to take anything away from this winner’s professional accomplishments, but Meda quickly noted that, down in the story, we learn that this “working mother of the year” relies on her stay-at-home husband to manage the home-work balance.
She said her family life was hectic until she and her husband, Zack Jones, decided he would remain home to take care of the house and children. “I feel fortunate to have a situation where one of us can stay home … and I think it’s great that my daughters get to spend so much time with their dad. If I’m not there or traveling, I know they’re OK.”
Her husband volunteers at the girls’ school, Le Jardin Academy, is assistant coach and videotapes school performances and events she misses, she said. “We try to re-create our own experience at home. He does a really nice job to make sure we stay connected even though I’m not around as much.
The magazine’s own item acknowledges the crucial stay-at-home dad only indirectly.
Roles and schedules often change. As a family unit, be flexible and always communicate so needs are being met. When my husband and I both used to work, we had nannies taking care of the children. Life was hectic and we didn’t spend much time together, even though we had the economic means to live comfortably on one salary. We decided to make a change and everyone is happier.
A male executive with a non-working wife taking care of the kids at home would be, well, very traditional. Really not the kind of thing that wins awards. Does the gender reversal really change that equation?
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The Advertiser also reported today that Anderson “easily topped his two closest competitors, former council members Steve Holmes and John Henry Felix.” But the same article later explains that Felix actually came in a distant fifth. How does that make him a “closest competitor?” Does that paper have any idea how elections are conducted?
Ikaika’s twittering was interesting only because it made it seem he was signwaving and attending a lot of events (also that he was hooked into the Hope Chapel network of nondenominational churches in that region). I met him a few times when he worked for Whitney Anderson in the legislature. He stopped twittering last night before the results got announced. . . .
“I read the Advertiser’s story with interest this morning and quickly realized that it never reported the actual vote. How many votes did the winner get?”
I guess this is the Advertiser’s idea of “interactive” journalism: they give the number of votes cast and the percentages that “the leading candidates” received and you’re supposed to figure out the actual vote numbers yourself! The percentage/number of votes for those candidates not named are then reduced to the “all other” category. Sad, all the way around.
The working mom (egads — ALL moms are working moms for one thing) award is a tough one. I am also a ‘successful professional’ and the mother of two kids. My spouse works part-time, by choice, partly to facilitate the demands of my job and our children. Are my accomplishments diluted because of that support?
Research has shown (see Bias without Barriers by the NSF) that women with children do not do as well professionally in the science fields as women with children. For many reasons. But one big reason is that to succeed in a “man’s world”, the whole work-life balance assumes that work is more important than ‘life’. Or that one has a spouse [wife] to take care of the life details. And men DO receive awards for being great dads, when it is their full-time parent spouses who do the day-to-day duties.
So I guess my answer is that yes, this mom still deserves the award. Because we’re all out there doing the best we can, however it works for each of our families (whether they be human, feline, or canine ;-)) — and if we ‘succeed’ then we should be recognized.
Don’t forget to mention that Hawaiian Electric Executive Vice President for Public Affairs Robbie Alm is Vice-chair of PBS Hawaii’s BOD.