Credit to the Star-Bulletin for getting Rob Shikina’s story about the Waianae teacher killed in a fall while hiking in Makaha Valley into Sunday’s print edition. The Star-Bulletin had the details on the victim while the Advertiser’s Sunday edition was still reporting that the identify of the victim was unknown. It isn’t clear whether the Advertiser held back because an “official” identification hadn’t been made yet, or whether they just hadn’t pursued the story.

And speaking of the Advertiser, it looks like there are changes in the works.

The Advertiser announced last week that former managing editor Jim Kelly will be returning to the newspaper as editorial and opinion editor. Kelly returns to the Gannett fold after five years as editor of Pacific Business News. His departure from PBN comes just a month after the retirement of PBN publisher Larry Fuller, another former Gannett newsman and executive.

Meanwhile, an internal memo from Mark Platte announced a newsroom “restructure”. Maui Bureau Chief Christie Wilson will be relocating to Honolulu later this month. Platte doesn’t mention whether the Advertiser will replace Wilson or simply drop the Maui Bureau, as it previously shut down its Big Island bureau.

Wilson will now join editors David Butts and Dan Woods. The three “will work as a team to develop strong
beat coverage and enterprise both online and in print,” according to Platte’s memo.

The impetus for the change is to have editors work much more closely with reporters than occurs now and to build the strongest possible stories, graphics, photos and online posts for our readers.

Some beats will change and discussions have already begun with those reporters involved but most are staying the same.

Platte then describes how three teams of reporters.

David Butts will oversee a team that includes Greg Wiles, Robbie Dingeman, Andrew Gomes, Rick Daysog, Sean Hao, Rob Perez and Alan Yonan.

Dan Woods will continue to supervise Will Hoover, Eloise Aguiar, Mary Vorsino, Michael Tsai, Suzanne Roig and Diane Leone. He will add Loren Moreno to his team.

Christie will have a team of Jim Dooley, Dan Nakaso, Derrick DePledge, William Cole, Gordon Pang, David Waite and columnist Lee Cataluna.

Curtis Lum will continue to report to Andy Yamaguchi.

Here’s another little media question–With the latest clash over U.S. bases in Okinawa putting U.S.-Japan political relations under so much pressure and drawing such extensive international news coverage, why is the issue pretty much off the radar in Honolulu, despite the fact that Oahu is “home” to the U.S. military’s Pacific Command and economically dependent on good U.S.-Japan relations. It’s a reminder that although there’s a lot of local news coverage of local military activity and lots of reporting of military public relations efforts, that hasn’t translated into the kinds of sources that support reporting of hard news about military-political issues.

And so it goes on this Monday morning.