Here’s one I noticed yesterday while taking a stack of newspapers for recycling. It was a front page, above the fold story in the February 3 Honolulu Advertiser.
The headline: “City receives first FTA rail payment”
But, according to the story, the payment has not been received. It will only come following the expected future signing of an agreement sometime before October 2011. That’s 2011, not 2010. So far, they have only the verbal assurance of FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff that it’s been included in the proposed federal budget. That’s a very, very long way from actual receipt of the payment. In my view, the headline is quite misleading.
At one level, I know it is simply paranoid to think that such errors could be connected to the Advertiser’s strong pro-elevated rail editorial stance. At another level, I keep feeling a nagging doubt. Too bad, because I think Sean Hao’s reporting on rail has generally been excellent.
Did you catch the BBC interview with David Murdock, chairman of Dole Foods broadcast on Hawaii Public Radio? Not knowing much at all about Murdock, it was an eye-opener. He’s a macho vegetarian, with a “you’ve got to be tough to overcome food temptation” attitude. In the interview, Murdock discusses his start in business, but doesn’t get around to how he moved from building and selling a house to amassing quite a fortune. He does mention owning nearly all of Lanai, although the don’t talk about his proposed renewable energy projects. Give it a listen.
And here are some things to track over at the legislature, where several bills that would restrict public access to information are alive and well.
I hear that the Hawaii Dental Association is making the rounds lobbying to revive HB 1212, HD1, SD1, which in its current form eliminate the requirement that the record of complaints lodged against licensed professionals, from contractors and plumbers to dentists, as well as the disposition of those complaints, be a matter of public record. The bill died in conference committee last year but carried over to the current session. Interestingly, the Hawaii Dental Association, which is reportedly the primary backer of the bill, does not appear to have a lobbyist registered with the Ethics Commission.
Both DCCA and the Office of Information Practices have warned against denying the public access to information about complaints. It is the kind of information that can become a matter of public safety and consumer protection.
A pair of bills aimed to provide the Hawaii Tourism Authority with a broad authority to withhold documents and discussions from the public to protect information about Hawaii’s competitive advantage in tourism. HB 2445 and SB 2187, SD1 have already been reported out of the initial committees.
In its testimony, which for some reason was not included in the testimony made public on the capitol web site, OIP said it was concerned that the language was overly broad and needs to be narrowly defined if the bill moves ahead.
Meanwhile, if you were surprised by the data on lobbying by public agencies posted here over the weekend, several bills that would restrict public agencies from using public funds for lobbying and purchasing gifts for public officials are stalled without being scheduled yet for hearings. All have double referrals, meaning that the deadline for moving out of the first committee is rapidly approaching. The bills are SB2515, SB2916, and HB 2841.
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Ethics is a relative term. That being said, it seems that there is no standard of ethics when it comes to headline writing.
I am not a professional journalist. But I understand journalists have a professional society. But this professional society appears only to exist for the “so called” professionals to pat each other on the back.
I have never heard the professional society come out and say — here is the top ten examples of “bad” or unethical “journalism” in the past year.
As the “profession” of journalism slowly disappears, should the rest of us have any sympathy?
Headlines in the Advertiser are very often wrong, misleading, or just plain dumb.
It might be tempting to attribute this one to editorial bias, but that would be giving the management way too much credit. It’s simple incompetence as usual, guaranteed.
Anyway, despite their editorial stance on rail, their news pages have often been ridiculously biased in the other direction. Or wrong, misleading or just plain dumb.
Oh now Bill…..a little harsh on the newspaper guys don’t ya think?? Let’s see, when you walk into any local Ad Agency office you will see piles and piles of “Pele” awards and other “professional society” pats on the back things. I’m guessin the TV folks do the same thing.You know, top ten of this and top ten of that. Geez, PBN makes a weekly issue out of selling advertorial as though it’s news…you know, top ten lawyers, top ten bankers, top ten dentists, and then there’s pages and pages of related ads. So why would you say that only the newspaper guys should publicly gut themselves? What other types of media do that?? I’m sure the Tizer gets thousands of headlines right on the money each week….I think we all should relax and not hold them to perfection cuz you don’t do it with anybody else. Or better yet, stop reading the paper and watch the so called “journalists” on the KGMB sitcom make fools of themselves with their little skits they make for news every morning. Oh and hey, don’t forget to tune in tonight. Stepanie Lum will take over coaching the girls basketball team. ohhhh…
The SPJ does put on a comedy revue one a year . . . .
Ok, so RealityCheck has a point. The professionals don’t need to make a list of their “worst” of the year.
But the question remains. What are the newspaper folks going to do to differentiate themselves from the rest of the web world?
They are still delivering a hard copy — that is nice. They still have some people on assignment — that makes it easier for public information people to respond to a smaller universe.
Besides that, aren’t they relying on credibility and professionalism to set themselves apart. If they don’t have those, then people may as well get their information from primary sources and random web blather and noise.
I kinda think headlines on the front page, above the fold, should always be accurate.
And I kinda think newspaper bosses should tell their readers the truth about little things like presidential candidate endorsements (or the conspicuous lack thereof), especially when a hometown favorite is in the running for the first time.
Kinda think they should also be candid and transparent about shutting down neighbor island bureaus and other business decisions.
Kinda think absentee corporate ownership of local media is not good.
Kinda old fashioned, I guess.
The all-too-frequent disconnect between story headline and story content is, I believe, primarily a function of the institutional practice of having someone other than the reporter — usually an editor — write the story headline. I don’t know if this practice is an industry standard and I’ve had it explained to me a number of times by the likes of Mark Platte but I still don’t understand it and won’t justify it by trying to explain it myself. I’ve seen too many good, or at least competent, reporters like San Hao get jobbed by this to think it is anything but a BAD idea, either because it permits editorial bias to trump reported facts or because it permits someone who may never even have read the story to label the product. Go figure.
Sorry but I don’t think Mr. Hao is even close to a decent reporter. His pieces are full of errors and conjecture, made worse by the Advertiser’s failure to meaningfully correct them. Guess it’s just a matter of opinion.
This just in:
Correction.
Frank Fasi unsuccessfully ran for governor five times. A news story on Feb. 9 and Feb. 5 contained inaccurate information.
Shouldn’t it be “news stories” on … ?
Pretty sad when you need to correct your corrections.