Torstar Corporation reported its third quarter financials earlier this month. The Canadian media company, publisher of the Toronto Star, holds a 20% stake in Black Press, owner of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Torstar, which is publicly traded, provides the only publicly available reports on the condition of Black Press.

Torstar is not currently recording its share of Black Press’s results. Torstar’s carrying value in Black Press was reduced to nil in the fourth quarter of 2008. Under Canadian GAAP a negative carrying value is not recorded, but any deficit must be recovered prior to the reporting of any further results. Torstar’s share of Black Press’s net loss would have been $0.7 million in the third quarter of 2010 compared with net income of $1.0 million in the same period last year. Year to date, Torstar’s share of Black Press’s net income would have been a loss of $2.3 million, including a $3.1 million impairment loss related to a customer-related intangible asset and goodwill related to a printing operation. Excluding the impairment charge, Torstar’s share of Black Press’s net income would have been $0.8 million year to date compared with $1.6 million in the same period last year. Black Press’s EBITDA has improved in 2010 but has been offset by higher interest and restructuring costs.

If you aren’t in the habit if reading comments, you might have missed this item from Poynter Online assessing the first six months of Civil Beat. Overall, it’s an upbeat review, while noting little is known about the financial aspects of this market test.

Honolulu Civil Beat’s six-month anniversary earlier this month roughly coincided with the elections, and the closely-watched online-only pilot chose to celebrate with three days of free access for all.

That’s one indicator of where the experiment with ad-free, quality content and discussion at $19.99-a-month stands: proud of its journalistic progress, still testing its business model. And for now we need to settle for indicators because billionaire founder Pierre Omidyar and Editor John Temple are opting not to discuss finances — or the size of Civil Beat’s paying audience.

Give KITV’s Keoki Kerr credit for catching news of the resignation of city parks director Lester Chang, along with the glimpse of early “issues” within the administration of Mayor Peter Carlisle. [Oops. My bad. The first version of this post incorrectly credited Denby Fawcett. Sorry, Keoki. I’ll plead the “no coffee yet” defense.]

As reported by KITV:

But he said the final straw came last week, when Carlisle held a news conference to announce the city parks department had erroneously cancelled the mayor’s arts and crafts fair over tax regulation concerns.

Chang said the mayor told some reporters that Chang had not told Carlisle of his decision to cancel the fair.

“The most disturbing part,” Chang said, was that he’d already told members of the Carlisle administration about his decision to cancel the fair.

“The week before, I had told the whole cabinet,” Chang said.

Problem is, Carlisle did not attend that cabinet meeting, which a Carlisle spokesman confirmed.
“The mayor might not have known, but certainly his people did,” Chang said.

Very interesting.

KITV’s Denby Fawcett was first up with her interview yesterday with former Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona. The Star-Advertiser followed with a story this morning by Derrick DePledge.