Lots of tittering being heard around town after CNN’s senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, took aim at Honolulu’s monopoly newspaper with a widely-reprinted column, “The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is Dead to Me.”
The Star-Advertiser led the incident off with a brief editorial aside, “Reporting live, in my Hawaiian shirt.” In a very short space, this little item dismissed news from the assembled White House correspondents as “fluff” and implied the press corps hides out in Waikiki while the real work, if any, is waiting elsewhere.
Henry took offense, as seems fair, and answered back in kind.
Ah, a charge of fluff from a newspaper whose front page on the very same day had a hard-hitting lead story headlined “Ahi stuck here for the holidays,” which bemoaned the fact that bad weather on the East Coast means less ahi tuna is being shipped out of of Hawaii. The story was so large that it was the only story on the front page.
Stop the presses.
Henry adds substance as well. Reporters stay in Waikiki because Kailua doesn’t have the visitor infrastructure to support “such a large group.” He points out White House staff also stay in Waikiki and, like reporters, shuttle to Kailua when needed.
The worst part is that the Star-Advertiser item mouths the same “no one goes to Hawaii to do real work” viewpoint that we criticize when it comes from mainlanders attacking official travel to conferences and conventions held here. And this from the state’s largest newspaper. Ouch!
Anyway, it’s an instructive little tiff, and it’s getting lots of retweets and links, showing up on places like Politico.com and elsewhere.
You’ve got to wonder what bored S-A staff penned the non-bylined item and what they have to say about it in the light of another morning.
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I’m also curious as to WHAT OTHER HAWAII STORY was happening on Monday afternoon? Some days are just slower than others, and we don’t have the luxury of delaying publication until something happens.
And we don’t look down our noses at people who fish for a living. Those are real jobs and hard work.
I missed the frontpage story about the ahi. Being a selfish lout, I would have recognized the importance of the story and, taking advantage of the glut, bought a few pounds of the mercurial fish-flesh.
How is this NOT important news?
Maybe the editorial was a little snippy, but it made a good point that Henry doesn’t counter very well, so I’m calling BS on him. A good enterprising reporter would separate him or herself from the pack and be closer to the reason to being here and stay in Kailua. Especially in TV news, wouldn’t that give you an advantage? Is Kailua really that quaint and remote that there are no accommodations for a reporter, producer and camera person? Waikiki is the only adequate base of operations? I think the piece hit a little close to home about pack journalism, and the point gets lost in all the window dressing about aloha shirts.
Henry claims to have the last laugh because he’s in Hawaii.
Nah, brah, we’ll still be here when you leave.
“Nah, brah, we’ll still be here when you leave”
LOL — This odd turf-war comment is laughable by itself.
You’re right. The whole thing is laughable … I guess you sort of got the joke.
OK, so the S-A is lame, but so is Ed Henry. Ever heard him ask questions at a Presidential press conference? His latest news story was about Alan Wong’s restaurant . . . I think they’re even.
“I’m also curious as to WHAT OTHER HAWAII STORY was happening on Monday afternoon?”
Well the death of a Major Hollywood executive on the Big Island… w/ many rumors surrounding everything from suicide to heart attack would be pretty interesting to some.
Re: Aron Abrams
By Monday, Aron Adams was pretty cold! Also, we try not to report rumors and speculation. Leave that to the bloggers. 🙂
Ahi front page story–LOL.
I sure miss the Advertiser:(
*touche* LOL 🙄 You got me!
right on the money…..if you dont like it, maybe dial in to the 7 or 800 “subscribers” civil beat has…..joke.
There are a number of issues being discussed here such as national perception of hawaii, the lack of understanding by the national media regarding local issues, and the profitablility of porn of the internet (Ben, the internet porn industry is also having a problem with free content–its called piracy 🙂
The irony in this discussion lies in locals questioning Mr. Henry’s assertion that Kailua lacks the infrastructure to accomodate the media. Illegal vacation rentals, as I’m sure Ian can attest to, is a HUGE issue on the windward side. To simply ignore that and staying at one of these fine establishments would not be good.
Actually, it might be a good story for the SA to pick up if Mr. Henry was actually staying in Kailua. Ah, missed opportunity!
“Adult content accounted for 69 percent of the $1.4 billion market for paid online content in Western Europe and the United States in 1998, with 84 percent of all revenues going to U.S.-based sites, according to a new study.”
http://www.pcworld.com/article/11124/porn_leads_web_moneymakers.html
Ben, are you going to quote the bible next?
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-15/news/ct-met-porn-attorney-20101115_1_face-lawsuit-anti-piracy-campaign-copyright-violators
I didn’t say internet porn hasn’t made money, I’m merely pointing out that offering content online(regardless of subject matter) has its challenges.
We went back to reading a “real” local paper about a month ago. Flashing ads, pop-ups, slow downloads and the lack of national & international news on the same site wound up costing me nearly four hours every day trying to keep up with the news.
Now I spend about 45 minutes every morning reading the paper back to front and maybe 30 minutes throughout the rest of the day skimming through ‘breaking news” coverage.
Now if I could only figure out how to do the same with these pesky blogs!!!
Just kidding. Have a safe and wet New Year’s – my kitties will most muchly appreciate it if you show some common sense when shooting off your fireworks.
“Hawaiians worried about raw fish while tens of thousands of people are stuck in airports. Jon Stewart material.”
But we don’t care about Jon Stewart material. And “Hawaiians” don’t care about tens of thousands of people stuck in airports across america.
“Important enough to be the only story on the front page of Honolulu’s only daily newspaper?”
on a “slow news day” why not.
More local omphaloskepsis. Only what happens in Hawai`i matters.
It would be fine if our economy was not controlled by outside companies, if we had some idea on how to run our schools, and if at least up until the Great Recession, our kids were not leaving to get jobs and own houses on the mainland. It would be fine if we weren’t dependent on tourists, stuck in airports, to come prop up our economy, since we never bothered to build one ourselves. It would be fine if those tourists didn’t get their impressions of Hawaii from the national media, like the Rock on Saturday Night Live and Jon Sewart
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-9-2010/rnc-meeting-in-hawaii, but Ainokea, I guess.
The Kingdom looked outwards and was an early adapter, a strategy to protect a small place against the great economic powers. Nowadays, like a cargo cult, we just wait for handouts from Uncle Dan and the tourists.
Ainokea and omphaloskepsis. A wonderful legacy to leave our kids.
Wait a minute! The “problem” is Honolulu’s only major newspaper is not everything it should be in an ideal world … and the “solution” is to cancel the subscription???
Who is canceling? I just want my money’s worth. The SA has good reporters but if we don’t complain, they won’t get the resources to do good work.
“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. ”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Of course there were more stories on Ahi day (12/28/2010). They were inside. This is part of the SA style choice. It’s not alone among newspapers in doing this, and it’s not a style I personally like, but it’s their choice to do it. It’s also cheaper several ways. For one thing, local reporters do not have to be paid to hunt up local stories. The SA is also a great news aggregator. LA Times, NY Times, other stories. Like many blogs, you can see these elsewhere. It probably also reduces production staff. Put in a big picture, job is done.
It takes work and investment to fill front pages with local news.
On the same day in 2009, the Honolulu Advertiser had these front-page stories:
Lab eases MIA mysteries
Ba-Le entrepreneur stakes his future on new location
Tobacco tax hikes help curb smoking
Retailers enjoying slightly brighter holiday season
There were also three teasers above the masthead.
The Star-Bulletin on that day had NO front-page stories. Their style was to have a headline with a paragraph or so that was essentially repeated inside. In other words, all teases. On that day, the big tease was:
The incredible shrinking SAM
accompanied by a very large picture of Sam Choy and his previous very large pair of pants.
Minor teases:
How did bombing suspect beat security measures? (apparently not a local story)
Illegal dumping threatens public lands
The decade brought groundbreaking TV
and something about tweeting. Above the masthead was a single tease about Those who made a difference.
So it is possible to fill a front page.
That’s not what they’re trying to do, though.
Thank you! Finally, some actual analysis of the quality of daily journalism in Hawaii! The real problem is Honolulu’s only major newspaper has significant issues that receive zero help from whining and scratching. More analysis, please.
If you want bathwater, you’ve got to keep the baby!