Honolulu Weekly Publisher Laurie Carlson is urgently reaching out to friends and supporters in hopes of staving off a financial crisis that could put the newspaper out of business just weeks after marking its 20th anniversary.
In an email sent yesterday and forwarded by one of the recipients, Carlson said David Black’s Oahu Publications, owner of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, is demanding payment of about $20,000 in past due printing bills by next Wednesday, August 10.
They are “threatening, essentially, to close down the Weekly” if they aren’t paid, Carlson wrote.
“We have stopped paying them, not because we are ignoring our obligations but because we needed to use our existing cash flow to pay our current printers, Maui News,” the email explained.
The Weekly shifted its printing to Maui after Oahu Publications took over the Honolulu Advertiser, creating a daily newspaper monopoly in Honolulu, and substantially boosted its printing and advertising rates.
Carlson wrote: “I haven’t taken a salary in the past three years, so I am a bit tapped out and a little exhausted in the face of this.”
The Weekly, like many publications including the Star-Advertiser and its predecessors, has been hard hit by the Great Recession. This is not the first time the newspaper has struggled financially during its 20 years of publishing, which have also been marked by frequent editorial staff turnover amid complaints of low pay for writers and editors, micromanagement, and related criticisms. But the Weekly has also been the training ground for many writers and editors who have gone on to prominent roles in other publications and organizations.
Honolulu Weekly has been challenged by the monopoly practices of the big publishers, first by Gannett, and later by Oahu Publications.
Former editor Chris Haire described Gannett’s attempts to muscle alternative publications off retail store shelves in Greenville, S.C., similar to what was done here in Honolulu.
Gannett representatives approached businesses known to distribute free weeklies—shoppers, real estate guides, various niche publications and Metrobeat—and offered them a deal many couldn’t refuse—TDN (“The Distribution Network”) not only wanted to set up newspaper racks at these locations, but the distribution company would pay these businesses for the privilege of doing it. Many signed on. What some of these business owners didn’t realize was how the arrangement would affect free publications that weren’t part of the Gannett empire. In many cases they didn’t realize that free papers like Metrobeat would have to pony up cash to get a slot on TDN’s racks.
Carlson is asking supporters to invest in the Weekly’s future.
My thought is this–if I can find 20 people who care enough about the Weekly to loan or donate $1,000 each we can do it. So far, in the last 30 hours, I have commitments for $6,500.00.
Commitments to buy future ads would also be a way to contribute, Carlson suggested.
Carlson can be reached via email, or by phone at Honolulu Weekly, 808-528-1475 x17.
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David Black has pulled similar aggressive, monopolizing stunts in Canada over the years, very successfully. For evidence of this, just do some Google searches with his name and publishing experience. It is very easy to find. People who work for his Honolulu paper, the Star-Advertiser, have long ignored Black’s darker side since Black basically saved their jobs and pay. Fortunately, Laurie Carlson is not the quiet type. She has admirably fought for many years to provide alternative news and information on this island.
I’d imagine it be easy to attract investors if the current HW operations are cash positive and just needs to retire $20k in old debt. Probably not the case. My guess is that the paper is still hemorrhaging cash in which case its future is doubtful. I personally don’t much care for the HW but wish it good luck.
WHEN it is over, it is OVER.
Welcome, to the monopolistic world of Hawaii print journalism.
I can’t be alone in thinking that HW and CB are platonic opposites, each needing the other to be complete. It would be chivalrous of the young upstart to make the first move. And bad juju for the troubled Weekly to demur. A merger could bring about some semblance of a two-paper town.
What an interesting idea….
It’s probably 10 years old by now, but there is a wonderful book titled “The Chain Gang” which details the ruthless tactics employed by Gannett to drive competing publications out of business. Author is Richard McCord. Ironically, I was introduced to the book by someone working for David Black when he was in the process of acquiring the Star-Bulletin.
Read closely. “The Chain Gang” also describes a complacent, mediocre, self-absorbed newspaper ownership and staff that wouldn’t fight too hard for quality or survival. It seems the author set out to chronicle the ruthlessness of Gannett but couldn’t totally ignore the other half of the equation.
Black is just a cut rate Gannett.
I agree with Warren – and Ian.
Still, the Star-Advertiser does have one exceedingly strong department – sports – that no other publication – print or electronic – in this town can come within shouting distance.
Meanwhile, I am torn because I lack both the hardware and the tech skills to be moving forward into the 21st century. I can barely receive/send e-mails any more plus anything fancy such as reading attachments in English, watching videos, etc., are something that I will probably never learn to use, let alone have the appropriate equipment.
On the other hand, I acknowledge how incredibly valuable the Internet is when it comes to doing research & keeping up with what’s going on “out there.”
Print publications simply cannot keep up.
Fortunately, the library does have computers which can open my world. Unfortunately, I am almost always busy until after 10 pm so that means the library is not that accessible.
Sports? Well … you’re easy to please.
I once saw Larry King giving a lecture, talking about how he was friends with Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. King said that his daughter’s friend was over at his house once, looking at an old radio on display in the living room. The friend bent over examining at the radio and asked “What’s ‘am’?”
“What’s ‘am’?”
King explained that young people listen to FM, old folks listen to AM. It’s not a red state/blue state thing. In the distant future, one would expect a lot of these whippersnappers to switch to AM, but some won’t, and the ranks of FM will slowly swell.
Both Civil Beat and Honolulu Weekly are a bit like FM.
Young people might pick up Honolulu Weekly at UH on Fridays to see what’s going on. By the time they get married and buy a house in Aiea and have kids, HW is a distant memory.
CB is different from HW in this way. CB is a bit like public radio. Public radio is on the FM dial, right next to all those rock stations that listeners will probably cease to listen to as they age. But for that small section of educated listeners who do tune into public radio, as they age, public radio will become more central to their lives.
This brings us to the issue of advertising, which public radio at one time must have disdained tremendously. Turns out that advertising on public radio is essential to its survival; the question is how to contain it.
I once heard a member of the US House lambasting public TV, saying that PBS “could learn a thing or two from McDonald’s…” That’s exactly the kind of cultural gulf between CB and the Star Advertiser. The SA is not really a proper newspaper in terms of journalism, but is rather a newspaper-like product in terms of a business. CB might be openly arrogant toward the SA, but it is mutual. The SA staff look at CB and scoff “That’s not a real business plan!”
But sooner or later CB may have to adopt ads in some form, the way public TV and public radio have in limited form. At that point, the SA will lose market the way the AM radio stations lost market with the advent of FM. There will always be an SA that is dominant in terms of market share, with its McDonald’s-like business plan, but perhaps CB will be the first news outlet that anyone with a college education will go to first to catch a breaking story (e.g., a hurricane). That will cut into SA’s advertising revenues.
The Star-Bulletin laid me off two days before the merge with the Advertiser. Fourteen months later, I’m having a lot of trouble paying my bills. Things are getting pretty desperate.
But am I going to complain that my Visa credit card holder is being “unfair” because it keeps sending me bills? Is it a “monopolistic” business tactic to expect me to pay back the money I’ve borrowed? What about my groceries? Is it unfair for Foodland to expect me to pay for ALL the groceries I buy? Can’t they give me a break? Maybe wait another year, and give me free food in the meantime?
Well, if you were a competitor to Visa, your analogy might be a bit better.
Yes, they deserve to get paid, but it seems like there should be some added protections when it shuts down a competitor.
Laurie Carlson depicts the Star-Advertiser’s attempt to collect a past-due printing bill as “threatening, essentially, to close down the Weekly.” That’s typical of the sense of entitlement she’s shown over the past two decades.
Regarding Warren Iwasa’s suggestion that Civil Beat and Honolulu Weekly are candidates for a merger: Merging one money-losing entity with another seldom makes sense, and does not here. What would HW bring to the table besides freelance-driven editorial, a ragtag collection of small advertisers, and haphazard street-stand distribution?
Far better for Civil Beat to pursue a tighter alliance with the complementary Hawaii Public Radio. CB has a robust reporting staff but a meager audience. HPR has a meager reporting staff but a robust audience. CB and HPR are the logical fit.
Aren’t CB and HPR already doing that? It seems like “The Conversation” on HPR has a daily feature in which they talk to a CB writer or editor about a recent CB story.
Dave Pellegrin and I seek different outcomes. His proposal to strengthen CB and HPR does not bring us any semblance of a two-newspaper town.
HW is a weekly newspaper. It’s printed on newsprint; it comes out regularly, and we can read it at noon while enjoying lunch. It needs stronger editorial, though; even the narrowly focussed, squinty-eyed sort practiced by CB would help.
HW’s strengths are: experience in ad sales, street presence, a valuable archives, a willingness to work with freelancers, arts/entertainment coverage, Pritchett, Tom Tomorrow, and the legacy of journalists like the late Bob Rees, who in all likelihood was difficult to work with but who, on occasion, came up with the sort of investigative pieces that asked tough questions that CB promises to do but still has not produced.
I just want to say, first, that Civil Beat got rid of the scroll bars on their Today’s Headline section. (Those were a pet peeve of mine.) Ian, your website is a vehicle for change!
Also, we are speculating on a consortium of news sources in the future that would compete against the SA. But the SA might be a part of that consortium. Their monopoly is actually a symptom of weakness in an industry in decline. The SA may eventual come begging hat in hand to join an online consortium, not now but years from now.
They put the scroll bar back. Darn.