• We happened to be watching KITV’s news at 6 p.m. on Saturday and caught their story on the concussion suffered by the Damien High School quarterback during a football game Friday night.
The problem was that it was played purely as a human interest story. Quotes from family and friends, coach and teammates, prayers being offered and solicited for his recovery. The story gave no hint that brain injuries in football are a huge issue across the country, and failed to take any sort of look at how Hawaii’s high school football authorities have responded to the policy issues involved. This unfortunate occurrence should have provided the occasion to at least let viewers know there are a host of related issues, and to assess measures taken here to prevent or deal with traumatic head injuries in football. But we didn’t get that.
The Star-Advertiser, in its Sunday sports section, mentions the injury only in a tiny summary of the game, although it does add the crucial information that the student athlete “remains in intensive care.”
• Honolulu Weekly publisher Laurie Carlson followed her email appeal sent to selected friends with a broadside fund appeal which appears in the current issue of the Weekly.
Carlson describes in pretty stark terms the new dynamics of the media marketplace. Small businesses, the bread and butter of a publication like Honolulu Weekly, are increasingly turning to online social media to promote themselves and communicate with customers, Carlson wrote.
In addition, Carlson puts blame on public relations firms who sell their clients on opportunity for free news coverage.
A number of promoters and public relations firms want to rely on the free publicity the Weekly gives them, without considering the essential financial support that we need to operate. As a result our income dwindles while expenses rise.
It’s not a pretty picture, but it is the reality that all media are facing. I’m afraid it’s adapt or die, although I do support public policies that favor distribution of news, whether in the form of tax breaks or other policies, some of which I touched on in an essay included in “The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future.”
The Maui News recently editorialized on the issue of adapting to the internet and finding ways to make it pay.
We just have to figure out a way to make online readers pay for the information Ilima Loomis, Harry Eagar, Brian Perry, Rob Collias, Lila Fujimoto, Rick Chatenever, Kehaulani Cerizo, Melissa Tanji, Chris Hamilton, Lee Imada, Brad Sherman, et al., develop for your vital knowledge of what is going on in your community.
They can’t work for nothing and we can’t give the fruits of their labor away.
• One of Civil Beat’s underlying problems was stumbled over this week during coverage of the labor board hearings on an unfair labor practices complaint by HSTA, the teachers union, against the State of Hawaii.
On the positive side of the ledger, CB is actively covering the labor board hearings, including live blogging from the board’s open sessions.
But despite having a reporter following the issue, Civil Beat was apparently taken by surprise when UHPA issued a broad attack on HSTA’s leadership in an email sent to all UHPA members late Friday. The move was significant in Hawaii’s labor community, where public airing of internal differences is rare. So while live blogging was describing what was happening at a superficial level, it wasn’t seeing the political dynamic of what was unfolding, which in this case may be more important.
My impression is that this isn’t the first time CB has been limited by its crew of relatively inexperienced reporters who aren’t yet able to catch the political nuances of what’s playing out in daily events. Daily media face the same problem of throwing fresh reporters into regular beats, but they usually have more experienced editors and senior reporters to rely on for historical and political perspective. CB, as a startup, lacks that deep bench. If it is able to survive, I’m confident CB can grow into the role it aspires to. It’s just not there yet.
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Civil Beat hired a bunch of kid reporters and editors who had and have no clue as to how to report news in Hawaii. As they say, “all politics are local” so is a news organization.
If I want the NY Times or CNN, they have their websites I can go to. CB has no effective local news coverage, because they have no local reporters who know what is going on.
They had the chance to scoop up Jim Dooley, but were too cheap and too late. I still can’t believe Dooley is at the Hawaii Reporter.
as usual Ian, good coverage of da news! yer my newspaper! Sad about the weekly… And it does not help things when they are demanded to pay some rental fee for the privilege of their stands to be placed here and there in places that will go unnamed! (Ward Warehouse shopping center)
Civil Beat appears to represent the meaning of the word naive very well. What a blown opportunity.
I wouldn’t classify Chad Blair as a kid reporter with no local experience. He wrote for the Honolulu Weekly and Pacific Business News for many years before working at Civil Beat.
I enjoy reading Honolulu Weakly (misspelling intended) to find out what the people I disagree with are saying. Sort of like Civil Beat. They’re worth every penny I pay for them. Weakly owner Laurie Carlson complains she hasn’t taken any pay or profit for herself for three years. Boo hoo. But what’s the beef? That’s what the leftists think rich people are supposed to do — spend their money providing freebies to the poor and downtrodden in support of “social justice.” Thank goodness we still have a free market which will sort out what (if anything) these propaganda rags are worth. PR firms advising their clients to advertise for free through social media rather than pay for ads in the Weakly? Imagine that! PR firms doing the job they’re paid to do. Property owners demanding payment for the space they own, where a newspaper thinks it should be able to put its newsbox? OMG. The nerve of those rich property owners! Don’t we know they’re supposed to let beggars sit there with their tin cups, let bums sleep there, and let the Weakly distribute its newspapers there?
I’m sure the monopolizing of markets and driving costs up artificially to squeeze out competition is the epitome of free market success. Gimme a break. Nice work showing your true colors as a right-wing nutjob, Ken. I mean its mostly obvious with your consistent crusade against social justice in favor of the power of the white man, but here you have done a nice job hitting all the mindless talking points and showing your intellectual honesty to be nil.
Whew.
Let’s ratchet it down.
Most of us here likely disagree with Ken to one degree or another, but he’s made some reasonable contributions.
I would like to encourage those rather than pounce on his overstatements.
At minimum, let’s fight the ideas and misinformation, not the person.
Ken, has your bridge game improved? You always thought that you were a knowlegable bridge player, too. Not so!
It’s been my impression that the Civil Beat tends to catch more stories that the Star-Advertiser lets slip, or flat out ignores, than the other way around.
For example, and off the top of my head, they are the only local news source (that I am aware of) that even tried to follow up on the our City council members trip to Europe and California to “learn more about other city’s experiences with Ansaldo.”
I no longer read the Star-Advertiser since they went behind their paywall and left Google News, but I’m pretty sure they never reported on Councilman Nestor Garcia’s no-show “part time” job with rail interests either.
I think the Civil Beat does a better job than most.
(disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the Civil Beat in any way other than subscribing)
I read all these comments about people who are no longer reading the Star Advertiser since they have to pay. So is the money moving elsewhere? Civil Beat?
Those of you that read Civil Beat, are you subscribers? Or just reading it for free?
I’m deciding which one to get Civil Beat or Star-Advertiser. Civil Beat says they are the same price as the Star, but if I pay the $50/yr it comes out to like $4 a month versus the Civil beat $9.95 a month with one month free (prepaid). So someone doesn’t know how to do math well. (it could be me, as math is not my strong point)
I understand that the Star-Advertiser is doing a subscription for online and I know that probably isn’t going to change. I accept it, and now as a consumer I want to know is it worth about $4 a month to continue to read the stories online. I assume that they have the same things I’ve been reading before, so I know what to expect.
But before I commit, I wanted to know more about Civil Beat.
For Civil Beat, I’m kind of new to it. Having just found it since the star advertiser put up their paywall. What i’m confused with is the number of stories Civil Beat produces. I read comments about how Civil Beat is doing a better job, but today for example their is NO news stories. Friday there were like two and Saturday another two. So over the last three days there was like 4 stories.
But I’m not a subscriber, so if I subscribe will I see more stories? I’m not really sure how Civil Beat works. So those of you that are subscribers can you tell me if I get to have all those great stories people are talking about.
I know they do the deep investigative type stories and the stories are longer. But it doesn’t take me three days to read them. I would like to have a larger volume of news that I can scan through and on a daily basis if I’m going to be paying.
So my big question is, would I make more sense for me to pay for the star advertiser and just go to civil beat for the ocasional investigative story?
Some of you will say, just go to the TV station websites. But the tv stations also don’t have the depth in coverage. the articles tend to be short and sports coverage is small as well. I’m a big Hawaii sports fan so not having the UH sports stories these last few weeks is driving me crazy.
I’m probably going to be make a decision this week and end up paying for a subscription somewhere. Just trying to figure out what would be the best choice.
A quick look at Civil Beat’s weekend archives…
• Saturday Aug. 20: Two news items (and I mean original content, not their aggregated feeds)
Sunday Aug 21: Nothing. Really?
So you’ll pay almost twice as much monthly for a Civil Beat subscription but you don’t really get weekend coverage. Is it because the legislature doesn’t work on the weekends they don’t either?
Now I respect that they do try to delve into the deeper details in their political coverage, but they’re trying to take on the SA head to head with their little quips and barbs – and it seems like they’re bringing a pocket knife to a gun fight here.
” let’s fight the ideas and misinformation, not the person.”
‘k den.
whew! Conklin’s ideas and misinformation are sure kookoo and pure kukae.
Ian, you are correct in pointing out that Civil Beat missed a story on Friday when UHPA sent an email sent to its members regarding the HSTA. However, I think you go way too far in saying Civil Beat isn’t seeing “the political dynamic” of what’s unfolding and then blaming that on ” its crew of relatively inexperienced reporters who aren’t yet able to catch the political nuances of what’s playing out in daily events.”
It was more than a month ago that Civil Beat produced an analysis of what’s at stake in this dispute. I’ll quote just two paragraphs:
“The legal questions in the HSTA dispute are highly technical, and the labor board will be deliberating over uncharted territory.
“But what it decides could determine the basis of future state labor negotiations.”
You can find that article here: http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/07/20/12150-abercrombie-vs-hawaii-teachers-whats-at-stake/
Reporters are going to miss stories. It even happens to old-timers. I think it’s dangerous to write about the age or experience level of journalists, rather than their work.
I didn’t see the veterans of the Star-Advertiser tear apart the financial analysis of Honolulu’s rail project the way Civil Beat’s Michael Levine did, earning SPJ’s top government reporting award. Nor did I see its veterans expose abuse of overtime in the city’s road division the way Civil Beat’s Nanea Kalani and Sara Lin did, earning SPJ’s public service award.
In another post you credit the Star-Advertiser’s Derrick DePledge for catching what you thought was the most important point about the governor’s New Day speech last week. What you didn’t mention was that Civil Beat reported the hiring of Kate Stanley to help the governor on Aug. 5, long before you would have learned the news from the Star-Advertiser.
For your readers who wonder about what they’ll get if they subscribe to Civil Beat, I would encourage them to register and get one month free. That should give anybody a good taste of the service we deliver, including our Morning Beat email. Here’s where to go to register: http://www.civilbeat.com/accounts/register/
John Temple
Editor & General Manager
Civil Beat
I think I understand what Ian, Russel, and Hugh are complaining about.
Reading CB, I wondered if any of its writers had worked on a political campaign in Hawaii, or possibly run one. Had any of them worked in Washington for a member of our congressional delegation? Did any have experience as a session worker at the Legislature?
Politics and public affairs have practical consequences. CB writers seem to write about both as classroom exercises, something mainly to be discussed. Does it matter to CB writers how things turn out? What is at stake, John Temple, in the Abercrombie vs. HSTA dispute?
I’m not saying that community journalism is easy. It’s very difficult to do right, to be clear headed when the consequences of an issue, depending on how it is resolved, might have a direct personal effect on you and the people around you.
Hawaii is unique and has a unique history. In this, we are like Texas, which also does things in a unique and often uniquely awful way. Texans, however, are fortunate in that they have the Texas Observer to explain the absurdities of Texas politics and politicians. It’s hard to imagine a Texas Observer writer who is not steeped in cowboy lore.
A show of equivalent knowledge about the history and culture of Hawaii would allow CB writers to write with greater authority. Ian would be a good guide to essential reading on the labor movement in Hawaii.
jeZUSSSS! all this pilikia makes me wanna stay faaaarrr away from the media in all its mulitudinous, ever morphing forms, for decades… and remain blissfully ignorant… of all the infighting and possible/probable misinformation and personality worship and pilikia which haoles LOVE to love. Pilikia to da extreme; drama and trauma. gawd dayum!
I guess John has answered my questions.
I had already done the register for one month free and when I go to Civil Beat there is still no stories for Sunday, August 21st. Only 2 stories each for Saturday and Friday.
Then this morning the first story I get on Civil Beat is “Selling Gold to the Gold Guys” http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2011/08/22/12593-selling-gold-to-the-gold-guys/
Not really sure what to make of that story. I guess they beat all other media to the punch with that story.
But what really has turned me off to Civil Beat is Mr Temple’s attitude. He seems to have a hard time taking any form of criticism, but is quick to criticize everyone else.
What he really needs to focus on is producing the best quality product he can. There is no need to criticize others to make your product look better.
I’m not really interested in why John Temple feels Civil Beat is better than the Star-advertiser.
I just want the news, I want best news product or products. If it’s a mix Civil Beat and Star-advertiser, then I’ll pay for both.
But for now I’ll just pay for the star-advertiser and read those occasional deep investigative civil beat stories for free.
I wish civil beat the best, and I hope John Temple can have one of his reporters investigate the “Aloha Spirit”. Civil Beat seems to be missing it.