The Star-Advertiser reported today on Big Island resident Eric Lighter’s conviction on federal wire fraud and related charges. It’s a “premium” story, meaning you can’t read it without a subscription. You would think that means the story has some special value.
Problem #1: He was convicted on December 20, almost two weeks ago, making it rather old news.
Problem #2: The Star-Advertiser already reported an AP version of the same story it the “breaking news” section on December 22.
Problem #3: The Star-Advertiser’s December 22 and January 2 stories both appear to be based on the same government press release without additional reporting.
Problem #4: You wouldn’t know, from the S-A story, that the Star-Bulletin archives contain some detailed reporting on earlier cases of fraud involving Lighter.
Admittedly, I’ve got a personal interest here because I recognized long ago that Lighter was a world-class con artist and his schemes worth reporting on.
So even though it’s a legal holiday, and the end of a long holiday weekend, I still hope to get more than rewritten press releases from our daily newspaper.
But it is what it is.
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We often purchase the StarBull on Sundays, and read what passes for its content online. But I often wonder if Hawaii would be better served by no major daily paper at all than this sham of a newspaper… then again, it does help with the window or mirror washing, and I understand can wrap fish.
I’ll save the rest of my scorn for the online version. It seems to have more ads than news or other informative teasers. You generally have to close the rolldown ad just to scroll the page.
Worse, it more or less spits on you from the get go with the pic of mean, selfish, ol’ L.L. on the top left (online version). She surely isn’t top or left – or much of anything else – but only is campaigning ‘for herself.’ As if we could forget her misdeeds? No way, it’s just an insult to our intelligence!
Then there’s the shallow, often no content links with preciously little substance, if you pony up for the ‘$ervice,’ something I have yet to do.
I often find more info in the local t.v. websites as well as the “minor” newspapers located on the islands – and got to major news sites for more depth and field than the online version of the Star Bull… yet I continue to check it daily, after the other sites, hoping to find I’m wrong.
To anyone intending to read all of the comments to this blog. Please disregard my post from what is currently the bottom of the page, I seem to have accidentally invoked some html code or something that left out chunks of my post. Hmm, come to about it, after reading again the comment I’m responding to in order to get my post higher on the page, I realize that this is actually a pretty appropriate spot for it. Here is my same post from lower on the page with longer quotes now appearing between triple asterisks. *** quote ***
Ian Lind said:
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Problem #1: He was convicted on December 20, almost two weeks ago, making it rather old news.
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If you think news from two weeks ago is old, take a look at this. This is an attempted post of mine to another forum from Dec. 25, 2011:
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Regarding today’s Star-Advertiser story, 12/25/2011, covering tax collections for the rail, I find it interesting that info on the featured tax collection period was already in the news back in July:
http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/551699/Business—In-Brief—July-23–2011.html?nav=8
“The Honolulu Authority for Transportation says revenue from the general excise tax, or GET, came in at $179.1 million for fiscal year 2011”
It seems like the Star-Advertiser is giving rail two bites of the good news apple for the same bit of news. I wish they would see fit to do the same when it comes to all the news that doesn’t make rail look good. The bad stuff often doesn’t get mentioned even once.
Additionally, does the rail financial plan remind anyone else of the Ansaldo contract? You know, they both have a lot of the cost stuffed into later years when they hope it will be too late for the public to change its mind.
Take a look at that graph that accompanies the article. The city is counting on collections increasing every year without fail until 2023, when they are expecting to take in $300 million (Look at the red columns, not the blue ones– the plan the blue columns represent has already been abandoned by the city out of hopelessness). So remember America, and this goes for you too, Europe and Asia, no more recessions until after 2023, the Honolulu transit authority has spoken.
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(I hope everyone can understand the quoting convention I’m using for longer quotes; quoted material goes between
Because some time has passed and most of you who stumble across this comment won’t have that day’s Star-Advertiser handy, I’d like to quote the beginning of the 12/25/11 SA article in its entirety. Keep in mind that this was one of two front page, top of page stories. The headline was “City sees uptick in excise tax funds for rail.” The article spends considerable time framing the context of the “uptick in excise tax funds.” I’m going to include the framing because it supports the point I’m trying to make, which is that this is not exactly “new” news.
From the SA 12/25/11:
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The gradual economic recovery is providing a bit of fiscal cheer to the planners of the Honolulu rail transit project, with tax collections from the key source of funding finally coming in higher than the city has projected.
The rebound in collections from the excise tax surcharge devoted to rail transit is a significant and welcome change of fortunes for supporters of the $5.27 billion rail project.
“The excise tax trend is very encouraging and strengthens the project’s finances,” said Toru Hamayasu, interim executive director for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. “W. took a conservative and prudent approach to our revenue forecasting and we are pleased to see that the economy is doing better than projected. That’s good news for Hawaii and good news for the project.”
Excise tax collections for the rail project were $179.1 million for the past fiscal year, which was 9 percent ahead of the amount the city had projected.
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Once more, from mauinews.com on July 23, 2011:
“The Honolulu Authority for Transportation says revenue from the general excise tax, or GET, came in at $179.1 million for fiscal year 2011”
http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/551699/Business—In-Brief—July-23–2011.html?nav=8
This may have been front page worthy news… back in July.
The article does next go on to say that tax collections for the most recent quarter came in at 6% over projections, which is more recent news, but the “uptick in excise tax funds for rail” mentioned in the headline was first reported in July, the most recent quarter news is just more of the same. The first sentence of the 12/25/11 SA front page story reads in part, “with tax collections from the key source of funding finally coming in higher than the city has projected.” The news about tax collections “finally coming in higher” was first reported locally nearly half a year ago.
One more thing, until just now, I had never checked to see whether the Star-Advertiser had itself covered this story back in July. I was just commenting off the fact that mauinews.com did. But I just did a google search on “staradvertiser.com $179.1 million for the past fiscal year” and here are two items that popped up on the first page of the google results.
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Newswatch – Hawaii News – Honolulu Star-Advertiser
http://www.staradvertiser.com › NewsJul 22, 2011 – This site requires cookies be enabled, please click here for instructions. … fiscal year, totaling $179.1 million for the fiscal year. That’s 9 percent …
City rail tax revenues are ahead of … – Honolulu Star Advertiser
http://www.staradvertiser.com › News › BreakingJul 21, 2011 – This site requires cookies be enabled, please click here for … quarter of this fiscal year, totaling $179.1 million for this fiscal year. …
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For one reason or another I don’t care to click on the above links right now but considering that the story from Maui is dated July 23, I think its safe to say that the above Star-Advertiser stories from July 21 and 22 are about the same subject. So make that 3 bites from the same good for the rail project news apple.
Or is it… a paid advertisement apple?
Thanks Not Spam, my home delivery subscription was just doubled and now I know for sure not to waste any more money on a paper with no self-respect.
It is as important as ever to have multiple non-newspaper sources to piece together news that is being missed. Mainstream media is neither consistent nor reliable.
I just double-checled today’s (real) paper and found nothing in it about the fraud story. I assume that it will appear in tomorrow’s (real) paper.
We went back to reading a (real) paper a little over a year ago because of the length of time it takes to read an on-line version plus its inconvenience – my computer is a 2003 Dell desktop which is all I can afford – of being forced to read in in one location.
I can now read the (real) weekday paper in less than 45 minutes back-2-front compared to about two hours on-line because of the s-l-o-w-w-w-w-w downloads and the pop-ups.
As for the breaking news & free national websites, I check them at public facilities such as the library or the Capitol’s Public Access Room during normal working hours. Long weekends like this one are a major pain in the buttinski.
With respect to alternative local news sites such as Civil Beat, I don’t really have much access to them because of my lack of access to a computer 24-7 combined with the fact that public facilities do not have paywall subscriptions.
The true sin is that these editors apparently do not read their own newspaper (much like those at the Tribune-Herald). That is whys stories re-appear (not updates in any way).
If you hate ads, there are several ways to never see most of them. Google for them. No popups, no image ads, and usually no text ads.
Should the programs like Hostess and Ad-Block (for FireFox) become even more popular, advertisers may figure out that many users are not viewing their ads. Fair? Unfair? If we can shuck our newspaper when it comes in and throw away those obnoxious wrap-ads and full-page insert, why not do the same on the web?
There is also Ad Block for Safari for you Mac users. Just got it. Seems to work, yes! Thanks Larry.
It is what editor Frank Bridgewater accepts.