One just published, one coming soon…
“REPORTER” by Bob Jones is now available at Amazon.com
It’s a memoir, something of a tell-all, and a studied look at the good and bad in American journalism. It’s my story of my time at various newspapers, local print and TV news and network foreign reporting.
It’s sprinkled from start to finish with insider stories about the Honolulu Advertiser, the Star-Bulletin and KGMB-TV, plus a lot about the St. Petersburg Times, the Overseas Weekly, the Louisville Courier-Journal and NBC News.
I’ve used real names. People many of you know or have read about. I rejected using pseudonyms. So the guilty and the innocent get equal billing!
People inside and outside of journalism and public relations will get an eyeful. Also the military, especially the 25th Infantry Division and the Kaneohe Marines. I’ve let it all hang out about the Vietnam War.
I have more than 50 years in journalism in the U.S., Vietnam, Laos, Germany, Spain, Nigeria, France, China, Japan, Korea and Saudi Arabia. I’m still in the game as a columnist for MidWeek, a 298,000 circulation newspaper in Hawaii.
I hope you will take the time to read it. What I have to say is germane to our democracy. You’ll understand much more about what you read in your newspapers or see on your local or network TV newscasts.
And, coming soon:
Aloha, Lady Blue: A Mystery
Here’s what Charley had to say about it:
I’m stoked to announce that one of the best known TV personalities in the … ah … well … world – Pat Sajak – has written a cover blurb for my novel “Aloha, Lady Blue.” It’s an honor to have such a entertainment icon on the “Aloha, Lady Blue” team. Needless to say, my handlers at St. Martins Press are crazy happy about this. My great thanks to Hawaii KHON-TV News Anchor Joe Moore for introducing me to Mr. Sajak. Joe and Pat served together in Vietnam. When Joe’s not busy being Hawaii’s best known news anchor and Pat isn’t spinning the “Wheel of Fortune,” the pair dabble in acting. They recently appeared together as “The Odd Couple” in a run at the Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
We’ve been lucky enough to get blurbs of support from some incredible people, including Kinky Friedman (who has a new book out now with Billy Bob Thornton), Andre and Maria Jacquemetton, executive producers and head writers of the Emmy-winning TV show “Mad Men,” Frank South, producer and head writer of “Baywatch Hawaii,” noted futurist and author David Houle, and others. As a little (metaphysically speaking, not physically) unknown writer way out here in Hawaii, it’s humbling to get this kind of support. (We have blurb commitments from some other amazing nationally-known authors and hope to be able to announce them soon.)
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Always liked and trusted Bob Jones and his reporting so jumped right on it today and ordered the book…excited to read it.
Looks like nostalgia’s in the air….
Recently, mayoral candidate Kirk Caldwell boasted that Honolulu’s proposed fully automated rail system is going to have the latest cutting edge technology, surpassing the rail technology in every other American city.
http://www.civilbeat.com/fact_checks/2012/09/25/17153-fact-check-caldwell-honolulu-on-cutting-edge-of-driverless-rail-systems/
What the local media have long not addressed, it seems, is that the City kept the fact that the rail would be automated top secret from the public (and from the unions) from the very beginning. The City and its spokesmen have always denied that the rail project would be automated as a labor saver. But whenever the rail system was proposed in the past prior to Mayor Hannemann’s push for rail, that was the major feature: a system that could replace not only buses, but drivers.
The other thing that the media have not jumped on is how the very ‘cutting-edge’ nature of the proposed automated rail system contradicts one of the most controversial aspects of the rail system: that it is an old-fashioned steel-wheels on steel-rail system that was chosen supposedly because it is “tried and true” — that is, that it’s the oldest form of rail. The politicians said they chose this system because of their experiences with Aloha Stadium’s dysfuntional “futuristic” rustproofing system of bare metal that has a deliberate rust patina.
That might have been part of the reason for the steel-on-steel choice. But by having a cursory review of all other options, the elite basically removed a menu of options from the public that would have bogged down the path to a rail system. Completely open debate would have been endless. And, indeed, part of a politician’s job is serving as an editor who enframes issues and keeps issues tightly focused and clear (e.g., Ronald Reagan as the “Great Communicator”) for public debate. But basically, the debate on technology was eradicated from the beginning (which goes against federal regulations).
There might be three reasons for this. One is perhaps a seeming discomfort with open debate among many local politicians. Frank Fasi, in contrast, relished debate, he could beat anyone. But a lot of politicians in Hawaii seem more like bureaucrats who want to keep a low profile.
Another reason might be a simple lack of knowledge. For example, someone related how when they asked Panos Prevadouros about transportation systems, he would listen carefully and then expound for fifteen-minutes to answer one’s question. You might not agree with the answer, but he listened and was knowledgeable. In contrast, whenever Mufi Hannemann was asked a question about transportation issues, he would interrupt the questioner and say, “Trust me. Just trust me.” In retrospect, one gets a sense of a total lack of knowledge on Hannemann’s part, not just in transportation, but generally. Singing is not a substitute for knowledge.
The third reason might be a deep kind of conservatism. When people are feeling a little blue, they eat ‘comfort food’, like fried chicken or ice-cream or saimin, the simplest, home-made junk food of their childhood. One gets a sense that there is this small zone of comfort among certain politicians in Hawaii, and they do not want to go beyond that. Like when there were public meetings on the North Shore about a new sewer system, and some members of the public proposed a natural wetlands system like those in California, rather than a giant, 1950s-style mechanical facility, the bureaucrats and politicians sat wide-eyed and responded, “Um, we don’t know anything about that. Sounds kind of unconventional….”
So there is this interesting juxtaposition between deep conservatism and a kind of futuristic utopianism with this rail project. The hardware will be the oldest (and clunkiest) possible system, and the software will be the latest unproven technology. And on the face of it, that would seem to be a formula for dysfunction. Cross your fingers and don’t sell the car.
It like if the HPD came out and said, “We tried to have our officers carry guns, but that was too complicated and dangerous. So now we will be issuing only spears instead. But each spear will have its own GPS-guided missile system….”
But this leads us to another, even more important topic, which is the rising price of aviation fuel and how it could potentially destroy Hawaii’s economy. This has been known from 2008, and no one talks about it. In the face of peak oil, cars can be electrified (although not commercial trucks), and ocean shipping will remain cheap (with the exception of refrigerated or frozen produce). The problem is that there is no substitute for petroleum-based aviation fuel. No one is talking about that.
The only response I have heard to this dilemma is a politician who said that “Hawaii is going to supply the whole world’s jet fleets with bio-fuels….” That it take petroleum to produce bio-fuels, often at a one-to-one ratio, belies the naivety of this statement.
So there is this deep conservatism manifest in an unwillingness to talk rationally or at all about issues, which is oddly coupled with the most unrealistic and uninformed utopian schemes that seems to lie behind so much of pubic policy coming out of the local Democratic Party.
Nobody’s reading that wall of text, and it’s impolite to hijack someone else’s blog this way.
agreed, nancy. a good example of too much spare time and strongly fastened rail in the brains.
And your comments have what to do with Bob Jones and Charlie Memmenger’s books??
I hope that the Hawaii State Library gets copies of these two new books, they sound interesting. However, they are not listed on the Library’s website yet.