A longtime newsie shared his very positive assessment on changes to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s online presence.
The Star Advertiser seems to be investing more time in keeping its online site ‘fresh.’ There is no longer a ‘breaking news’ section, although most of the kinds of stories that previously would appear in that category are still listed in one column – off to the left instead of center-of-page. The updated important stories (beyond the L&L offers Ramen Burgers variety) are posted with more substance in more prominent positions, those posted early in the day are enhanced with art and some are updated as the day goes on, etc.
The whole appearance gives the impression that someone is paying attention, which was not always the case before a couple of weeks ago. After one notices this, it makes it worth while to return to the page more frequently through the day.
Just an observation.
It looks like credit goes to the newspapers new digital editor, whose appointment was announced back in mid-January (“Star-Advertiser expands online with new editor“).
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is expanding its digital operation, staradvertiser.com and Star-Advertiser mobile applications. As part of this expansion, the Star-Advertiser has created a new position — digital editor — to oversee the expansion and hired two additional online content producers. The new hires are part of the Star-Advertiser’s push to be everywhere its readers are, including third-party mobile platforms and the Web.
Laurie Kawakami, the new digital editor, spent seven of the past eight years at The New York Times, in its New York office. In her most recent position at the Times, she was senior staff editor of a team that edited breaking news and multimedia for the Web. In that position, Kawakami worked with reporters and editors to edit and produce news across multiple platforms. She also managed the training/teaching of Web producers and testing of new digital editing tools.
Kawakami, a graduate of Mililani High School, received both her B.A. in communication and business administration and her M.A. in journalism from the University of Southern California.
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Yes, the Star-Advertiser website seems to be constantly improving, with continuous updates and embellishments for breaking news and stories under development. But there are occasional items giving the appearance of monuments or tombstones in a cemetery. One such item is Cynthia Oi’s final column. There’s nothing especially memorable or meritorious about it, but there it sits more than 2 months after it was first posted. I wonder, did somebody negligently forget about it? Or is it perhaps a permanent but increasingly irrelevant memorial like the one Groucho Marx loved to joke about (On his TV quiz program, a competitor who lost everything would be asked at the end: “For $50, who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?”).
I hope they put similar efforts into their downloadable editions. I like their portability, as well as the access they provide when I’m traveling, but they are often chopped up pretty badly, with articles inserted into other articles, or articles that just end partway through.