It appears there won’t be another debate between Honolulu mayoral candidates Kirk Caldwell and Charles Djou prior to next month’s general election, according to a story a few days ago in the Star-Advertiser.
S-A writer Gordon Pang reported:
Officials with Hawaii News Now and KITV, which both held forums featuring Caldwell, Djou and former Mayor Peter Carlisle before the Aug. 13 primary, said they have no plans to hold another forum before the general election. A representative for KHON said the station had not made a decision on a mayoral forum, and staff from both the Caldwell and Djou camps said they had not been contacted by the station.
PBS Hawai‘i had scheduled a debate on “Insights on PBS Hawai‘i” on Oct. 27, but Djou either declined or withdrew from the appearance this week, spurring a fiery disagreement between the two campaigns and the station.
Pang notes that Honolulu’s controversial rail project dropped out of the election limelight after Djou changed his position, now agreeing with Caldwell that this phase of the project needs to be completed to Ala Moana Center.
In a recent Hawaii Public Radio discussion of media coverage of the election, veteran reporter Denby Fawcett called this election “boring.”
And it sounds like the television stations agree.
So if they’re not throwing extra resources into covering the Honolulu mayor’s race, what will they be used for?
Pang quotes KITV news editor Mike Farrah:
“Quite frankly, it’s a matter of an allocation of resources,” Darrah said. “We’re throwing a lot at the Pearl Harbor anniversary and the Honolulu Marathon.”
It’s all a matter of priorities, I suppose.
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Sorry Ian but I have to call BS on the TV stations talking about “resources”. This is one of the closest mayoral elections in many years with MANY significant issues and nobody cares?? It’s a sad day when the media talks about getting people engaged and out to vote but puts more emphasis on a marathon. HNN is even more lame now that they have THREE stations and cannot find the “resources” to even televise one debate?? They can tout their primary coverage all they want but the general is what counts. This is what happens when you are allowed to own most of the tv coverage in the market. It’s ironic that all the stations will take a million or 3 from the candidates to run their commercials but cite “resources” when the public needs to know. Well, I guess we can look forward to the 2 or 3 minutes for a few nights they actually report on the race crammed in between weather, sports and a few traffic accidents and brush fires.
Disgraceful.
So much for the FCC mandate that broadcast stations operate in the public interest.
Hopefully Civil Beat will step up. However, I don’t believe either one of these candidates actually want to debate on TV.