An old friend called attention to Civil Beat’s video coverage of portions of a Honolulu Police Commission meeting this week in which commissioners Steve Levinson and Loretta Sheehan attempted to question Kevin Sumida, attorney for former Police Chief Kealoha (I say attempted because Sumida consistently avoided answering by instead throwing back his own questions, even when repeatedly asked to answer the question being posed).
After viewing the video, my friend wrote in a Facebook post:
Um, Civil Beat’s coverage of Honolulu Police Commission meetings. Watching Levinson question Kevin Sumida is pure soft porn. And then Commissioner Sheehan has at it. If I smoked cigarettes, I’d be a pack in.
The Civil Beat video of the commission meeting is about 36 intense minutes long. It’s worth setting aside the time to watch the whole thing.
And, by the way, it’s technical quality is very good.
It’s a real expansion of Civil Beat’s news gathering, and gives readers/viewers new options for educating ourselves.
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All online Civil Beat has been doing a lot of video, especially since Anthony Quintano joined (previously with NBC). More notably is the experimentation with new platforms, and a lot of live video streaming. It’s an interesting mix of “live shot of a sleeping monk seal” and raw breaking news (like the Marco Polo fire, where he broadcast everything, including being shooed away by police/HFD).
Mahalo for the kind words, Ryan!
It definitely was nice to be able to go to the video right there. One thing that is important for this and other public meetings is that people use a microphone. It makes it easier to hear what everyone is saying.
Yes, this has been a real benefit for Civil Beat viewers. Nothing catching the action, instead of reading the reports. Certainly worth a donation.
It’s interesting that Sumida attempts to accuse Sheehan of insensitivity regarding the infamous Massie-Kahahawai case which consumed Hawaii and much of the nation in 1931-32. There are two recent books about the case worth reading to recall it: What We Must Remember (Bamboo Ridge Press) and Local Story (UH Press).
Thank you, Ian for the mention of our video work. It has been a challenge trying to do video with the few resources we have but comments like this prove that it’s valuable and helps me justify the cause for more of it. Mahalo