Just a few media observations this morning.

>> I was disappointed to see the Star-Advertiser snub Na Wahine O Ke Kai, the women’s Molokai to Oahu canoe race.

This race is a big deal, like the men’s race held at a different time. This year there were over 60 teams paddling. That’s got to mean thousands of passionate people involved from across the state (and the world) in an event unique to Hawaii.

And Monday morning, I was reminded that the Star-Advertiser’s staff has shrunk to the point that it has outsourced its coverage of paddling events to Kyle Galdeira, whose Facebook and LinkIn pages identify as a Kamehameha Schools communications specialist.

Galdeira story on the race was very good, but the S-A didn’t provide space for either the results or a spread of photos. Even the online edition lacked photo coverage.

It seems to me like an ongoing missed opportunity given the number of people and organizations involved in the sport.

>> Hawaii News Now came up with another scoop yesterday. In a story first broadcast at 5 p.m., HNN reported that the gun brandished by the man who was shot and killed by police during a drug raid at Century Center Condominium was registered to a local attorney (“Gun pointed at police during shooting is registered to embattled Honolulu attorney“).

The loaded pistol Freddie Joe Whitmore allegedly pointed at Honolulu Police Officers last Thursday night is registered to attorney Christopher Woo, Hawaii News Now has learned.

Whitmore, 55, was shot several times and died at the hospital.

Woo did not report the Glock stolen, so police are now working to find out how it ended up in the hands of a convicted felon in a suspected drug house.

HPD was at the Century Center apartment to serve a narcotics warrant. Meth and heroin were recovered, sources say.

Woo was arrested in June for refusing to cooperate with the federal grand jury investigating Louis and Katherine Kealoha, the former police chief and deputy prosecutor, who were indicted on multiple public corruption related charges.

>>Beach erosion along Oahu’s North Shore has been getting lots of attention recently (see Hawaii News Now, “On Oahu’s North Shore, a summer of big swells and disappearing beaches“; KHON2.com, “‘It’s an emergency situation,’ homeowner worries home will fall into ocean“).

It’s a bad situation. But it’s not new.

Thirty years ago, we were looking to buy a house or apartment in a more rural part of Oahu where housing was far more affordable than in Honolulu. That led us to a realtor specializing in North Shore properties, and in early 1988 he drove us, along with an airline pilot looking for an investment property, to see several places from Mokuleia to the condominiums at Turtle Bay.

At one point he stopped to show us a small house somewhere in the Sunset Beach area that, he said, was owned or had been owned by a son of the actor, Robert Mitchum. It was a relatively small house sort of in the middle of a large lawn. He walked us over to the ocean side of the lot, overlooking the beach.

He pointed out into the ocean some distance, perhaps 30-40 feet.

“So you see that tree branch sticking out of the water? That’s your property line,” he said dramatically. “If you wanted, you could probably bring in fill and extend the yard.”

We were stunned by this attempt to turn a big negative, coastal erosion, into a positive, the idea that the area could be reclaimed from the Pacific Ocean with a bit of fill. I doubt such a thing would be either legal or feasible. Really, it was absurd then, and more so in hindsight.

But I can really feel for those folks living in oceanfront homes along the North Shore. It’s only going to get worse.