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Here's another dispatch from the Honolulu newspaper war.After deciding to move some of his business to the Star-Bulletin/MidWeek, the advertising manager for a local business says he was invited to a meeting with the Honolulu Advertiser's ad director (a former MidWeek employee), who wanted a chance to change his mind.
At the meeting he told me that "I was making a big mistake".. (which is fair enough) but then went on to tell me that Gannett had "deep pockets" and that "I wasn't hurting Gannett but was only hurting my account exec!" (whom I've worked with for years). Personally I thought this was pretty "chicken shi---!. Anyway, please, no names or business identity... but in all my years as ad manager I have never heard anything like that!It is a pretty unique sales pitch, you've got to give them that, but not a very effective one, at least if this client's reaction is any indication. I wonder what they'll come up with next?
Former Honolulu Weekly editor Derek Ferrar credits the mention here on Wednesday for drawing attention to the controversial essay he wrote with another veteran of the Weekly, Julia Steele. Ferrar said the online essay got more hits the next day than any other day since it had been posted, and over 60 percent arrived via the link on this page. But this is one of those cases where numbers can be deceiving. A closer look shows that the "60 percent" was really only 34 hits, and that's out of 253 visitors here that day, meaning only 13% of you who read about the controversy followed the link to read the original essay.
And the quote of the week was spotted by an eagle-eyed Pat Bigold.
"You've heard of spare the rod and spoil the child? Some of these kinds of cases might appear disgusting but there's no damage... The toilet was right there, they just had to spit it out."--Attorney Paul J. Cunney, commenting on charges that Deputy Sheriff Charles Canady and his girlfriend punished his young daughters for not taking better care of their dog by forcing them to pick up the dog's feces with their mouths and deposit them in the toilet. Honolulu Advertiser, 8/3/01.
It's 5:13 a.m. and I can hear the city garbage truck beginning its run through the streets of Kaaawa. It's one of the automated trucks which stops at each house, extends its mechanical arm and grabs the container. It's not a quiet process. So much for the normal limits on pickups in residential neighborhoods. It's a good thing that a lot of folks out here are early risers. Maybe this is designed to pop us all out of bed early.Staffers over at the Star-Bulletin had a surprise stapled to their paychecks this week, a yellow signup form for a new "Social Committee Fund".
"Beginning on Aug. 15, 2001, Oahu Publishing employees will have the opportunity to contribute $1.00 per pay period to a new Social Committee Fund," the notice explained. "These voluntary contributions will support a number of company functions, such as our annual Christmas Banquet, Spring Family Picnic and more."
One less than happy camper commented:
If that doesn't take the cake, huh?It's not the AUW. Not IHS, the Boy Scouts or the American Lung Association. It's a donation to help defray the cost of events that are usually intended to help bolster staff morale.
We already know these guys are cheap. Now they're demonstrating that they also have no class.
A bit of an overreaction, perhaps, but it looks like those company-paid parties are a thing of the past.
And while I was fuming about how gifts to city officials were being reported, Pat Bigold was shaking his head over coverage of the most recent chapter in the Damien-St. Louis high school football controversy. Here's the way Pat sees it:
I saw a couple of local TV anchors scratching their heads Wednesday night over Damien's decision to go ahead and play St. Louis."What's changed?" one asked.
Well, even though I'm no longer writing sports, I've been watching this little drama unfold. And to me it's pretty clear that a lot has changed. A lot in Damien's favor.
By making his initial decision not to play St. Louis public, Damien president Gregory O'Donnell led the ILH into an intense reexamination of the mismatch issue.
That resulted in a realignment of the league with consideration to weaker programs. O'Donnell has focused enough attention on the St. Louis-Damien series that the next game will undoubtedly draw media scrutiny. Reprisals or a replay of last year's 84-0 humiliation won't go unnoticed this time around.
Reports are that Damien players, stung by the prospect of not being able to play St. Louis, have undertaken one of the most arduous weight training programs in the team's history. That sure doesn't mean Damien is about to become a league power. But apparently the numbers coming out of the weight room indicate unusual progress, lowering the prospect of injury.
And I see another major change since Damien's original decision. Crusaders head coach Cal Lee announced he's about to coach his last season. It's obvious that his hand in ILH football legislation is weakening and it appears the new administration at St. Louis could be reining him in.
So, my take on the matter is that Damien found itself in a much more favorable position to continue the series with St. Louis. O'Donnell, the son of a Chicago cop, made a damned bold move and emerged as an eloquent new voice in the ILH . I wouldn't be surprised to see his influence grow.
He pulled a doormat out from under a bully.
Here's the gratuitous cat photo of the week, featuring my buddy, Mr. Lindsey, offered up this morning just because I can't possibly get to the end of the week without slipping in at least one cat.
Ever since his small kitten days, Lindsey has considered our neighbor's house his own. He apparently pays her, and her two cats (both females) regular early morning visits. When he announces his arrival by scratching on her screen an hour before dawn, he often gets a good squirt of water instead of a friendly welcome, but he's resilient.
The surprising thing was that when we were on Maui last week, Lindsey didn't make his normal rounds, and didn't reappear at her window until we got back home. I still can't figure that one out.
Mr. Lindsey
I'm obviously a fan of critical reporting that isn't afraid to point fingers, but knee-jerk finger pointing that implies wrongdoing where none is actually uncovered is a very different beast. I was fuming yesterday over the latest examples of the "mountain out of a molehill" syndrome which followed the gift disclosures filed this week by city officials.Travel funded by third parties turned out to be the focus of most news stories, apparently because few other gifts were disclosed by anyone.
The headline on a Star-Bulletin story proclaimed "Mansho's trips to mainland are on taxpayers' tab". Reporter Gordon Pang wrote: "City Councilwoman Rene Mansho continued to attend mainland maritime meetings and other conferences at taxpayers' expense in the past year despite recent scrutiny about other trips she has taken."
But the "recent scrutiny" was not of her prior trips per se, but of expenses that were double billed to both the city and her campaign fund, with Mansho apparently pocketing the difference.
This time around it was travel for official business without any hints of continued double dipping, but the story subtly or not so subtly implied that there's something wrong with official travel which, in most cases, is taxpayer funded. Isn't taxpayer funded better than lobbyist funded, or special interest funded travel?
KITV, Honolulu's ABC affiliate, took a similar tack, using a muckraking presentation for a story with no smoking gun and no real hint of any wrongdoing. It's interesting how tone of voice and inflection can give a menacing cast to an otherwise innocuous story.
The bad thing about such reporting is that it encourages a public perception that travel by public officials is by nature suspect, discouraging such travel. In fact, it's really the relative paucity of official travel, and the resulting ignorance and lack of experience with other ways of doing things, that has state and county government so mired in outmoded and inefficient ways of doing the public's business.
If there are conflicts of interest created by "gifts" of travel, dig deeper and expose them. If not, let's encourage our elected and appointed officials--and other public employees--to travel widely and see that government can be more open, friendly, and efficient than it typically is here in the islands.
The real gift story may be in the relatively few gifts reported. It would seem that the city's threshold of $200 is too high, so that few of the gifts from lobbyists and special interests are ever reported. Maybe its time to evaluate the gift disclosures rather than simply repeat their contents in conspiratorial tones.
And in the newspaper war, the Star-Bulletin announced today that it is teaming up with Starbucks Coffee in a promotion to benefit Kalihi-Kai Elementary School. According to a story in today's S-B, all proceeds from Star-Bulletin sales at Starbucks in Hawaii through October 2 will be used to fund new playground equipment for the school, which has an estimated price tag of $41,000. There are hints that this is just one piece of a major advertising and public relations blitz to come in the months ahead.
More turmoil in Hawaii's publishing community.Peter Wagner, who left the uncertainty of the Star-Bulletin behind just 11 months ago to become editor of Island Business magazine, now faces joblessness again after the announcement that his magazine is being sold to PacificBasin Communications, Inc. and merged with its competition, Hawaii Business. Peter says he'll be out of a job as of September 30. State records indicate PacificBasin filed a statement of intent to dissolve its business back in April, so there still may be more of a story behind this new expansion move. Ironically, PacificBasin's operations are run by Floyd Takeuchi, also a former S-B reporter from an earlier era.
And over at Honolulu Weekly, there's a behind-the-scenes flap over the paper's decision to exclude an interview with former editors Julia Steele and Derek Ferrar from its recent 10th anniversary issue because of several critical comments aimed at the "ownership culture ... at the paper that has this tendency to make everyone feel unappreciated and undercut," in Ferrar's words. Steele and Ferrar had been asked to submit a piece for the issue, and had edited it in response to meet initial concerns of Weekly publisher Laurie Carlson, but it was ultimately spiked anyway.
The interview was then online and has drawn numerous comments from other former Weekly writers and staffers. Now a letter of protest signed by eight formers has also been canned by the Weekly, at least for now, and will not appear in the issue delivered to their racks today.
The group, led by former Weekly editors Elizabeth Kieskowski, Stu Dawrs, and John Wythe White, calls the Weekly's refusal to publish the Steele/Ferrar interview "a hypocritical act of censorship, particularly coming from a publication that paints itself as the journalistic conscience of Honolulu and frequently takes other news media to task for their alleged lack of openness."
In an online letter, Dawr's writes: "the sad thing is that, as often seems to happen in a land where we're all raised to not talk stink (in public, anyway), any criticism at all seems to be taken as a personal attack, rather than as something offered up in the desire to create a paper that is truly worthy. So it goes that, even as I punch the 'send' button, wafting in on the afternoon breeze is the distinct odor of burning bridges."
This debate really is vital and probably overdue, given the Weekly's importance as a leader in the local alternative press. I'm sure lots of folks will be watching to see how it all turns out.
Our neighbor, Samantha, aka Sam, died early Sunday evening at a venerable age of at least 15. She was rescued and adopted long ago on an Arizona Indian reservation, if I remember the story correctly, and eventually moved next door after Eric bought the house in 1989. She lived a very long life in dog years.
This picture was taken early this month after she managed to get out of her fenced yard and stagger over into our garage. When I went to investigate a funny noise, I found her snout-deep in the stash of dog biscuits on hand for the crew of morning dogs. A rascal to the end.
I heard the sad news yesterday afternoon from Eric's friend, Bob, who has been taking care of Sam and the house in Eric's absence. I responded with this note.Thanks so much for letting us know.
She was a really good dog. As you say, all the way to the end.
I talked to her for a while in the late afternoon.
It must have been close to 5 p.m.
She cried just a little, and I could see she was having trouble, so I opened the gate and went to see her.
She was laying down in the front yard.
I scratched her head and neck, and talked to her.
I told her that we all loved her, and that Eric loved her.
She looked spent, but then she struggled and sat up halfway.
I decided that she was as okay as she's been recently.
I stroked her head some more, and tried to reassure her.
And then I went back home.
The last that I saw her she was laying down but had her head up, looking around at the yard.
It was a beautiful afternoon.
They're back, storming the beaches in Kaaawa in search the little oama, a small fish that appears during this time of year.
The beaches, normally deserted in the early mornings, were swarming over the weekend, even at the times we walk.
Oh, if you missed yesterday's note, the photo gallery has been refreshed with a few glimpses of Maui.
Editing bloopers slipped into both Honolulu papers last week, and must have everybody tearing their hair out, although both were probably corrected in later editions.
Advertiser, Friday, July 27The Advertiser ran a little story on Friday about a proposed low income apartment in Makiki and the fuss it has stirred up among neighbors. The story came complete with a little locator map. The problem? The map has nothing to do with the location of the proposed building. Not even the same neighborhood. And the key reads: "copy goes here and here."
The Star-Bulletin followed today with a headline writer's nightmare (right).
Oops.
Star-Bulletin, Sunday, July 29 This from a friend who has supported the Star-Bulletin, even when she couldn't get the paper delivered, but is now finally giving up.
I'm going to cancel our S-B subscription. Not out of anger or under impulse, but more with a sense of finally giving IN to the relentless pull of the Advertiser. I just don't know what is going on anymore in this town, and the Bulletin always lets me down. I have to be on top of things and we are only willing to afford one newspaper.Yesterday I needed to know (immediately) exactly what time the Queen Lili'uokalani Keiki Hula Competition at the Blaisdell started, and there was not one word about it in the Bulletin. You go to a newspaper to see what is happening in town. That was its original purpose, back in the broadsheet days. The news. Who's doing what and where. And the Bulletin just seems hell-bent on editing, editing, editing. Selected events are listed in their weekender. I want to select my own.
Hard as it is, that's what competition is about, giving readers the opportunity to pick and choose.
Gossip: Geri Cardoza, head of sales at Pacific Business News, moves over into an upper management sales position at the Star-Bulletin beginning this morning. Do they really need another manager experienced in weekly rather than daily publishing? I have my doubts, but we'll see, won't we?
We're back from Maui. If you missed yesterday's entry, and the start of this description, go directly back and read it first, then return for today's update.Maui. Haven't been there for a number of years. There was a period from the late 1970's through about 1988 when we were there a lot. We even thought about buying property over there, a process that ultimately led us to Kaaawa instead. But that's another tale.
The new Maui was a bit of a shock. The quip about Oahu's north shore is also applicable to Maui: "Just like California, only more haoles." For you folks on the mainland, that's a Hawaiian word used to refer to Caucasians.
We didn't have the heart to head out towards the Lahaina-Kaanapali side of the island, nor the stomach for the winding road to Hana, despite a desire to meet up with my recently-found Lind relatives there. Instead we spent most of our time in the Kahului-Wailuku area, which isn't even included in some of the tourist magazines that you're bombarded with on arrival.
My impression of the tourist mags was interesting. The focus is "activities"--helicopter adventures, diving adventures, biking adventures, hiking adventures, etc. Strap yourself to a snorkel, parasail, mountain bike, or some other apparatus and away you go. Maui itself played little role in the hype. It was just a faceless backdrop to various versions of the adrenaline rush. The magazines, with their exaggerated color, glossy paper, eye-catching photos, and breathless prose reminded me of some kind of commercialized pornography, where the women are equally faceless, featureless and anonymous.
No wonder that Wailuku, the center of government, finance, courts, and history, doesn't fit into the tourism mold and, quite literally, didn't exist in much of the adventure tourism literature. Maps of other parts of the island were everywhere, but to find streets in Wailuku I had to rely on the yellow pages.
My favorite advertisement was a coupon for Ramon's, billed as "best Mexican food on Maui." It bragged about the taco or enchilada combo plate and then, without missing a beat: "Visit our sushi bar."
Our restaurant find of the short trip was Vi's, a time warp to an earlier era of Hawaii tourism. It's in an open-air corner of the Maui Seaside, with a wonderful local cast of characters and a menu out of the past. Broiled or fried mahimahi dinner for about eight bucks, or the giant 16-oz sirloin steak for $9.50. That's with your rice or potato, vegetables, etc. Want wine? Carafe of the house's best for another $7.75. No need to ask for steak sauce here. With your food comes the tray with steak sauce, soy sauce, tabasco, and ketchup. What more could you want? Total bill, including tax, for two dinners, wine, etc.-- $31.45.
And despite the prices, the food was good. Well, pretty good. And honest. Not like the pretty but tasteless food we paid real money for across the street at one of the chichi restaurants that litter the island's foodscape.
This is a self-portrait while sitting in Vi's--one of those camera in one hand, aim on the fly and shoot. But click on the photo for a few Maui photos.
Self-portrait in Vi's
My waiting email included another round of comment from a Star-Bulletin staffer to the earlier questions about press capacity, circulation numbers, etc. I haven't tried to independently verify any of this yet, so don't blame me, please.First our press cruises at 40,000 an hour. 2nd the pressman may have been right it takes four hours to print. That's from start to finish, setting up press included. You know you don't just rub your nose and its ready to run. 3rd even if his "math" was right, we put out two papers a day so double the number. DUH!!!Yes, they (Gannett) still have supervisors, like Larry, Cliff, Hugh camping out every day (outside the MidWeek presses). They themselves are embarrassed being there. It must really suck to go to work and do a job that you are embarrassed to do.
And that's about it for this Sunday morning.
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