i L i n d . n e t

Former Star-Bulletin editor Chuck Frankel bemoans the impact of all too frequent press breakdowns on home deliver of the Star-Bulletin. He sent the following email to S-B Publisher Dennis Francis, with a cc here:

I wish David Black would spend money on new presses instead of trying to buy more newspapers. The poor quality of the Star-Bulletin presses means frequent late delivery of the afternoon paper. If my life weren’t so entwined with the Bulletin (I worked there from 1960 to 1988), I would cancel my subscription despite the fact it is a damn good paper.

Yesterday (July 12), when I phoned to find out when my paper would be delivered, I was told 8 p.m. I stopped looking for it around 9 and found it in my driveway Friday morning along with the Advertiser.

Tonight I was told the Bulletin would be delivered by 6 pm. I called again around 6:15 and was put on hold for 10 intolerable minutes — at one point I was connected to an extension and was told that the person there was away from the desk and I could leave a message. I got the paper about 6:45 p.m.

With persistent late papers, I am surprise that you do not lose more subscribers and delivery personnel.

In Kaaawa, we get the early morning delivery of what must be the first press run. Our papers are almost always on time, usually delivered in advance of the Advertiser. I’m sorry to hear that the p.m. run is apparently far less reliable.

Will this be the last word on the minor feud between S-B and Advertiser over the statement in a Bulletin editorial dinging its larger rival for printing a “planted” story? This arrived as a comment to yesterday’s post.

So, the Advertiser DID know about the sexual escapades of “R.A.” — according to Mr. Platte — but decided not to pursue that until they were “satisfied”? And, despite knowing what they claimed they already knew (but weren’t telling the public) they went ahead with a story that painted Awana as a hero? And they did that even though the real facts were coming out soon and they would look ridiculous and a tool of the governor’s office?

I can’t let this comment go unchallenged. “So, the Advertiser DID know about the sexual escapades…” Implying that the Advertiser knew but didn’t report. Very unfair. The Advertiser knew that newspapers a world away had reported something allegedly stated by the family of the defendant, something it had been unable to independently verify and could not easily confirm. The Advertiser’s editor says they ran with what their reporters had been able to confirm. I can’t see that decision as part of some pro-Lingle conspiracy.

Then the reader says: “And they did that even through the real facts were coming out soon…”

What? I don’t know that anyone, to date, has been able to publish “the real facts”. And, even if that had been done, to criticize the Advertiser for not initially printing what it would only later be able to confirm is flat out unfair.

I can’t believe that I’m here defending the Advertiser, but I don’t want this reader’s comment to mislead others. I might agree that the spin on that initial story was overly favorable to Awana and failed to signal in some way the realization that the case might be more complex than it appeared in the indictment. But that’s quite a different criticism than the one put forward by this reader.

Now for the history. Back in May, the Advertiser ran a story on the former Naval Ammunition Depot at Waikele in Central Oahu, based on recollections of men who had been assigned to security at the base.

This prompted me to scan negatives from a couple of different nonviolent protests at that base during the mid-1970s, when local activists were trying to generate broader public discussion of and opposition to the U.S. role in the global nuclear arms race.

The result is two sets of photos. The first shows a demonstration along the perimeter of the base at Waikele, beneath the guard towers, an area that could be reached by entering the old dirt roads through former pineapple fields. Access was from through what was then the first phase of Mililani Town, which was being built smack in the middle of those former fields of pine. This appears to have been a peace demonstration on Hiroshima Day, August 6, and I believe it was in 1975, although it might have been the following year.

The second set of photos shows a smaller group walking down into the gulch from a spot along the highway in order to reach a small paved helicopter landing pad used by the Navy to pick up certain weapons and transport them down to Pearl Harbor. It was believed these were nuclear arms. But this little landing pad was apparently outside the secured area of the base, making it accessible. As I recall, the occasion was Easter Sunday in 1976.. The photos tell the rest of the story.

Related activities are described in this set of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request some years ago.