So what about the Honolulu Advertiser’s new online look? I find it annoying because you’ve got to wade through two screens of fluff before getting to the news. First you see a headline story/photo plus “breaking” news (too often verbatim press releases), then “user submitted stories”, and only then do you reach the “real” news provided by the Advertiser’s reporters. And unless you’re clued into the subtle cues, it all looks the same, press releases and amateur news looks the same and actually has higher page placement than the professional stuff.
To me, it devalues the very reporting that drives people to the Advertiser. Offering other content should enhance the news, not bury it. Or am I just too old fashioned?
And in case you think the Advertiser look is one of a kind, check out the Greenville News in Greenville, South Carolina. No coincidence that its online product got a very similar revamp, as the Greenville newspaper is also a property of Gannett Pacific, or whatever its current corporate incarnation is.
Employees and supporters of Aloha Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, rallied at the State Capitol yesterday afternoon. I happened to have a camera in my desk (the little Canon G9 that I got for Christmas) and took it downstairs. Click on this photo for more.
Both newspapers report this morning that a bill has been “introduced” to provide loan guarantees. Sounds good, except that for mere mortals the deadline for bill introductions was January 23, according to this year’s legislative timetable. So how is this done? If you’re the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, you rummage through existing bills looking for a subject line that is consistent with the new purpose, then you gut that measure and insert the proposed new language instead.
In this case, Senate WAM chair Roz Baker looked at bills pending in her committee and chose HB 508, which, according to the official description: “Authorizes the department of transportation to establish and collect rental motor vehicle customer facility charges; creates a rental motor vehicle customer facility charge special fund; establishes a $1 daily ”
The bill passed the house on March 4, got past two Senate committees last week, but now has a new proposed Senate Draft 2 which was filed yesterday.
Procedurally, this is a bill that has already gone through multiple hearings in both House and Senate, while in reality it is a new measure that will have its first public hearing on Tuesday and likely only public hearing on Tuesday. If the bill clears the Senate, it returns to the House, which can agree with the Senate version or send it to conference.
I’m not clear, though, on how much could be done in conference other than cleaning up the Senate version.
Here’s what the House rules say about the Conference Committees:
The authority of a conference committee shall be limited solely to resolving differences between the House and the Senate versions of a bill or resolution.
Accordingly, a conference committee shall not amend a bill or resolution by inserting into the bill or resolution any unrelated or new subject; provided that the restrictions in this Rule 16.5 shall not apply to the General and Supplemental Appropriations Bills; provided further that any increases to the salaries, pensions, or retirement benefits for any elected or appointed officer of the State or County shall be considered by separate bill other than the aforesaid Appropriations Bills or any bill ratifying collective bargaining agreements.
And since the House version of the bill addresses a totally different topic, there really isn’t an issue of resolving differences between the two versions.
Ah, the wonders of the legislative process.
And it’s turning into a bad year to be the chair of one of the money committees. Beyond the normal program needs, we’ve got a series of unusual demands with high price tags, including the Turtle Bay and Galbraith land purchases, the Molokai Ranch closure, UH maintenance, and now Aloha Air. All in the face of falling or static revenue and a bleak national financial picture. It’s clear there isn’t enough money to go around. So how does the budget get stretched to accomodate as many of these interests as possible? With just a month to go in this legislative session, we’ll get to the answer soon enough.
7 responses so far ↓
1 LeeAnn // Mar 29, 2008 at 7:12 am
I don’t care for the new look either.
2 kimo St.James // Mar 29, 2008 at 8:20 am
New honadv. cobweb site… Gawdalmighty what a gawdforsaken visual mess. One third vertical strip in yer typical overly designed corporate web site. With numerous columns constituted of dozens of different design elements and too many font styles and sizes. All squished between an odd strange blue ish huge double border. Headache inducing. Gimme the Star Bull any day.
3 Andy Parx // Mar 29, 2008 at 11:21 am
I haven’t been much of an advocate for a Con-Con thus far but if a full overhaul of the process and structure of the Lege is on the agenda I’d be on that bandwagon faster than a committee chair can kill a campaign finance reform bill and fill in language for a tax break for their top contributor.
And the new Advertiser is not only worse (and here I thought that “digging for the real news” was something the reporters, not the public, were supposed to do) but the one thing they have promised to fix wasn’t done- it’s still apparently the slowest newspaper web-site in the world.
4 ongre08 // Mar 29, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Thats funny, digging for the news. I do that all day it seems checking maybe 8 or 10 sites including this one (where not much digging is needed, its done already.) by Ian Lind, who should get an award in my opinion.
Notice the Advertisers use of videos to “inform” their viewers. Not quite the same as reading an in depth written investigative piece, video reports generally skim the topic. They can be fun though, if done by Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, or the SNL Weekend update people. Now thats news!!!
So far the consensus among the Union I am in (HGEA) and by a couple of progressive types I speak with, the Con-Con would not be a very good thing; the right wing is on the prowl to remove gains that have been made through the years. It will be an interesting election in Hawaii this year with the Con-Con ballot issue among the interesting factors.
Ian, I have one of your sunrise photos on my desktop, a really bright, colorful one from a collection a week or so ago. You do good, no great, work.
5 LarryG // Mar 29, 2008 at 1:46 pm
The Advertiser website is different, but maybe it’s fair to give it a chance.
I don’t like the narrow “breaking news” column which has, because it’s narrow, less breaking news.
I ignore the video anyway, they need to add some useful content to the video. E.g., when there’s a collision, we get a view of a street. Big deal. Again, this could evolve. The NY Times has stunning examples of video journalism.
But there’s some good news: I see no ads on the page, viewing via Firefox with my usual ad-blocking software operative. Not a single ad. Of course, this may not be good news for Gannett. Sooner or later advertisers will figure out that web surfers are getting very clever and can do things like block ads. What will happen to mainstream newspapers that plan to migrate to the web if their ad revenue dries up? It could (and very well may) happen.
Meanwhile, compared to many small city newspapers, the print edition is way better than most, IMHO. Pity if it suffers in favor of web.
6 kimo St.James // Mar 29, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“I don’t like the narrow “breaking news” column”
I would not like it is f it were wide. I am a one man philosophical argument against the trite, means-nothing, fad term: “late breaking news”. hate, hate, despise, it. and I don’t like it much, either. Cut to year 2020. “Oh god , those disco clothes we wore. And later, we used to say: ‘late breaking news’ Oh Gawd! Don’t say that. SOOO embarrassing!”
7 dminter // Mar 31, 2008 at 10:29 am
I really dislike the new font size in the articles - too hard to read by far. Changing the “text size” on the view menu doesn’t help. Also - what happened to the “printer-friendly” button?
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