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You are visitor
Since November 2, 1999
There seems to be a disconnect between top government officials, madly beating the war drums and hinting at a conflagration of major proportions, and the reactions of families and friends of the victims, many of whom oppose any further violence. Broadcast news last night featured New York firefighters remembering the department chaplain, who was lost in the attack, confident that he would not have wanted to retaliate. The Star-Bulletin reported a similar response from a Maui man whose son and daughter-in-law were on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center."It's not going to bring my son back," said Larson, a former U.S. Marine who fought in Vietnam. "Where does it all stop?"
Back in Honolulu's news war, Gannett has announced that it will buy the free classifieds paper, Pennysaver. An article in this morning's Advertiser says 50,000 copies of Pennysaver are distributed at 800 locations around the island.
My story on Hawaiian Electric, which ran in the Honolulu Weekly last month, has finally made it into their electronic archive. I did get a lot of feedback on this story, most of it positive. From the responses, I have to say that the Weekly is read pretty widely and has influence beyond its modest size.
Click to read the story
Yesterday's entry was picked up by Jim Romenesko's widely read MediaNews online column, and later by Associated Press, which resulted in nearly 1,500 viewers from around the country here yesterday. Advertiser publisher Mike Fisch told Romenesko the memo had been the idea of a single manager, had not been approved by the vice-president in charge of sales, and that the project has been canceled.Reactions were actually quite varied to the memo and the plan for pseudo-personal letters to clients. Here are a few examples:
What is the sound of someone vomiting? That is my response.• • •
I think that their is absolutely nothing wrong with them wanting to send letters to their accounts. Its not business as usual so why not just let your clients know that and its a time for grieving. What's the big deal?
• • •
It may be regarded as cynical to use the tragedy to gain some favor but it may also be a genuine expression of gratitude and friendship. Who's to say what's in the heart of the writer? Just because management suggested this (or maybe even requires it) does not automatically make it a cynical move.
One has to give the reader of such a note the benefit of their being able to recognize sincerity versus opportunism. I trust they'll figure it out and recognize the difference -- if there is any.
• • •
I'll vote for "ruthless and cynical." Anything more just wouldn't be Gannett, would it?
• • •
While some employers have urged their employees to donate, for example, blood or money to the Red Cross during the recent attack on America, sales managers from the Gannett Advertiser have asked fellow workers to send a scripted note to at least ten of their top clients. Therein lies the Gannett Advertiser's unspoken mission: Profits before people--even those whose lives have been blown apart, literally. You see, employers who have urged donations hold concern for the people (read victims); Gannett, on the other hand, has urged employees, in essence, to thank advertisers for their money--that's all about profit.
• • •
Look, there is such a thing as "business etiquette".....the same thing that has every business sending holiday cards at Christmas, that has suppliers bringing goodies and gifts to contractors the same time of year....I am the assistant to the broker-in-charge to a real estate company and in my opinion this was not tacky. Salesmen are not English majors by any stretch of the imagination-you would be shocked to know how many business letters are based on templates as they are called-so it simply seems to me the person who wrote this mostly just wanted to make sure it got done. In an ideal world they would not have had to be told to write these, they would have been able to come up with the perfect sentiments-but as recent events have brutally reminded us this is not a perfect world. [from comments posted on www.Metafilter.com]
• • •
When I was a kid, my mom plopped me down at the kitchen table on Christmas night to write out my thank-you notes. I know all it takes are a few lines to acknowledge the gift and that the note is appreciated. It is now a habit for me. Not everyone had a drill sergeant for a mother so not everyone knows that such courtesies exist. These days, I bet some people might think that getting a thank-you note is more than they can expect.
Ad sales people are flaky no matter who they work for. Flaky staff members need to be told what to do and when to do it. A customer who receives a thank-you note will probably realize it was written under orders. So what? It results in that customer being acknowledged for all the money poured into newspaper advertising. Imagine what it is like to be in sales at one of Hawaii's newspapers. Glengarry Glen Ross comes to mind.
•••
Meanwhile, Advertiser staffers were told that Tuesday's special edition resulted in street sales of 19,000 of the 20,000 copies printed. I haven't heard anything from the Star-Bulletin side yet.
All this news is costing publishers big bucks across the country, and Hawaii is certainly no exception. All the extra pages and staff time are expensive, at the same time advertising is down as companies scramble to decide what's appropriate. The Wall Street Journal reports that USA Today has already lost $3 to $4 million in advertising. Multiply that across the country, add similar experience on the broadcast side, and an already difficult economic environment will certainly get tighter in the months ahead.
And some sanity is starting to emerge alongside all of the jingoism being hyped in Washington. I was pointed this morning to an excellent statement by the The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA. The Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee has launched a "No More Victims" campaign aimed at promoting peaceful solutions to these terrible acts of violence. I'm sure others are also taking stands in hopes of averting further escalations of bloodshed. We should all be searching for these alternate voices.
Therapy, anyone?Key advertising clients of the Honolulu Advertiser will be getting handwritten "thank you" notes from their Gannett sales reps in a few days expressing what appear to be deep personal feelings following Tuesday's attacks in New York and Washington. But these apparently personal expressions have actually been ordered up by a sales manager and must be turned in by Friday, according to a memo apparently leaked by an Advertiser staffer and making the rounds yesterday in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newsroom.
Here's one of two suggested texts spelled out in the memo:
"In the aftermath and shock of the terrorist attack on America, I couldn't help but to reflect on those who are really important in my life--family, friends, and valued customers. You fit the bill for two of the three and in many respects certainly qualify as a calabash family member. This note is nothing more than thanking you for your friendship and the significant role you play in making my career so worthwhile. May god continue to bless you, your family, your staff and our great nation."The memo directs sales staff to prepare similar notes for "at least" ten top clients and turn them over to supervisors by Friday.
"For those of you that are at a loss for words, below are a few suggestions as to how you might start your note or even end it," the memo advises. "All notes don't have to be terribly different in text or uniquely original, many may say the same words of appreciation with not much more than a name change."
"Your advertisers will welcome these notes and you too may find some therapy in participating in this exercise," the memo states.
"Unbelievable," one Star-Bulletin staffer wrote me. "It basically tells them how to take advantage of the NY tragedy."
But is it ruthless and cynical, or just a smart business move? Let me know what you think, and I'll print those responses here tomorrow.
Well, there's a winner in the 100,000th visitor "contest". I'm just not quite sure yet exactly who it is. If you checked back yesterday, you already know about the counter meltdown. When the counter hit 100K, it stalled. Unknown to me, it was set at a maximum of 5 digits, and temporarily displayed "100K" instead of the actual count. To make matters worse, this happened while I was en route from Kaaawa, and by the time I discovered it, the damage was done. So right now there are several of you--indeed, as many as several dozen--who got the 100K message and thought you might have won. I've got the raw log, and can hopefully sort out the "real" winner later today, but I'm hoping to rustle up some prizes for at least the first few.
This morning I noted that Hawaii Public Radio's web site has had just under 55,000 viewers since October 1999, only about half the 100,000+ recorded here to date.
Regarding coverage of Tuesday's events, here's one view from a S-B writer:
You said it was a mystery to you how the Star-Bulletin managed to get its special edition on the streets before the Advertiser's. It should be no mystery. Getting today's news into today's paper is one thing the Star-Bulletin has always done well. Yesterday was no exception, thanks to the very quick work of many people in the middle of the night.My personal perception, and you would have to confirm this elsewhere, is that the Advertiser's same-day edition was very, very late. I did not see any Advertiser hawkers on the street, only the Star-Bulletin's. The Star-Bulletin had two same-day editions, rather than the usual one, and had more pages devoted to the attacks. There was an "extra" (although it wasn't headlined that) that hit the streets before 8 a.m., and the usual "night final" that had even more updated news and was delivered on time to regular subscribers.
There was dueling 2nd day coverage offered up yesterday morning, the S-B with 16-pages of special coverage, while the Advertiser topped that with 22 pages.
September 12, 2001 - Wednesday
I'm sitting here in the dark after finding it impossible to get back to sleep. Instead, I was laying in bed grappling with the question of responsibility for yesterday's events. Who's the enemy? I've got my own thoughts.The enemy is violence, and the idea that escalating acts of violence can, in the long run, achieve political objectives or resolve essentially political conflicts.The enemy is a national policy that treats attacks on civilians as an acceptable military strategy, and a legitimate means to pressure and manipulate their leaders.
The enemy is propaganda and jingoism, no matter how popular, that dehumanizes opponents to such a degree that their suffering brings cheers, and their pain a reason to celebrate.
The enemy is a holy righteousness that claims divine sanction for its own acts of destruction and terror, while denouncing those of the infidels on the other side.
The enemy is the inability to see oneself through the eyes of our enemies and admit that there might be a kernel of truth behind their point of view.
And the enemy is the stubborn belief in our own innocence, and the failure to recognize that, if there's a rogue nation-state in today's world, many say it's our own, moving unilaterally to undermine international environmental accords and arms control agreements, blocking long-term efforts to reduce the arms trade, clinging to military solutions even in the face of opposition from friends and allies.
We are so right in our rage and sorrow about what happened yesterday, but it's obvious that, as a nation, we lack the will and character to break out of the cycle of violence and revenge. We're much better at war than at peace, and I fear that we're all in for a hard ride ahead.
Enough. We'll obviously all be struggling with these issues, and the fallout from yesterday's incredible events, for years to come.
It's hard to turn back to the mundane events of everyday life in Hawaii, or anywhere. What does the newspaper war matter in the face of this real war, and who really cares that this site will get its 100,000 visitor sometime this afternoon? If you do, and if the counter reads anything near 100K when you stop by, don't forget that you could claim the prizes by following the instructions up above.
I should note that yesterday morning, just after 9 a.m. Hawaii time, the Star-Bulletin already had a fresh edition on the counter of our Kaneohe 7-11 with a large front page photo of the world trade center destruction. The Advertiser was stuck with its original pre-attack edition. How the S-B, with its smaller press, was able to get its special edition out before the Advertiser is a mystery to me. But both papers did a remarkable job at covering it all and getting the news onto the street.
No entry today, just a moment of silence as we watch events unfold a half world away
We went out walking early, not knowing what else to do. Another of our regular morning characters, who lives across from the beach, was sitting just feet from the water in a folding chair with fishing poles on either side of him.
He said he didn't know what else to do either.
"I guess I should say a prayer for all those people....", he said in a fading voice. As should we all.
Tuesday's dawn in Kaaawa
It felt like a case of bait and switch.The front page of the Sunday Star-Bulletin floated a teaser, "a personal touch to census data". In the past, the S-B has done some good reporting based on census data, especially Richard Borreca's crime mapping and voting analysis. So I was keen to see what this special project produced.
But instead of useful reporting, this year's effort turned out to be 128 pages of tabloid fluff and glossy ads, titled Keiki to Kupuna. Light, airy stories with barely a pretense of analysis, with an occasional basic table of undigested census data thrown in a futile grab for legitimacy. There's some nice warm and fuzzy photography, and nicely designed pages, but it really looks like MidWeek with a Star-Bulletin logo. And it lacked guides to make even the fluff more useful. No table of contents, list of featured people, or index to advertisers, although some of that is added to the online version. Overall, it's a profound disappointment, or, as my mother likes to say, misdirected energy. It's especially disappointing because of the amount of work this project obviously took for an already stretched staff. And it's probably preempted the resources that might have otherwise been available for a substantive project.
If I'm way off base, I'm sure folks at the Star-Bulletin will let me know later this morning.
But I suppose this is vintage David Black newspaper stuff. At least it fits the formula spelled out in this month's Island Business magazine story by Mike Markrich:
Cluster four or five small weeklies around a central press and keep it running around the clock; find young journalists willing to work for less; sell ads at rates merchants can afford; and remember that people love to read about themselves."I tell my reporters, if a catastrophe happens a hundred miles down the road, not to cover it, " jokes Black....
And, the article then notes, the S-B has taken on some attributes of a weekly, including the large photos and "family oriented stories" like those that fill this special tabloid section.
To make matters worse, there are reports of more delivery problems. At least one S-B staffer was eagerly awaiting the product but it wasn't included his paper yesterday. Another reported it arrived with Saturday's paper instead of Sunday. I can at least say that it was delivered here right on time yesterday morning.
Sorry to start the week with a negative tone, but the prospect of more of this soft focus stuff masquerading as news gets me riled up.
Instead of dwelling on it, though, just click on Lizzie's picture and you'll get to see this week's little collection of Kaaawa photos.
Here's one reader's response to the 100,000th visitor contest:Shirt and chutney?What happened to rumors that the 100,000th would get a new Nissan Maxima and a Palm Pilot?
Bummers.
The Star-Bulletin's front page story yesterday about Kamehameha Schools' decision to give up federal grant funds prompted this fable of the news food chain by a writer who prefers to remain anonymous:
Once upon a time in a forest far, far away, a den of news bears were getting ready to publish The Grove Times for all the forest creatures to read, and two of them were talking about writing a story.A third news bear heard them, and turned and said, "I think we already wrote that story."
"Yes, I read that story," chimed another news bear.
"So did I," said still another.
"I read it too," said still, still another.
"No, no, no," said the first news bear. "I would have remembered if we'd written it."
"I'll betcha a pot of honey that we ran that story."
"No. I read the paper every day. We haven't had that story -- and don't call me honey."
Well, the news bears who'd read the story SOMEWHERE were determined to find out where. They searched far and wee. Some went to back issues of the paper. Some used cathode ray tubes and search engines. Nowhere could such a story be found.
But more news bears were speaking up. "I remember that story."
"Me too."
"Me too.
It was a mystery vast and deep.
Until finally one of the news bears looked up from a cathode ray tube and said, "I found it!"
"Where?" asked all the news bears together.
"It's in Lindy Bear's Online Diary!"
"Oooooooooo," said all the news bears.
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If you aren't sure what the news bears found in their cathode ray tube search, check back to this journal's entry for Saturday, September 1.
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courtesy of the folks at Atomz.com
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