[Text of an anonymous letter posted in the Star-Bulletin newsroom]
I've been seeing a lot of long faces around the Star-Bulletin lately. Its painful to witness. This thing that is happening to us is settling in like a cancer. There are moments when I'm full of seething rage. There are longer times when I overflow with despair, and it's hard to breathe, and panic grips me. I'm easily distracted these days. I don't sleep. My appetite for meals comes and goes. I am vaguely embarrassed by the notion that we are letting our readers down in some way. There are moments of dizziness when the world seems to shift underfoot. And there are the times when I look at my kids and wonder what kind of world is it in which owners of a business can claim it's "only business" to terrorize the very employees who made their industry not only hum, but sit up and sing.I imagine most of you went into journalism for much the same reasons I did, beyond the inbred scrappiness. There was a genuine curiosity about the world, and about the way it interconnects. There is a willingness to shine a light in dark corners. There is a faith in the tenets of democracy and the power of free speech, and a belief that the world can be made a better place. That knowledge is freedom. There is a healthy skepticism of public officials, and a genuine respect for the average citizen. We've seen all the poor, mean behavior that eventually winds up as "news," but at the same time we've witnessed the unflinching good that people are capable of. We wind up cynics, but cynics tempered by experience, not damaged by it.
The expression of that faith is the daily newspaper. It is not a business to us. It is a mission. It is a trust, an implicit pact with the public.
Readers invite the newspaper into their home, and it becomes part of the family. It is the daily history, the one item that provides a running commentary on the ebb and swell of everyday life, and does 50 with objectivity, awareness, humor and passion, and asks only a few dollars a month in return. The daily newspaper is the chronicle of the present that puts the past in perspective and the future in focus. People have an intimate relationship with their newspaper, because it is a constant thread in their lives, a baseline to measure progress by, and because it speaks directly to both the intellect and the heart.
It is no wonder that our readers are reacting to the closure of the Star-Bulletin So personally. More than 67,000 readers voted with their pocketbooks to take the Star-Bulletin, against - as we're constantly reminded - all national trends and demographics. Why do they do it? Why do so many readers stay despite efforts by the "competition" to minimize and discredit afternoon delivery? It' s because of loyalty. They have stuck with us. Not being able to return the favor, to be forced to cast them loose, strikes like a blow to the gut, and it takes all my effort not to double over. It feels disloyal. It feels dishonorable.
I would like to believe that the people running Gannett were once journalists, once were idealists, and I wonder what drove them away from the vision of a better world. I wonder how they sleep. I wonder about the nature of guilt, and the lack of it.
As good citizens should be, we are worried about our families and homes, and about being forced by economic circumstance to abandon everything about Hawaii we love, and flee to the Mainland. For most of us, this is our home, and the Star-Bulletin and our readers our extended family, and we have spent most of our lives trying to make Hawaii a better place to live, which is why we've stuck it out even though we've suffered income erosion over the last decade - to the point where many of us are just a few paychecks away from suffering. We've had this mission to fulfill, damn it.
Which is why we know, down to our toes, that this manner of killing the Star-Bulletin is wrong. Deeply wrong.
This is not about "business." This is not about not making enough of a profit. It is about sheer, piggish greed. It is about malicious arrogance. It is about a fundamental failure to comprehend the democratic process. It is about "newspapermen" who shut papers down instead of opening them. It is about the dumbing-down of the United States It is about creating voids where none existed. It is about stilling voices. It is about the utter disdain with which these people view the citizens of Hawaii, and by extension, all Americans.
There are moves afoot to keep the paper alive, or at least on temporary life support. It is hard to be enthusiastic about what seems to be a losing proposition. Particularly when the opposition is rapidly filling the too-few lifeboats. This is what it felt like in 1939, as the darkness of fascism fell over much of the earth. All I want to do is pull the covers over my head, and hope and hope and hope.
But how can we not fight this? How, in good conscience?
A decade from now, will I be able to look back and wonder if I did enough, or did I just cave in? Was there an effort to hold back the darkness, or did the slough of despair sweep us away, and with it, the readers who stuck by us?
The Star-Bulletin might be dead. It might not be. But that' s not the point. The point is not to fold too quickly in the face of entrepreneurial fascism. Again, how can we not fight this? How can we not fight this, when it strikes us right where we live, at our core?
They are counting on us to cave, so we can be discounted. That is the nature of their arrogance.
We can't give in.
We can't give up.
We can fight the fight, and even though we may lose, at least we weighed in.
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