February 5, 2004 - Saturday

Webmaster Ryan Ozawa notes that a slew of "newsroom nuggets" of the "live from the newsroom" type have been shared by folks writing to Hawaii Threads. Media junkies will want to check it out.

If you missed economist Paul Krugman's column on Social Security, definitely take a look. He runs through some important numbers you won't hear from the president.

The Honolulu Community-Media Council has a lunch meeting and panel on "the business of media" scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 15, at Pacific Club. It features Advertiser Publisher Mike Fisch, KITV General Manager Mike Rosenberg, and Hawaii Public Radio GM Michael Titterton. It's $25 for nonmembers, $20 for members. RSVP by next Tuesday to hc-mc@verizon.net.

Remember the reader who was planning to drive from Texas to Oregon with two cat? I admit that I had my doubts, but here's her voice of experience:

I have two words for people planning long-distance travel with cats: classical music. One of my sisters said it was the only thing that shut up her Siamese. I wasn't sure it would have the same effect on my more downscale felines, but it did. Unfortunately, I could only find one classical music tape in the car, when In desperation, I pulled over near El Paso and started rummaging. I got really tired of Yehudi Menuhin after the first 500 miles, at which point, I pulled over again and started searching under and behind the seats and unearthed a second classical tape

The trip out with them wasn't as bad as I expected, once I found the classical music sedative. Tiger freaked out the first night in the motel room, when he realized he wasn't going home. I regret to say that I got the water pistol out and squirted him a couple of times after the fourth outbreak of yowling in the wee small hours. Fuzzy was on the windowsill, flirting with the motel maids by morning. They both settled into a routine napping during the day in their carriers, with minor outbreaks of yowling when I tried to sneak in a few minutes of NPR on the radio. Then they'd explore the motel room at night, play with their toys, eat and drink, and get in a good night's sleep.

February 4, 2005 - Friday

A reader admits to nit picking but proceeds with this observation about Wednesday's Star-Bulletin:

SB sports runs a story on people (Eagles fans) taking out home equity loans to pay for trips to the Super Bowl - page C-8. Business section runs the identical story with a different headline but the same photo on page C-2.

Right hand no speak to left hand?

From the 'wolves in sheeps clothing' file. I don't even know what cable channel I was watching over the weekend when a funny and pointedly anti-corporate advertisement was aired by something called "I want my vacation" with a link to the group's web site.

And iwantmyvacation.com is advocating leisure and vacations otherwise being denied by overly demanding corporate bosses. It even includes a "bash the boss" game in which an office worker punches out his boss, and the one who sends the boss flying the farthest wins.

But the sponsor behind the "I want my vacation" theme isn't some group of intellectual anti-capitalist slackers--the sponsor turns out to be the Universal Orlando Resort, a part of NBC Universal, in turn 80 owned by GE.

Ask the Communications Workers of America to identify the corporate bosses who deserve some bashing, and GE pops right up there on the list.

"Imagine that your job is on a barge that can sail easily into the sunset if you demand your union rights or a fair share of the enormous profits you help produce for the company," CWA President Morton Bahr said in a March 2000 speech. "That's GE's idea of positive labor-management relations."

So I guess their message is, workers of the world unite for your vacations, unless you happen to be employed by one of GE's many subsidiaries and affiliates, in which case just shut up and work.

And confirmation that we've seen the last live entry on Burl's Check6Honolulu came yesterday from the man himself:

Alas the sign-off was filed, but I didn't notice that it didn't "take" until yesterday, thanks to spotty Roadrunner connections due to the rain ... shud be OK by now.

The entire pacifichistory.net site will be overhauled, but all the Check6 and Honolulu Newspaper War stuff will be retained. I'm mindful of our role as daily historians of the struggle.

I also attempted, in both sites, to provide a kind of "family history" of the Star-Bulletin workplace, as I think it's useful to be transparent rather than opaque in the way we approach our journalistic responsibilities. It shouldn't be a corporate secret that newspapering is hard, thankless, civically necessary work.

And I've got other things on my plate right now, stuff that's been put off for too long...

Because of the horrible rain, the dogs and cats are all inside together. What a freakin' zoo!

And so it goes on another Friday morning.

February 3, 2005 - Thursday

It's been raining all night in Kaaawa and, apparently, across all of Oahu. If you don't believe me, just have a quick look via Honolulu's traffic camera system. Here's a page where you can spot check multiple cameras. Click just about anywhere--Waikiki, downtown, or the university, and you'll see...rain. Perhaps it will make those in snow and ice feel just a smidgen better.

Is Burl's blog now just cyberhistory? On January 23, his site, Check6Honolulu, included the following: " OK OK, by popular acclaimation (ha!) I'll keep this site going. For one more week. Feb. 1 is a good time to sign off, being the 124th birthday of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and all. "

He goes on to explain that Honolulu's newspaper war has entered a long-term steady state, and he's above journaling his many pets' exploits (while some of us, of course, are not). And, Burl reports somewhat cryptically, " the folks in charge at the Star-Bulletin prefer that I do editing rather than writing, and they don't much care for this site either."

But February 1 came and went without a definitive sign off, leaving Burl's last entry a January 26 description of the new closet-safe room project at home.

If this particular web project has really been set down, I've got to say that I'll be among those who really will miss Burl's biting observations and deft use of the language. I suppose it means I'll just have to keep reading the Star-Bulletin. So it goes.

Don't eat raw snails or slugs. Did we really need a breaking news headline for this little bit of advice, which showed up on the Advertiser's web site mid-day yesterday? I imagine such snacks are readily available, especially on these rainy days, but popular? Really? Perhaps my tastes just aren't as eclectic as those of the average newspaper reader.

Just noticed yesterday: An article in the Georgia Straight, a Vancouver, B.C., weekly, which estimated last year that S.B. owner David Black's empire, Black Press, lost $1 million in the first quarter of 2004, less than the $2 million in red ink during the same period of 2003. But for the full 2003 year, it appears Black's operations turned a $500,000 profit after all. These estimates are extrapolations from financial information reported by the publicly traded Torstar Corp., which owns a minority stake of just under 20 percent in Black Press.

In the story, Black is quoted as attributing the losses to his style of immediately reinvesting proceeds of his enterprise.

"For 25 years, we've always tried to invest the proceeds and grow rather than build up a big bottom line and pay a lot of tax," Black said. "So we've deliberately always had a strategy of doing that. Piling up a lot of cash doesn't make sense to me, so I reinvest it right away. It gives us lots of write-offs, which knocks down the pretax and, therefore, the after-tax profit."

So far, very little is publicly known about the financial situation of the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek under Black's ownership and how much they might have contributed to these losses.

Several readers chimed in about yesterday's "live from the newsroom" comment. Here are a couple of their observations:

I thought all stations used it. And it irks me. Because it really means, "Live from the next room." Which isn't all that impressive, really.

KITV's catch phrases in general are weird. Their "Get the Whole Story" bits are the strangest. As far as I can tell, it just means "Here Comes an Extra 30 Seconds That Should've Just Been Included In the Main Segment."

And TheHawaiiChannel.com is "Hawaii's #1 Television News Website"? According to whom?

* * *

What I noticed about KHNL is that they’ll say “Live from the Satellite Center is…” and it’s someone on the other side of the room. Their “Weather Center” is in a different part of the room. Before this I always thought a satellite center was an office at a different zip code. Maybe it’s designed to give the impression that it’s a sophisticated news operation. But anyone who’s ever visited a TV game set, talk show set, even the Checkers and Pogo set know there’s a lot of stuff crammed into a wee bit of real estate that looks super cool on TV but quite disappointing in person.

If a reporter doesn’t say “live in the newsroom” or “live at Honolulu Hale” as they sign off a story (kinda like the reporter’s -30-) then you can probably be sure it’s a packaged news video, which makes a difference in a sale of the actual news story through Dateline Media. Sometimes clients or the general public make their decisions to buy stories based on factors such as it being a live story at 5 or 6 and then repackaged for the 10pm or morning news. If it’s a redundancy, there’s no sale.

And for those (few) who might be wondering, Romeo is back home after his veterinary experience. He lost a couple of parts and a bit of dignity, but it took several vet techs to wrestle him back into his carrier when we arrived to pick him up last night. Apparently he can put on quite a hissy fit when approached by strangers. Once back here in Kaaawa, though, he was just lonely and hungry. He even sat in my lap for the first time. And I'm not at all sure he really misses those parts anyway. Now we look forward to the adventure of his release from isolation, probably on Saturday.

February 2, 2005 - Wednesday

Joe P. writes: "Happy Groundcats Day! Please let us know whether or not your cats see their shadow, so we can determine whether we have six weeks of fine Kaaawa winter coming our way!"

Well, Joe, with heavy clouds, flash flood warnings, and more thunderstorms in the channel between Kauai and Oahu overnight, I doubt there will be any shadows to be seen this morning. Does that help?

I still can't get over KITV's mantra, "Live from the newsroom", and can't figure out what they mean to say here. Is there a local news product KITV can differentiate themselves from with the "live from the newsroom" descriptor? Anyone else have an idea about this?

Friends of attorney and former House Judiciary Committee chairman Terry Tom are out appealing for his supporters to vote for him again, this time in the Hawaii Music Awards competition. Tom's 2004 CD, "Children Like Me", is entered in the "Children's Music" category.

It isn't as much of a stretch as it sounds, as Tom has been performing as a pianist for more than 40 years.

I wouldn't want to be overly critical. But those who recall Tom's legislative career, one or more of Tom's lapses in judgement back when he privately collected a $50,000 retainer from Bishop Estate while supposedly serving the public, and the resulting voter backlash, might have a hard time throwing any vote at all in his direction even at this late date. Or perhaps we should encourage his musical career, where his ability to contribute may be a lot better than his political track record.

I almost missed the Sunday column by Honolulu Advertiser senior editor Anne Harpham explaining the newspaper's approach to government reporting. The Advertiser is like many others in constantly trying to find ways to make its reporting more meaningful to the people it wants to buy newspapers, although Gannett is known for its heavy handed central philosophizing. Overall, they want to connect the dots by more explicitly describing the connection between abstract bills being debated by legislators and conditions in the "real" world. Harpham quotes city editor Fernando Pizarro, who says they will "show the connections between politics and 'real life.' "

Sounds like a good idea. Okay, I'm with the program so far.

But then comes a qualifier that hits like a kick in the head. Harpham goes on to describe their more general attempt to focus coverage on: "Legislative action and action by the governor's office that address important issues in readers' lives. We will de-emphasize coverage of political gamesmanship and maneuvering." The plain message seems to be that they plan to focus on outcomes and let the process go unreported.

Yes, it's possible to get bogged down in the "he said-she said" of day to day lawmaking and fail to present the underlying issues. But we're talking about politics here, which plays out as an exotic mix of personalities, histories, issues, interests, as well as gamesmanship and maneuvering. Focusing too much on the "issues" leaves readers clueless about how things really work and what needs to get done to successfully pass legislation. It leads to those silly reader comments of the "this Legislature is way too political" variety.

Teaching the public about politics without "gamesmanship and maneuvering" is something like teaching surgery without the mess of blood. The messy parts are not the only thing, but they're the key to understanding how to do it right.

February 1, 2005 - Tuesday

News that UH Medical School dean Edwin Cadman is stepping side for "personal health reasons" broke quickly yesterday. It's important news given his high profile role in development of the new medical school in Kakaako.

The Advertiser posted the Cadman story at 2:50 p.m. Pacific Business News followed just a few minutes later at 2:56 p.m.

The Star-Bulletin did not follow. It didn't report the story yesterday, and I don't see it today, at least in the online edition. Perhaps it's somewhere to be found in the hard copy. The absence was noticeable. [I did eventually find a small item about Cadman buried in today's S-B Newswatch column.]

Following news that Lee Enterprises will buy Pulitzer Inc.(here's the Post-Dispatch story, and a NY Times version) , a cautionary letter to Jim Romenesko's media column noted the company's anti-union stance:

1/31/2005 8:03:59 PM

From BILL CHRISTOFFERSON: Acquisitions may have changed this, but the last I knew Lee Enterprises was notable for having no unions in any of its newsrooms. I am painfully familiar with that, having been involved in the strike the Wisconsin State Journal provoked to get rid of the editorial union there.

Unfortunately, the labor scene at the Post-Dispatch were already somewhat troubled, with an fight within the Newspaper Guild over their last contract negotiations leading to a union trial last year. Although the proceeding officially dismissed charges of wrongdoing, it is clear that these situations reflect deep and lasting differences in the Guild local.

And on a separate matter, the Newspaper Guild is questioning whether the rush by publishers to adopt new ethics codes might be "less about ethics and more about corporate control". It is a surprisingly interesting and debatable issue.

And here's a quick suggestion from a faithful reader:

Was catching up on your diary and read about Ms. Wally's stepping on your cable modem button. Here's a little trick Pat cooked up when we had a printer with buttons on top ... he placed a plastic bottle cap right over the button, then attached it with tape on one side. This made a handy hinge by which we could flip the cap back to use the button, then flip it back for safety. I think they use the same sort of thing on nuclear weapons.

January 31, 2005 - Monday

The Washington Post is reporting breaking news that a federal judge ruled against the Pentagon and found military tribunals used in Guantanamo to be illegal.

An editorial in the Seattle Times noted the ongoing controversy over a new biodefense laboratory at the University of Washington and called for expanded community discussion and dialog.

Could such a lab become the inadvertent source of a disease outbreak? Concerns about safety at the UW have led at least one international group, the Sunshine Project, to consider the possibility.

Thanks to Mike Leidemann at the Advertiser for yesterday's look at plans to remedy the dismal state of Honolulu Airport. Buried down in the story is a comment by Tourism Authority director and former DOT head Rex Johnson that it is time to start planning for a new main terminal.

At the same time, two PBN stories caught my eye. Earlier this month, PBN reported that local residents now fly to the mainland more often than to the neighbor islands. Now that is a dramatic change in travel habits which, it seems to me, will have a lasting impact on the structure of the neighbor islands visitor industry, as well as a broader impact on community structure and networks.

And in the current edition, PBN reports that state airports had operating losses of $14 million during fiscal 2004, double that of the previous year.

Will new rules giving federal employees an expanded right to compensatory time when traveling eventually trickle down to the state and local levels? It looks like the feds have created a benchmark that state workers are going to be demanding as well.

"You have whales, I have squirrels," writes former islander Karen Waygood, now a denizen of the Atlanta area. She also sent along several photos taken over the weekend of life in the snowy south.

Time for more cat photos, including Mr. Romeo, the new cat on the block who can now boast a name of his own. I'm downstairs in his room now giving him a little company, food, and water. Just click on his photo to see this latest batch of cats.

Romeo

January 30, 2005 - Sunday

An interested reader made a good observation on yesterday's Honolulu newspapers:

just an observation - Saturday papers (at least the ones I got)

Advertiser headlined the Waikiki area fire and fatality at the scene - alarm at 10:35 pm; Star Bulletin had no mention at all. Don't know enuf about real deadlines to know how something like this happens. Both papers are printed "remotely," and the Advertiser even farther out than the SB. Hopefully not the result of "no one in the (SB) newsroom" at the time of the fire; 10:30 seems a little early for staff to have vacated.

The Star-Bulletin story trailed by 24 hours, appearing in today's paper.

So give some points to the Advertiser for getting the late night story onto the front page the next morning. Good work.

According to an item in Jim Romenesko's media column, a group of employees at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has announced their intention to attempt to purchase Pulitzer Inc through an Employee Stock Ownership Program, or ESOP. However, the Post-Dispatch reported Friday that Lee Enterprises appears to be the favored contender, edging out Gannett.

A similar ESOP effort was attempted by Star-Bulletin employees with support from the Newspaper Guild, but failed to develop much traction.

Pulitzer owns the Garden Island newspaper on Kauai, giving this story a local angle.

Say what?? Jeff Garland writes that he attended the freedom of information workshop presented on Tuesday by the Office of Information Practices and the Media Council. He reports: "I went with camera in hand, but was not allowed to tape as it was not 'a public meeting'. "

According to Garland, sponsors said the event was intended for the media rather than the general public. They say they will eventually put on such an event for the public.

It was Friday night and another search for a week-ending meal. Nothing special in mind, so we stopped on the way home, shuffled into Foodland, and put our fate in the hands of the grocery gods. They delivered. Just click on the photo for more.