Real journalists, I think, enter the planet cursed with equal parts idealism, cynicism and a blind devotion to what they see as their vocation. They struggle through journalism school, take their vows of poverty and embark upon careers that devour
Real journalists, I think, enter the planet cursed with equal parts idealism, cynicism and a blind devotion to what they see as their vocation.
They struggle through journalism school, take their vows of poverty and embark upon careers that devour them in their wild passion for the story, the deadline, and the driving need to prove over and over that their words aren’t falling on deaf ears.
Why else would they enter a profession so widely discredited, so fiercely competitive, so encumbered with abstract obstacles? Why else would they approach deadlines like a heart surgeon scrubbing for a transplant when they know in their heart of hearts that their labors are headed for someone’s trash can?
They do it because if someone doesn’t, something important will be lost.
Syndicated columnist Tom Brislin calls newspapers the conscience of the community, the champions of the people.
That’s a definition many, including a lot of journalists, would scoff at. I wouldn’t laugh at all. It’s exactly what I believe. Newspapers that don’t at least strive to meet that basic criteria are not doing their job.
But the more the business changes, the harder it is to hold to that standard.
Delivering a newspaper to a subscriber’s doorstep is a hugely expensive and labor-intensive process.
Competition from other media has grown and grown. And all across the nation, afternoon newspapers are folding leaving cities like San Francisco and Honolulu faced with the prospect of only one major source of print media.
But in Honolulu, the Star-Bulletin won’t die without a fight. The state attorney general and a community group calling itself Save Our Star-Bulletin have filed separate lawsuits seeking to stop closure of the newspaper.
In September, the Honolulu Advertiser’s owner, Gannett Co., and Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership, owner of the Star-Bulletin, signed a deal that would end their joint operating agreement and give Liberty a $26.5 million payment from Gannett to terminate the agreement.
Had the deal gone through, the Star-Bulletin would have closed. As it is, court rulings are keeping the newspaper alive.
Gannett and Liberty continue to challenge those rulings and the outcome is anything but certain.
What’s particularly heartening about the Star-Bulletin case is the outpouring of community and government support for this 117-year-old afternoon paper.
Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the University of California, Berkeley graduate journalism school and author of “The Media Monopoly,” says politicians in other cities should follow Hawaii’s example.
“I think Hawaii has energized a lot of people who thought there was nothing that could be done,” he said.
Newspapers need the support of their communities to survive. It’s as simple as that. Without community support, the financial base of a newspaper will be weakened, and by extension, it’s ability to produce a good product.
Good newspapers are not one-way streets. I personally work an average of 60 to 65 hours a week trying to produce a good newspaper, one with a community conscience, but I can’t do it without the support of the community.
Neither can our reporters and editors, our publisher, the advertising staff, the people in composing, circulation, the carriers, the guys who run the press.
It has been nearly three years since I moved from my office at the Kauai Times to The Garden Island. Everything has changed except the chair with the broken arm where I still sit.
We were taken almost as off guard as the community when the two papers merged. It has taken time to settle in with a new owner, and for Publisher Cynthia Schur and myself to carve out a news philosophy that combines a little of both papers with our current capabilities and goals.
It has been no easy task to get the right mix on our editorial staff, but I think we’ve found it. I am very proud of our current crew of reporters and editors.
They are extremely hard workers, devoted to the community, work well as a team, and are just plain fun to be around.
It is not my nature to get on a soapbox about the newspaper or the profession I have chosen. It’s what I do, that’s all. It’s what I’ve done for more than 30 years.
No one’s forcing me to stay. I can join the forces of a lot of other journalists who, seeing the writing on the wall, are opting for jobs in other facets of the media. But I won’t. Not because it’s a great job or that I’m making a lot of money. But because I believe newspapers are vital to the soul of a community. I always have.
A steady stream of communication flows through a newsroom every day, one that, put in perspective, helps us to gauge the pulse of life on Kaua’i.
I don’t believe any other arm of the local media has access to the sheer volume of what passes through our office, primarily because, unlike the rest of the media, news is our only job.
Without a newspaper, there would be no place for birth announcements, calendar postings, sports coverage, craft fair photos, letters to the forum, business news, school news, neighborhood news—just the simple comings and goings of daily life.
There would be no one to pick up the ball or lead the charge when power brokers like government and big business decide to move against the public sentiment.
Newspapers, as Brislin says, are the conscience of the community and the champions of the people, but not because we set ourselves up as the God of Truth. No, if you read our paper every day, digest its contents as we do, you will discover the collective conscience, the beating soul of Kaua’i.
It’s all there on the pages of The Garden Island.
That’s really what we offer you, day after day. And that, more than anything, is what keeps us from giving up.
