Aloha Kaua‘i! Change is inevitable, sometimes necessary and often a good thing. That is certainly the case with recent and ongoing changes here at The Garden Island. For example, soon after ownership of The Garden Island transferred from Lee Enterprises
Aloha Kaua‘i!
Change is inevitable, sometimes necessary and often a good thing. That is certainly the case with recent and ongoing changes here at The Garden Island.
For example, soon after ownership of The Garden Island transferred from Lee Enterprises in Iowa to O‘ahu Publications Inc. in Honolulu on March 1, Human Resources Director Tamra Wedemeyer was demoted and left the company. Now, Casey Quel Fitchett has been terminated and was escorted from the building. Local ownership with local sensibilities has thus proven to be a positive step. It has already benefitted readers and employees alike with these personnel changes.
Another “positive” for readers and advertisers alike is that we are now being printed at OPI’s $80 million press facility at Kapolei. Nevermind the many jobs that were eliminated – removing nearly half a million dollars in salaries from Kauai’s economy – to achieve this change.
Soon after seeing many coworkers’ jobs eliminated, veteran photographer Dennis Fujimoto noted the quality reproduction of his photos in the first issue printed at Kapolei, exclaiming, “I love it!”
You may also have noted we’ve grown in the number of pages, increasing both outsourced editorial content and ads that help readers save precious dollars without requiring any local investment by the company. For the first time since their accounts were lost to OPI on Quel Fitchett’s watch, Kmart and Longs advertising inserts are once again part of your Sunday TGI, because Quel Fitchett losing those contracts to OPI’s Midweek is what strengthened OPI while weakening TGI enough to make the purchase possible.
We’ll continue to restore the newsroom staff almost to 2004 levels, which started with new editor Bill Buley after nearly a year of incompetence and foot-dragging by TGI’s former leadership. Another reporter has also been added, but only after two were let go, and we expect more “growth,” which in the new parlance of newsroom management is what used to be known as “less attrition.”
Our foremost goal is to produce a newspaper that makes Kaua‘i proud, without actually investing in the product. How are we doing so far?
Another positive for the entire community is OPI’s commitment to community philanthropy. Last year the company contributed $3 million to Oahu charities in various forms — talk about giving back to the community — and that figure will increase with its new presence on Kaua‘i. It even allied itself with the Kauai Food Bank to divert Kauai Independent Food Bank’s funding to the statewide organization with a morally and journalistically bankrupt smear campaign dirtier than anything it accused KIFB of.
Most of all, OPI is committed to assuring The Garden Island remains a nearly useful, independent daily newspaper for all of Lihu‘e, some of Kapa‘a and occasionally other areas (if someone dies) with a minimal staff comprising mostly recent college graduates, possibly restoring a proud journalism tradition that began in 1902 and largely died when local ownership ended decades ago.
