CHECKING FOR LEAKS: You know it’s a slow news day when Starvertiser political reporter Derrick DePledge’s blog has nothing better to talk about than the latest phony web site scam site from GOP wacko Eric Ryan.
But, although you have to look for it, the first article from new local newspaper reporter Vanessa Van Voorhis (wasn’t that a character in Archie comics?) has a few revelations.
The first is that she has obviously got the message as to why the last business “reporter” (note the position has been downgraded from “editor”) Coco Zickos was fired so, as her first entry she scrambled her butt down to the Lihu`e Business Association’s monthly meeting, the type of thing Zickos admitted she neglected to do enough of during her stint, saying it was reason #1 for her exit.
But then there’s the end of the article in which Van Voorhis is listed as business AND environmental editor, the latter of which, according to Zickos, was added to her job description at her request- a position which she was told she spent too much time on at the expense of the former.
But the big news, if true, is buried in the 10th paragraph and 325 words into the piece covering a talk by Department of Water (DOW) Manager and Chief Engineer David Craddick.
After talking about projects and pipes and other mundane stuff we hear a statistic that can’t possibly be right- but then again might be.
Quoting Craddick, Van Voorhis writes:
DOW is Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative’s No. 1 customer, using approximately 40 percent of all KIUC’s generation.
Forty percent?.. of all the electricity used on the island? That raises way too many mind-boggling questions.
Something has got to be haywire, especially since for years we’ve been told by the water department that gravity-fed, natural springs are the primary source of our water and that, other than the new surface water in Lihu`e, it’s the way the rest of the island gets its water.
But it appears it might be so because she also writes
When asked about the option of solar-driven energy for pumps, Craddick said it would “require acres and acres of solar panels to power just one pump,” and is therefore not a feasible option.
Now we don’t have an engineering degree but what kind of pump needs “acres and acres of solar panels”- or 3/5th of the islands electricity output- to run?
Then, as if it were almost a joke, the penultimate paragraph in the article reads:
(Craddick) added that customers should anticipate about a 25-percent increase in water bills over the next three years. “We’re doing a rate study right now,” he said, “and we should have the results November or December. Then we’ll know what we need to do.”
Psst... we’ve got a suggestion- start with finding some more efficient pumps. Or at least tell us whose brother-in-law is supplying them.
---------
Update: According to two people the article by Vanessa Van Voorhis in yesterday’s local newspaper quoting Department of Water Chief Engineer David Craddick as saying that “40 percent of all KIUC’s generation” is factually incorrect, as we suspected.
Dr. Carl Berg who attended the meeting wrote to say that actually:
My notes from that meeting say (the) County is biggest single consumer of electricity, using 10% of what is produced and 40% of County's use is by Water Dept. That is a lot different.(Craddick) did say it would take a lot of solar panels to drive a pump and that solar is no good at night. He did mention net-metering. Also talked about hydroelectric from surface water source. But he concluded that DOW is really dependent on KIUC.
And Ken Taylor confirmed that statistic and added other information writing that:
The county overall, is KIUC biggest or #1 customer at about 10% of the total production. Of that, DOW uses about 40-50%, sewers use about 20%. I talked to Walt Barnes who is an electrical engineer about how much solar would be needed to run a 75 hp pump motor. His calculations showed only about 1 acre of solar would be needed. This happened after David had made this same comment at another meeting last fall. I questioned David's numbers because I have read where water districts in Cal. have been installing more and more solar. I think the problem come in getting the pump started, which can be done by using KIUC to start them, then automatically change over. I'm checking with some others on this. I asked the question that started this conversation at yesterdays meeting.
Showing posts with label Coco Zickos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coco Zickos. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
MUZZLED (Part 3)
MUZZLED (Part 3): While the subject line may not be as jarring as embezzlement and slavery, another story- one that may have much bigger implications for the island’s future- is striking for it’s absence from the local newspaper.
The big news ran in a Pacific Business News article headlined
Barking Sands Going Off Grid
A fragile domestic electricity grid makes military installations unnecessarily vulnerable.
The sub-head tells the rest of The Pacific Missile Range Facility’s (PRMF) side of the story including a target date of 2015.
You don’t have to be a mathematics genius to understand the untold story of the implication for rate-payers who are forced to remain on the grid and who will have to pay for all the established infrastructure of lines and generation facilities with fewer rate payers.
Actually you didn’t have to be a genius to predict it either. The “nitpickers”, who got their name from then Mayor Maryanne Kusaka for their efforts opposing the sale, did so during the deal-making process about a decade ago.
They knew that when the big users- specifically naming PMRF among them- decide to go off the grid the rate payers would suffer. And as home generation though wind and solar became cheaper and more widely available more families would leave the grid too making their- now our- old fissile fuel generation units, well, old fossils.
And you don’t have to be anything but observant to understand the links the local newspaper has to Kaua`i Island Utilities Cooperative (KIUC) to understand why the story was absent from its pages.
First of all, the firing of Business Editor Coco Zickos for not making kissy-face with the Chamber of Commerce crowd wasn’t the first time a business editor left under similar circumstances.
A few years back Business Editor Andy Gross was starting to ask questions about KIUC and publish answers that didn’t please the board and management. One weekend, while then weekend editor Paul Curtis read the latest installment of Gross’ investigative efforts he demanded Gross leave out the most embarrassing parts.
Gross essentially told Curtis “to take this job and shove it” but when the editor returned Monday, Gross wasn’t the only one out of a job. Curtis was fired and by the time Gross was offered his job back he had already found better paying employment and refused to return to a newspaper that censored news.
But why would Curtis- who has been rehired under Editor Nathan Eagle and reinstalled as weekend editor- care? For that you have to go back to the nascent days of The Kaua`i Times newspaper where then publisher Greg Gardiner gave Curtis his first newspaper job as Gardiner’s shill in his pro-development efforts.
Gardiner went on to lead the coop’s efforts to buy the utility at any price that owner Citizen’s Utilities asked- an original price that was dropped by over $50 million and, the nitpickers contended, should have been lowered much more with some, including PNN, saying they should have had to pay us to take it off their hands due to the other liabilities such as the toxic waste dump under the Ele`ele power plant.
Add to that the fact that KIUC is one of the biggest advertisers in the paper- using rate-payer’s bucks for happyface PR- and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why news of the biggest user of electricity deciding to go it alone hasn’t made the pages of our “newspaper of record”.
A newspaper is more than just another business especially when it’s the only news source in town, small, independent, essentially one-person outlets like this notwithstanding.
“Without fear or favor” and “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” are more than just slogans. They are at the heart of responsible journalism- the kind our local Kaua`i newspaper apparently eschews if it displeases those who advertise with them.
The big news ran in a Pacific Business News article headlined
Barking Sands Going Off Grid
A fragile domestic electricity grid makes military installations unnecessarily vulnerable.
The sub-head tells the rest of The Pacific Missile Range Facility’s (PRMF) side of the story including a target date of 2015.
You don’t have to be a mathematics genius to understand the untold story of the implication for rate-payers who are forced to remain on the grid and who will have to pay for all the established infrastructure of lines and generation facilities with fewer rate payers.
Actually you didn’t have to be a genius to predict it either. The “nitpickers”, who got their name from then Mayor Maryanne Kusaka for their efforts opposing the sale, did so during the deal-making process about a decade ago.
They knew that when the big users- specifically naming PMRF among them- decide to go off the grid the rate payers would suffer. And as home generation though wind and solar became cheaper and more widely available more families would leave the grid too making their- now our- old fissile fuel generation units, well, old fossils.
And you don’t have to be anything but observant to understand the links the local newspaper has to Kaua`i Island Utilities Cooperative (KIUC) to understand why the story was absent from its pages.
First of all, the firing of Business Editor Coco Zickos for not making kissy-face with the Chamber of Commerce crowd wasn’t the first time a business editor left under similar circumstances.
A few years back Business Editor Andy Gross was starting to ask questions about KIUC and publish answers that didn’t please the board and management. One weekend, while then weekend editor Paul Curtis read the latest installment of Gross’ investigative efforts he demanded Gross leave out the most embarrassing parts.
Gross essentially told Curtis “to take this job and shove it” but when the editor returned Monday, Gross wasn’t the only one out of a job. Curtis was fired and by the time Gross was offered his job back he had already found better paying employment and refused to return to a newspaper that censored news.
But why would Curtis- who has been rehired under Editor Nathan Eagle and reinstalled as weekend editor- care? For that you have to go back to the nascent days of The Kaua`i Times newspaper where then publisher Greg Gardiner gave Curtis his first newspaper job as Gardiner’s shill in his pro-development efforts.
Gardiner went on to lead the coop’s efforts to buy the utility at any price that owner Citizen’s Utilities asked- an original price that was dropped by over $50 million and, the nitpickers contended, should have been lowered much more with some, including PNN, saying they should have had to pay us to take it off their hands due to the other liabilities such as the toxic waste dump under the Ele`ele power plant.
Add to that the fact that KIUC is one of the biggest advertisers in the paper- using rate-payer’s bucks for happyface PR- and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why news of the biggest user of electricity deciding to go it alone hasn’t made the pages of our “newspaper of record”.
A newspaper is more than just another business especially when it’s the only news source in town, small, independent, essentially one-person outlets like this notwithstanding.
“Without fear or favor” and “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” are more than just slogans. They are at the heart of responsible journalism- the kind our local Kaua`i newspaper apparently eschews if it displeases those who advertise with them.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
MUZZLED (Part 2)
MUZZLED (Part 2): With a tiny, unskilled, untalented and underpaid staff it might be understandable if the local Kaua`i newspaper missed a few stories.
But you’d also think that when the biggest agricultural plantation on the island is linked to charges of slavery it would get at least a little mention.
Readers and viewers of the Honolulu newspaper and TV news outlets respectively have no doubt heard reports about how:
More than a dozen farms in Hawaii were involved in what the FBI is calling the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted in the U.S., according to a sweeping federal indictment unsealed (last week).
For those unfamiliar with the story according to the Star-Advertiser article linked above
About 400 workers from Thailand circulated through island farms -- some were sent to the mainland -- through Global Horizons from May 2004 through September 2005. The workers were threatened with deportation and economic stress if they did not work, the indictment said.
"This is the largest human trafficking case ever charged in United States history," FBI Special Agent Tom Simon said, referring to the number of victims.
"In the old days, they used to keep slaves in their place with whips and chains," Simon said in an interview. "Today, it is done with economic threats and intimidation."
Global Horizons recruits workers from foreign countries through the U.S. Department of Labor H-2A guest worker program to work on U.S. farms, including properties in four Hawaii counties.
Although the indictment itself (thanks to Larry Geller) - which describes how Thai farmers were duped into putting up the deeds to their land and then underpaid and held against their will- only mentions Maui Pineapple, toward the end of the article it goes on to describe how,
(Last) Tuesday, the Kauai Coffee Co. filed a lawsuit against Global Horizons. The two companies entered into an H-2A agreement for workers from Thailand in 2004.
Since 2006, 17 people have filed worker discrimination complaints against Kauai Coffee Co. through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 15 of whom filed through the Honolulu office.
Kauai Coffee denies the allegations, but has had to defend itself against the EEOC charges, racking up attorneys' fees and associated court costs. Kauai Coffee claims in its lawsuit that Global Horizons should be defending the charges on its behalf.
An attorney representing Kauai Coffee declined comment yesterday, citing the continuing case.
Seventeen EEOC complaints? And Kaua`i Coffee is apparently not only refusing to cooperate with the feds but is trying to stave off indictment but countersuing to get the jump on them.
And it’s not as if the local paper’s Editor Nathan Eagle hasn’t heard about it. According to sources he was not only questioned as to why he didn’t at least run an Associated Press story based on the S-A’s article, but according to one person he bristled at “insinuation” of the question.
We’re not “insinuating” anything. We’re saying it straight out.
After the firing of business Editor Coco Zickos for what she describes as not doing enough to make the business community happy it’s not much of a stretch to think that Eagle would think twice about revealing the allegations of slavery at Kaua`i Coffee- a huge mainstay of the business community, not to mention an advertiser who has had glowing coverage of the taste of their coffee despite the fact that coffee connoisseurs think that, after all these years, it still “sucks” due to it’s high “green” (unripe) bean content related to their mechanized harvesting methods.
We’re working on getting hold of Kaua`i Coffee’s suit.
If nobody knows the troubles we’ve seen, there’s little disputing that you can blame it on the local newspaper which apparently likes it that way just fine, thank you..
But you’d also think that when the biggest agricultural plantation on the island is linked to charges of slavery it would get at least a little mention.
Readers and viewers of the Honolulu newspaper and TV news outlets respectively have no doubt heard reports about how:
More than a dozen farms in Hawaii were involved in what the FBI is calling the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted in the U.S., according to a sweeping federal indictment unsealed (last week).
For those unfamiliar with the story according to the Star-Advertiser article linked above
About 400 workers from Thailand circulated through island farms -- some were sent to the mainland -- through Global Horizons from May 2004 through September 2005. The workers were threatened with deportation and economic stress if they did not work, the indictment said.
"This is the largest human trafficking case ever charged in United States history," FBI Special Agent Tom Simon said, referring to the number of victims.
"In the old days, they used to keep slaves in their place with whips and chains," Simon said in an interview. "Today, it is done with economic threats and intimidation."
Global Horizons recruits workers from foreign countries through the U.S. Department of Labor H-2A guest worker program to work on U.S. farms, including properties in four Hawaii counties.
Although the indictment itself (thanks to Larry Geller) - which describes how Thai farmers were duped into putting up the deeds to their land and then underpaid and held against their will- only mentions Maui Pineapple, toward the end of the article it goes on to describe how,
(Last) Tuesday, the Kauai Coffee Co. filed a lawsuit against Global Horizons. The two companies entered into an H-2A agreement for workers from Thailand in 2004.
Since 2006, 17 people have filed worker discrimination complaints against Kauai Coffee Co. through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 15 of whom filed through the Honolulu office.
Kauai Coffee denies the allegations, but has had to defend itself against the EEOC charges, racking up attorneys' fees and associated court costs. Kauai Coffee claims in its lawsuit that Global Horizons should be defending the charges on its behalf.
An attorney representing Kauai Coffee declined comment yesterday, citing the continuing case.
Seventeen EEOC complaints? And Kaua`i Coffee is apparently not only refusing to cooperate with the feds but is trying to stave off indictment but countersuing to get the jump on them.
And it’s not as if the local paper’s Editor Nathan Eagle hasn’t heard about it. According to sources he was not only questioned as to why he didn’t at least run an Associated Press story based on the S-A’s article, but according to one person he bristled at “insinuation” of the question.
We’re not “insinuating” anything. We’re saying it straight out.
After the firing of business Editor Coco Zickos for what she describes as not doing enough to make the business community happy it’s not much of a stretch to think that Eagle would think twice about revealing the allegations of slavery at Kaua`i Coffee- a huge mainstay of the business community, not to mention an advertiser who has had glowing coverage of the taste of their coffee despite the fact that coffee connoisseurs think that, after all these years, it still “sucks” due to it’s high “green” (unripe) bean content related to their mechanized harvesting methods.
We’re working on getting hold of Kaua`i Coffee’s suit.
If nobody knows the troubles we’ve seen, there’s little disputing that you can blame it on the local newspaper which apparently likes it that way just fine, thank you..
Monday, May 17, 2010
AND YOU CAN QUOTE THAT
AND YOU CAN QUOTE THAT: After submitting to a shave and a bone cut (40,000 bits) to rid us of scapular-acromion and clavicular bone spurs inside our other (right) shoulder last Thursday- sans last September’s titanium-screw rotator cuff repair which, with complications, took six months to sort-of heal up, “fixing” our left shoulder)- we’ve had a lot of spare time for one of our favorite activites this past weekend... perusing the movable feast of on-line news from across the world.
On Sunday we had even more time than expected after turning to our local Kaua`i newspaper and finding, after one brief shining moment in which its content approximated a real newspaper, they’ve hit rock bottom again and begun a new era of incompetent, kissy-faced, fluff and puff, thus regaining their late-‘80’s through mid-‘00’ moniker The Garbage Island.
This is the actual list of headlines which passed for Sunday’s entire on-line local “news” section (note that the quotation marks on “news” are the kind you make in the air denoting that it’s anything but), each indicating pretty clearly the extent of the content of each:
KCC graduates offer hope, Obituaries for Sunday, May 16, 2010, Don’t let them forget it is your tax dollar (Lowell L. Kalapa’s usual drivel), Walkers show support for nonprofits, Volunteers’ aloha makes difference, Students celebrate the Earth, Kaua`i Sovereign Volunteers Award winners, Kaua`i residents graduate from University of Portland, Nutrition seminar set for Tuesday, Students help divert phone books from landfill, Free vehicle window tint inspections next week, Weekly Roadwork Index for Sunday, May 16, 2010, and Public Meetings for Sunday, May 16, 2010.
Rock bottom news can only be provided by rock bottom “writers” (again those air quotes): in this case 1) new guy Leo Azambuja, the language-challenged, rank-amateur government reporter we “mentioned” (yes again) a few weeks back, 2) Paul Curtis the oft fired and rehired “professional” (uh-huh) whose “please like me Mr. Newsmaker” reporting has been instrumental in the derivation of the Garbage Island label over the past couple for decades and 3) the always prolific Dennis Fujimoto who, though he’s been the paper’s photographer for decades so is of course the most literate among the current crop of crappy “correspondents” (of course).
But wait- on Sunday there’s a business news page, which this week, if it’s possible, was even more vapid and insipid than usual due to 4) our own Miss Malaprop, Coco Zickos who took an embrace the suck attitude toward our “flighty fluffmeister” review of her work as (here we go again) ‘Business Editor”
This week in addition to the always boring regurgitation of press releases in News & Notes for Sunday, May 16, 2010, People on the Move for Sunday, May 16, 2010, News & Events for Sunday, May 16, 2010 and People on the Move for Sunday, May 2, 2010 and another in her series of “huh?”, off-deadline-style meanderings, is a piece headlined Has Kaua`i seen the recession’s end?.
The use of a question in a news story headline and its place on the journalistic no-no list aside, Zickos’ “story” (you bet) and it’s content can be summed up in one hilarious “qualifying the previously unqualified- and doing so twice” second sentence, destined we hope to be saved by some professor for a J-school their list of howlers:
Apparently the recession is over, some economists say.
Or maybe, apparently, not.
Current Editor Nathan Eagle has a lot to answer for here although we’re not sure how much of a leash Publisher Randy Kozerski provides him. Based on his clear, decently informative although nothing-to-write-home-about, rather pedestrian coverage of the government beat- which preceded his stint as Editor- Eagle certainly knows his ass from his news-hole-in-the-ground in the journalism world.
Perhaps seeing the first enterprise reporting (and even on occasion investigative work) since the departure of legendary Editor Jean Holmes and her ace reporter Bill LeGro in 1982, made for delusional expectations on our part.
We’ve got to accept the fact that Mike Levine has gone to his reward over at Civil Beat, Now he’s busy schmoozing with paid lobbyists and candidate shills who’ve paid $20 to take turns on the soap box within the gated-community in what Larry Geller (see forth comment on article) theorizes is just an auto-renewal scam for CB (and EBay) owner Pierre Omidyar’s Pay-Pals’ test of a business model for paid, on-line-newspaper subscriptions (much like the Superferry was a model to sell the armed forced similar “littoral” boats.)
Everything old is new again... same as it ever was... but can’t anyone here play this game?
-----
Depending on our level of “discomfort”, frequency of follow-up with the Doc and the supply and effectiveness of these little white pills, we may or may not be, apparently some say, intermittent in posting over the next week or so.
(Pardon the interruption- try to do better next time- Nathan Eagle: go to your room).
On Sunday we had even more time than expected after turning to our local Kaua`i newspaper and finding, after one brief shining moment in which its content approximated a real newspaper, they’ve hit rock bottom again and begun a new era of incompetent, kissy-faced, fluff and puff, thus regaining their late-‘80’s through mid-‘00’ moniker The Garbage Island.
This is the actual list of headlines which passed for Sunday’s entire on-line local “news” section (note that the quotation marks on “news” are the kind you make in the air denoting that it’s anything but), each indicating pretty clearly the extent of the content of each:
KCC graduates offer hope, Obituaries for Sunday, May 16, 2010, Don’t let them forget it is your tax dollar (Lowell L. Kalapa’s usual drivel), Walkers show support for nonprofits, Volunteers’ aloha makes difference, Students celebrate the Earth, Kaua`i Sovereign Volunteers Award winners, Kaua`i residents graduate from University of Portland, Nutrition seminar set for Tuesday, Students help divert phone books from landfill, Free vehicle window tint inspections next week, Weekly Roadwork Index for Sunday, May 16, 2010, and Public Meetings for Sunday, May 16, 2010.
Rock bottom news can only be provided by rock bottom “writers” (again those air quotes): in this case 1) new guy Leo Azambuja, the language-challenged, rank-amateur government reporter we “mentioned” (yes again) a few weeks back, 2) Paul Curtis the oft fired and rehired “professional” (uh-huh) whose “please like me Mr. Newsmaker” reporting has been instrumental in the derivation of the Garbage Island label over the past couple for decades and 3) the always prolific Dennis Fujimoto who, though he’s been the paper’s photographer for decades so is of course the most literate among the current crop of crappy “correspondents” (of course).
But wait- on Sunday there’s a business news page, which this week, if it’s possible, was even more vapid and insipid than usual due to 4) our own Miss Malaprop, Coco Zickos who took an embrace the suck attitude toward our “flighty fluffmeister” review of her work as (here we go again) ‘Business Editor”
This week in addition to the always boring regurgitation of press releases in News & Notes for Sunday, May 16, 2010, People on the Move for Sunday, May 16, 2010, News & Events for Sunday, May 16, 2010 and People on the Move for Sunday, May 2, 2010 and another in her series of “huh?”, off-deadline-style meanderings, is a piece headlined Has Kaua`i seen the recession’s end?.
The use of a question in a news story headline and its place on the journalistic no-no list aside, Zickos’ “story” (you bet) and it’s content can be summed up in one hilarious “qualifying the previously unqualified- and doing so twice” second sentence, destined we hope to be saved by some professor for a J-school their list of howlers:
Apparently the recession is over, some economists say.
Or maybe, apparently, not.
Current Editor Nathan Eagle has a lot to answer for here although we’re not sure how much of a leash Publisher Randy Kozerski provides him. Based on his clear, decently informative although nothing-to-write-home-about, rather pedestrian coverage of the government beat- which preceded his stint as Editor- Eagle certainly knows his ass from his news-hole-in-the-ground in the journalism world.
Perhaps seeing the first enterprise reporting (and even on occasion investigative work) since the departure of legendary Editor Jean Holmes and her ace reporter Bill LeGro in 1982, made for delusional expectations on our part.
We’ve got to accept the fact that Mike Levine has gone to his reward over at Civil Beat, Now he’s busy schmoozing with paid lobbyists and candidate shills who’ve paid $20 to take turns on the soap box within the gated-community in what Larry Geller (see forth comment on article) theorizes is just an auto-renewal scam for CB (and EBay) owner Pierre Omidyar’s Pay-Pals’ test of a business model for paid, on-line-newspaper subscriptions (much like the Superferry was a model to sell the armed forced similar “littoral” boats.)
Everything old is new again... same as it ever was... but can’t anyone here play this game?
-----
Depending on our level of “discomfort”, frequency of follow-up with the Doc and the supply and effectiveness of these little white pills, we may or may not be, apparently some say, intermittent in posting over the next week or so.
(Pardon the interruption- try to do better next time- Nathan Eagle: go to your room).
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
COPY!
COPY!: After twenty-five years plus of providing unending targets for ridicule it was a bit uncomfortable for us to gush over anything remotely related to our joke-of-a-local-newspaper during the brief period that saw reporter Mike Levine waste his talents on Kaua`i.
But if it’s possible, with Mike’s departure, the paper might just be the worst it’s been in at least a decade or more with the addition of Leo Azambuja who has quite apparently never seen the inside of a basic newswriting textbook.
As if the flighty fluffmeister “Business Editor” Coco Zickos and the always incomprehensible “police and courts reporter” Paul Curtis weren’t bad enough, Azambuja seems totally baffled after being hired to cover the all important “government beat”.
A new article is supposed to have what’s called a lead- or lede as it’s spelled in the trade. A good reporter sits down to file a story and takes a breath to come up with the most important thing that that happened and put it at the top- all in 25 words or less.
The rest of the story follows what’s called the “inverted triangle” and tells a story- another important element- with the more important information nearer the top and the less important depth and background to follow.
It’s kind of the opposite of normal writing and a writer who is not a journalist must unlearn everything he or she knows in order to be a good reporter.
In covering a meeting the one thing you don’t want to see is a chronological regurgitation of what happened and a lede something like “A meeting of the county council was held yesterday at 9 a.m. in the council chambers at the county building”.
But apparently Azambuja either missed that day’s lesson or never attended a class.
Take his wrap-up of the budget hearings- which individually were a minute by minute recap with no context or narrative. Here’s his lede:
NAWILIWILI — Kaua‘i County Council members have been keeping busy since April 9, reviewing Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s proposed $146.29 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which starts July 1.
Classic. It the type of thing that a frst day student might turn in- one who hadn’t bothered to do the reading or pay attention in class.
Another skill is deciding the most important story to report if there’s more than one. But today. while Azambuja was filing a somewhat disjointed report from yesterday’s planning commission meeting about an ongoing, weeks-old story about an art gallery permit in Hanalei, Joan Conrow was reporting about the Transient Vacation Rental (TVR) bill that was passed out of the planning commission- a bill will basically ditches all the restrictions the council placed on TVRs last year and could, if passed by the council, have repercussions for decades to come.
Perhaps the most egregious thing one can do is to “bury the lede”, waiting until halfway through the article until you report the most important thing.
Azambuja’s story last Thursday on the “dog path” bill started with the end, calling the deferral of the bill to allow dogs on the entire bike path a “surprise” and regurgitating much the testimony of the “dog ladies”.
Finally 634 words into an 874 word story in the 22nd paragraph of a 27 paragraph report he writes that
The Parks and Recreation new plan suggests leashed dogs be allowed from Kealia lookout to the north end of Kuna Beach, popularly known as Donkey Beach.
United Public Workers Business Agent Trina Horner said the union supports leashed dogs on the portion of the path proposed by Rapozo, because allowing them on the entire path would put an extra burden on maintenance workers.
And that was it- no other reference to the administration’s official recommendation that dogs be allowed only on the extreme northern section of the path rather than the entire path as the bill currently calls for. There was no reference at all to an all important grievance filed by the union that could make the use of the entire path as a dog walk difficult without a resolution to the filing.
Seems that the workers are willing to perform the added maintenance duties on the northern portion for now as a compromise. They could have said no to any additions since new job descriptions cannot, by law, be imposed on them unilaterally and must be negotiated.... especially, apparently, the job of picking up dog poop.
But you’d never know that from the story which only mentions the administration’s position in passing as if it had no consequence when in actuality it very well could cause the first veto of Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s administration.
Though the story ranted on and on about the survey there was no mention that it was as nonscientific as could be or that the information was gathered by dogs-on-the-path zealots and so predictably found that “everyone” wants dogs on the path- apparently including those who have been bitten or harassed by or just don’t like being around huge unpredictable animals.
Which leads us to the “surprise” deferral- one that was, as Parks and Transportation Committee Chair Lani Kawahara said, done to allow for the committee to decide on an amendment to give the administrations proposal it’s due consideration and then either accept or reject it... and do so in committee where council’s “work” is supposed to be done.
These are just a few examples of the piss-poor job being done by the one person who this community relies upon to inform the public of governmental doings via the self-proclaimed “newspaper of record”.
There’s no shortage of excellent reporters in the state and even the island and a slew more out-of-work journalists to come with today’s announcement that the merger of the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin will proceed, initiating mass layoffs as the two staffs combine into one.
But hiring one of them would entail actually paying them a living wage, something the local paper avoids at all costs according to many past employees.
We don’t like denying anyone their job. But the tracking of the doings of government for the community is too important to be left to amateurs.
But if it’s possible, with Mike’s departure, the paper might just be the worst it’s been in at least a decade or more with the addition of Leo Azambuja who has quite apparently never seen the inside of a basic newswriting textbook.
As if the flighty fluffmeister “Business Editor” Coco Zickos and the always incomprehensible “police and courts reporter” Paul Curtis weren’t bad enough, Azambuja seems totally baffled after being hired to cover the all important “government beat”.
A new article is supposed to have what’s called a lead- or lede as it’s spelled in the trade. A good reporter sits down to file a story and takes a breath to come up with the most important thing that that happened and put it at the top- all in 25 words or less.
The rest of the story follows what’s called the “inverted triangle” and tells a story- another important element- with the more important information nearer the top and the less important depth and background to follow.
It’s kind of the opposite of normal writing and a writer who is not a journalist must unlearn everything he or she knows in order to be a good reporter.
In covering a meeting the one thing you don’t want to see is a chronological regurgitation of what happened and a lede something like “A meeting of the county council was held yesterday at 9 a.m. in the council chambers at the county building”.
But apparently Azambuja either missed that day’s lesson or never attended a class.
Take his wrap-up of the budget hearings- which individually were a minute by minute recap with no context or narrative. Here’s his lede:
NAWILIWILI — Kaua‘i County Council members have been keeping busy since April 9, reviewing Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s proposed $146.29 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which starts July 1.
Classic. It the type of thing that a frst day student might turn in- one who hadn’t bothered to do the reading or pay attention in class.
Another skill is deciding the most important story to report if there’s more than one. But today. while Azambuja was filing a somewhat disjointed report from yesterday’s planning commission meeting about an ongoing, weeks-old story about an art gallery permit in Hanalei, Joan Conrow was reporting about the Transient Vacation Rental (TVR) bill that was passed out of the planning commission- a bill will basically ditches all the restrictions the council placed on TVRs last year and could, if passed by the council, have repercussions for decades to come.
Perhaps the most egregious thing one can do is to “bury the lede”, waiting until halfway through the article until you report the most important thing.
Azambuja’s story last Thursday on the “dog path” bill started with the end, calling the deferral of the bill to allow dogs on the entire bike path a “surprise” and regurgitating much the testimony of the “dog ladies”.
Finally 634 words into an 874 word story in the 22nd paragraph of a 27 paragraph report he writes that
The Parks and Recreation new plan suggests leashed dogs be allowed from Kealia lookout to the north end of Kuna Beach, popularly known as Donkey Beach.
United Public Workers Business Agent Trina Horner said the union supports leashed dogs on the portion of the path proposed by Rapozo, because allowing them on the entire path would put an extra burden on maintenance workers.
And that was it- no other reference to the administration’s official recommendation that dogs be allowed only on the extreme northern section of the path rather than the entire path as the bill currently calls for. There was no reference at all to an all important grievance filed by the union that could make the use of the entire path as a dog walk difficult without a resolution to the filing.
Seems that the workers are willing to perform the added maintenance duties on the northern portion for now as a compromise. They could have said no to any additions since new job descriptions cannot, by law, be imposed on them unilaterally and must be negotiated.... especially, apparently, the job of picking up dog poop.
But you’d never know that from the story which only mentions the administration’s position in passing as if it had no consequence when in actuality it very well could cause the first veto of Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s administration.
Though the story ranted on and on about the survey there was no mention that it was as nonscientific as could be or that the information was gathered by dogs-on-the-path zealots and so predictably found that “everyone” wants dogs on the path- apparently including those who have been bitten or harassed by or just don’t like being around huge unpredictable animals.
Which leads us to the “surprise” deferral- one that was, as Parks and Transportation Committee Chair Lani Kawahara said, done to allow for the committee to decide on an amendment to give the administrations proposal it’s due consideration and then either accept or reject it... and do so in committee where council’s “work” is supposed to be done.
These are just a few examples of the piss-poor job being done by the one person who this community relies upon to inform the public of governmental doings via the self-proclaimed “newspaper of record”.
There’s no shortage of excellent reporters in the state and even the island and a slew more out-of-work journalists to come with today’s announcement that the merger of the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin will proceed, initiating mass layoffs as the two staffs combine into one.
But hiring one of them would entail actually paying them a living wage, something the local paper avoids at all costs according to many past employees.
We don’t like denying anyone their job. But the tracking of the doings of government for the community is too important to be left to amateurs.
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