For those of you who have never visited the National Press Club, the lobby is decorated with framed leather renderings of memorable front pages from America's past. Phil Graham, former Publisher of the Washington Post, once famously proclaimed to the Overseas Press Club that "Newspapers are the first draft of history." Graham's observation was right on the money even if his exact wording is open to some argument.
One of the framed front pages in the lobby always attracts my attention because of a personal connection to it. An original framed copy of that page hangs on my office wall. It is the "Extra Edition" of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from December 7, 1941 detailing the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It was distributed so soon after the attack that the lead story acknowledges only six dead and 21 injured. The death toll eventually reached 2403 souls.
My connection is that I spent close to a year in Honolulu as Chief Operating Officer of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Honolulu Newspapers operated as a JOA (joint operating agreement) between Liberty Newspapers and Gannett.
In the late 1990's, the partners chose to end their JOA. JOA's were (and still are in a few places) a creature of Congress designed to keep diverse editorial voices operating in big cities. The darn things never worked very well. Business operations were handled by a supposedly separate "agency company." The editorial departments were free to be independent.
A judge stopped the dissolution on anti-trust grounds after a lawsuit was filed by the Newspaper Guild. An attempt needed to be made to sell the weaker of the two newspapers... the afternoon Star-Bulletin... to a third party. I was sent to protect the asset and supervise the sale.
The Star-Bulletin was sold to a new company operated by a reserved, Canadian newspaperman named David Black and jointly owned by Black and a number of prominent local families.
Almost a decade has passed. This week. the Justice Department announced it would allow the Star-Bulletin owners to buy out their competition, The Honolulu Advertiser, from the Gannett Company.
Hawaii is a magical place and, despite a pressure-cooker situation, I would not trade my time there. When you live on Oahu, you acquire an entirely different perspective from what a visitor might get. The Hawaiian perspective has its roots in its colonial past. Still active is the wonderful atmosphere of the elite "Pacific Club." One might easily imagine Sidney Greenstreet sitting in a Rattan chair wearing a white tropical suit as he did in so many old movies. A societal divide between Asians and Europeans continues to simmer just under the surface.
The background to all this has to do with newspapering in America and with Hawaii's colonial past. General circulation publications are in serious trouble. The societal stew in Hawaii bubbling Sub-Rosa adds yet another dimension to the drama. All news employees at "The Advertiser" in 1941 were of European extraction. "The Star-Bulletin" staff was more mixed racially. Hawaiians have not forgotten and this colors their views even sixty years later.
The sole, surviving, Asian reporter who covered the Pearl Harbor attack was honored by the Asian American Journalists Association and I got to attend. Sixty years earlier, he told me about carrier-based Japanese bombers screaming overhead disrupting a quiet Sunday morning. He arrived at the Japanese Consulate in time to see secret papers being burned in the trash before they could be seized.
Both the "Star-Bulletin" and the "Advertiser" will disappear in June to be replaced with a new nameplate: "The Star-Advertiser." Partial ownership of the newspaper reverts to Hawaiian hands. The combined properties will employ about 300 fewer people than they do separately.
From this great distance, it is impossible to recognize winners and losers in this complex transaction. The folks who lose their jobs will certainly be losers. Whether the quality of news coverages for Hawaiians suffers remains to be seen. The news resources devoted weighs on the shoulders of those Hawaiian families who have chosen to invest. David Black's operating company has shown in other places that it needs to profit from operations. Effects from a dearth of competition might also figure into what is available to the Hawaiian citizenry.
Newspapers are, of course, a business. The Star-Bulletin has not made money the past ten years. It managed to grow its circulation from around 45,000 when I was there to about 65,000 today and that speaks well for the editorial effort expended. I wish them well in their new venture.
I mourn the passing of the historic competition and the loss of two famous newspaper flags. Both are a sign of the times. The reason I was asked to speak yesterday is because opportunities available for writers are changing so radically. Writers will survive and prosper, but by doing different work.
News widely available to all readers may require a more discriminating eye than has been recently necessary. In the 20th century newspaper world, a safe assumption could generally be made that the writer was attempting a measure of objectivity. In the new, blogospheric, world of information, objectivity can no longer be assumed as the starting point.
I think I must be turning into a dinosaur, but it seems somehow comforting to hold something memorialized on paper or carved on stone tablets in my hands. There is a permanence to it.
My lecture from yesterday was encapsulated on a little flash drive carried in my pocket about the size of a thumbnail. It performed flawlessly. And I got a chance to hold and play with an IPAD for the first time. I was unexpectedly dazzled and want one. The thing is really cool.
These are all wondrous devices, but I worry, just a little. What happens to all that we are if an unexpected electrical charge disrupts all those carefully arranged electrons on our hard drives and flash memory cards? What happens to Phil Graham's "first draft of history" when we are no longer here to tell the story?
The world is certainly changing. Much of this is a good thing. Does it strike anyone else as ironic that I'm musing about all this on a blog destined for the Internet. Well, the irony is not entirely lost to me.
Al Portner's "The Assignment Desk" provides
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