Media

KHON tops in news ratings

Flush with the record-setting audiences sucked in by the FOX network’s “American Idol,” KHON announced today that the latest Nielsen Survey showed all of its newscasts at the top of the local news heap. Although the station was the last of the local stations to introduce a 5 p.m. local news show, the broadcast came in first for the first time between April 29 and May 26. KHON has already long dominated the ratings for its morning programming and 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts, both weeknights and weekends.  DISCUSS

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Advertiser workers rally for new contract

[ Photo by Ian Lind ]Unionized employees at the Honolulu Advertiser held a lunch-hour rally outside the newspaper building yesterday to call attention to the fact that, as of Monday, they have been working without a contract for a year. They also withheld most of their bylines in yesterday’s edition. Gannett, the paper’s owner, is reportedly seeking a wage freeze on top of other concessions, despite reporting $1.16 billion in profits last year — a 40 percent increase.

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Case joins fight to undo FCC changes

Hawai`i Rep. Ed Case is part of a bipartisan campaign in Congress to reverse last week’s controversial decision by the Federal Communications Commission to remove longstanding restrictions on media ownership. Case is a cosponsor of H.R. 2052 and H.R. 2212, two bills among many in both the House and Senate directed at the FCC. The first bill would revise the Communications Act of 1934, and the second would force the FCC to comply with the act’s original mandate “favoring diversity of media voices.”

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Gannett grabs tourist mags

The owner of Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper has acquired a series of magazines geared toward tourists and its associated website, according to a report in today’s Pacific Business News. Gannett — one of the nation’s largest media conglomerates and stakeholder in the Hawaii.com portal — has bought the “101 Things to Do” guides and website from their longtime publisher, Gregg Gardiner of Kaua`i.

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Polanski victim speaks out

Today she’s 39 years old, but she still finds it hard get out from under the shadow of what happened to her when she was 13. Kaua`i resident Samantha Geimer — then Samantha Gailey — was the ostensibly anonymous statutory rape victim of filmmaker-in-exile Roman Polanski, then 43. After years of relative obscurity and few media appearances, the controversial Academy Awards nomination of Polanski’s “The Pianist” has put her back in the spotlight. Today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin features a rare interview with Geimer, in which she says Polanski’s Oscar chances shouldn’t be hurt by what he did 26 years ago.

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Press should press Bush, veteran journalist says

The U.S. media is “becoming more and more an echo chamber” of the Bush administration and not asking hard questions about possible war in Iraq, a network news veteran said Wednesday. “If it’s unpatriotic to ask questions, we’re in terrible shape,” said Sander Vanocur, who joined NBC news in 1957 and went on to become White House correspondent. “It’s not treasonous to voice our concerns.”

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Strike on Iraq would test media

The “24/7 media culture” that dominates TV news today will be tested if America goes to war with Iraq, an associate editor and op-ed columnist for The New York Times said recently in Honolulu. Frank Rich said journalists may very well “march in lock-step” with the Bush administration’s view of events.

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California paper profiles O`ahu’s ‘great indoors’

In a series of articles published today in The Sacramento Bee, travel editor Janet Fullwood gives West Coast readers an overview of Honolulu attractions that can save a rainy day. She provides an extensive write up of Bishop Museum and `Iolani Palace, and a rundown of several weather-proof destinations, from the new Hawaii State Art Museum to Doris Duke’s Shangri La. Of `Iolani Palace she writes, “From a symbolic point of view, Honolulu’s `Iolani Palace is as important to Hawaii as Buckingham is to Britain.” Her recent trip also provided fodder for a piece on airport security screeners.

California paper profiles O`ahu’s ‘great indoors’

In a series of articles published today in The Sacramento Bee, travel editor Janet Fullwood gives West Coast readers an overview of Honolulu attractions that can save a rainy day. She provides an extensive write up of Bishop Museum and `Iolani Palace, and a rundown of several weather-proof destinations, from the new Hawaii State Art Museum to Doris Duke’s Shangri La. Of `Iolani Palace she writes, “From a symbolic point of view, Honolulu’s `Iolani Palace is as important to Hawaii as Buckingham is to Britain.” Her recent trip also provided fodder for a piece on airport security screeners.