After Deadline
Guests bring seasoned perspectives to Advertiser
By John Simonds
Advertiser Reader Representative
Public participation in Advertiser editorial board meetings jumped off to a spirited start in its first month. Questions, opinions, story ideas and challenges to newspaper ways of doing things were all part of the action.
Serious points on moral issues, observations on schools, government and Hawai'i's quality of life, combined with light banter and amusing insights made the meetings seem too short.
Three guest members of The Advertiser editorial board have just completed their inaugural four-week series of Wednesday morning meetings with board members.
The first three members included Diane Gibbons, a fifth-grade Waimanalo school teacher; Russell S. Pang, a retired insurance agent, active church member, family counselor and sportsman; and David Lee, a community-minded businessman whose interests have included real estate and a Waipahu mattress company. All three are lifelong residents of Hawai'i, concerned with newspapers and how they work.
Members of the initial group brought seasoned perspectives to the weekly discussions. Gibbons has a 20-year career in Hawai'i public education that also includes service in the state Department of Education and the University of Hawai'i College of Education.
Pang is a Presbyterian deacon, who counsels on grief, divorce, domestic violence and provides other outreach help. Surfing, kayaking, golf and tennis keep him busy. Lee's experience in business, travel and community service have sharpened his wry observations about Hawai'i's government, progress as a society and place in the world.
Alvin Katahara, research director for The Advertiser, also attended as part of an expanded effort to invite input from departments outside the newsroom. Katahara's work involves strategic planning for market development, promotion, advertising and circulation areas of the newspaper.
Response has been enthusiastic to editor Saundra Keyes' invitation in a June 3 After Deadline column to community members to share in the editorial-board experience.
The interaction with community members is not aimed at asking the public to help draft editorials but to contribute to conversations that lead to editorials and to suggest topics for editorial attention.
Along with the three guest members and Katahara, the meetings included Keyes, Editorial Page Editor Jerry Burris, editorial writer David Polhemus, cartoonist Dick Adair and senior editor Anne Harpham from the board; and John Simonds, reader representative.
In their first board session in mid-July, visiting participants shared thoughts on the Legislature's handling of the age-of-consent issue, whether out-of-staters could be charged more than residents to swim at Hanauma Bay, China's possibility as an Olympic Games host, the curious status of training-incentive bonuses for school teachers, and how The Advertiser goes about choosing issues and endorsing candidates for public office.
The second meeting focused on the federal court injunction against Army plans to resume live-fire training in Makua Valley and opposition to the military exercises from cultural and environmental groups. The same session also included discussion of legislation in Congress to clarify the relationship between Native Hawaiians and the federal government.
Both issues helped dramatize the difficulties of choice on sensitive local issues for board members and guests. On the Makua question, one visitor acknowledged being torn between protecting Hawai'i's land and a desire for a close family member in the Army to have the best training available.
The third meeting tangled with another complex matter, the use of stem-cell research and the ethical-scientific struggle over whether to proceed with federal support for it.
The discussion went on to technology, cloning, organ donation, cremation, religious values, selling of body parts, and whether people are "entitled to outdo evolution" in their efforts to prolong life.
The fourth meeting, this past Wednesday, breezed through creationism, school uniforms and whether newspapers should probe private lives of student athletes. Community members then dove into pointed questions and comments on government decision-making, openness and efficiency; disparate school conditions; city vs. state building care; Hawai'i's "world-class" ambitions; overemphasis on school test scores, the need to grade each student's annual progress rather than focus on national comparisons, and a proposal to rate schools by the number of students who apply for district exemptions to attend them.
Parting challenges to members of The Advertiser board from its guest members underlined the need for more attention to state and city budget choices and other government decisions before they are made, giving the public more time to respond to options. The next rotating group begins its series of weekly meetings with The Advertiser editorial board on Wednesday.
Reach John Simonds at jsimonds@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8033.
