Big change in paper's newsroom
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The Advertiser turns 145 tomorrow, but inside the building we look younger than we did five years ago. It's because of the facelift we gave the newsroom. Now you can't tell us from an insurance company.
Everything is color-coordinated. The desks all match except my 100-year-old rolltop. Each work station has twice as much space and has a new computer terminal.
The only way you can tell we're a newspaper is by the mess on everybody's desk. Every foot of the floor is carpeted, exactly the same color except for the fine Tongan mat in my office.
Come down and take a look at the new Advertiser. The newsroom now covers the entire second floor, with more than 140 work stations — editors, reporters, photographers, artists, page designers.
We feel like a metropolitan newspaper, look like a metropolitan newspaper and read like a metropolitan newspaper.
There are still a few local touches. Publisher Mike Fisch has turned out to be a Hawaiian history buff. He's been elected president of the Hawai'i Historic Foundation. Features writer Catherine Toth is the reigning Cherry Blossom Queen.
Editorial assistant Wade Shirkey is kumu hula of his own halau, and sports columnist Ferd Lewis is a sumo expert.
Yet the big, new Advertiser is different. My new office is on the Columbia Inn side overlooking the parking lot. The city desk is out of sight, clear across the building. To get there I have to walk through sports, the Island Life section, the artists and photographers.
It's like I live in Kahuku and have to travel through Hau'ula, Punalu'u and Ka'a'awa to get to Honolulu. Sometimes, when I come to work, I go the long way around just to see if there are any new faces.
The scenery gets better every month as the staff settles in. Copy editor Stanley Yamashita's desk reflects his Zen approach to life, a superb collection of Marilyn Monroe photographs amid elegant ornamental plants.
Entertainment editor Wayne Harada's corner looks like a collectibles shop: Mickey Mouse ears, Do No Disturb sign, No Parking and a rear view mirror on his computer to protect him from backstabbing entertainers.
The Addams Family would feel at home at copy editor Linda Dalrymple's work station. Her decor is eclectic macabre: a magnificent rubber monster mask, red velvet fool's cap with bells and two Japanese parasols to shade the fluorescent light.
The sports department goes in for autographed pictures of the UH men's volleyball team, plants that don't have to be watered more than once a week and a table loaded with assorted munchies.
Certainly Henry Whitney, who put out the first issue of The Advertiser with one reporter in 1856, probably would not recognize his offspring today. He published four pages printed with hand-set type and written in pen and ink.
