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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Lingle pans news media

Among the topics addressed by Gov. Linda Lingle during her first press conference since returning from Japan were the issues of the state paying for news coverage of the trip and the override of six vetoes.

Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

 •  'Time will tell' if trip succeeded, Lingle says

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

Reacting to questions about the propriety of the state paying for TV coverage of her trip to Japan, Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday challenged the Hawai'i news media to improve its reporting on government and public policy.

Rather than point fingers at a competing news outlet for taking the trip, Lingle said, reporters and editors should review their own work to determine if they are giving government news the appropriate amount of coverage.

"The issue of KITV attending this trip with us became a focal point because it interests the media so much, and it's understandable that the media is very interested in this," Lingle said at her first public availability after her return from Japan. "What I thought about while I was gone was why the other stations didn't come on this trip at their own expense? Why didn't the newspapers come on this trip?"

KITV-4, the ABC affiliate, asked for and received a commitment from the Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau to pay to have a reporter and cameraman accompany Lingle and other state officials on the weeklong trip to promote Hawai'i in Japan. After the arrangement was revealed last week, KITV said that it would reimburse HVCB.

Lingle, asked several times, refused to say whether she thought it was wrong for HVCB to pay for the trip.

"I think that's for KITV to answer," she said. "I don't have anything else to add."

However, the governor said, the controversy creates an opportunity for news outlets to examine the amount of resources they devote to covering government news.

"Our newspapers and all our television stations are majority-owned by Mainland news operations that are taking millions of dollars a year out of our community in advertising revenues," Lingle said. "It seems to me it's a legitimate news story for them to want to follow the governor on her first out-of-the-country trip leading a delegation following a war in Iraq and SARS, to our major market," she said.

Lingle, citing her one-time career as editor of a small Moloka'i publication, said she believes that having HVCB President Tony Vericella and Hawai'i Tourism Authority executive director Rex Johnson along on the same trip was newsworthy because of recent public criticism about the way HVCB spends money to market the state.

The KITV trip was "a legitimate area for comment," Lingle said. But more so, she said, "I think it gives us a unique opportunity to see the bigger picture, which is coverage of government in general and being willing to expend the resources to do more than simply follow news releases or the latest car crash."

Lingle's trip was covered by a Tokyo correspondent of the Associated Press, and the state's newspapers carried accounts of her public activities there. Editors said yesterday that they did not have any second thoughts about whether the trip was worth the expense of sending along a staff member.

"I can see why she would have liked to have had media along — there were a lot of photo opportunities — but we didn't consider the trip newsworthy enough to devote either the reporter's time or the money that would have been involved in taking the trip," said Saundra Keyes, editor of The Advertiser.

Frank Bridgewater, editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, said decisions on whether to follow the governor out of state are made on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the newsworthiness of the trip. He noted that a reporter accompanied Lingle to Washington, D.C., when she went to lobby for legislation related to Hawai'i.

Similarly, Keyes noted that an Advertiser reporter accompanied then-Gov. Ben Cayetano to Japan in the aftermath of 9-11.

Both editors said that they were surprised by Lingle's general comments about media coverage.

"We take our government coverage very seriously," Keyes said. "We invest a lot of reporting time, editing time and news hole to covering government."

She noted, however, that coverage could be better served if Lingle did not close certain meetings, including one involving top tourism executives, because of the assumption that members of the public are uncomfortable speaking in front of media.

University of Hawai'i-Manoa journalism professor Tom Brislin said politicians have a tendency to believe everything they do is newsworthy.

"But those are editorial decisions that have to be made in the newsroom," said Brislin, a former newspaper editor and reporter. "Yet another 'Let's promote tourism in Japan' trip just doesn't pass the newsworthiness test, I don't care which newsroom you're talking to."

Lingle's senior communications adviser Lenny Klompus told a legislative committee yesterday that although the governor's office was not in a position to offer anything for free to KITV, it told station executives that HVCB would be able to assist with its expenses.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.