AFTER DEADLINE
George Chaplin remembered
By Anne Harpham
Today, friends and colleagues of George Chaplin will gather at Temple Emanu-El to remember the former Advertiser editor who made such a difference to this newspaper.
As the obituaries and editorials have observed since his death on Feb. 17, Chaplin, who was The Advertiser's editor from 1958 to 1986, helped save the paper from financial ruin and demanded that it be relevant to its readers. He also deeply believed the editors should be involved in improving their communities.
Chaplin demanded that this newspaper cover all elements of Hawai'i's society, and he demanded the highest standards in the newsroom.
It is easy for those of us who worked with him to remember with some amusement the infamous "GC musts," pink slips of paper that came out of his office in his distinctive handwriting with an idea or story suggestion. He didn't write "must" on them but we all regarded them as a "must-do." Or we laugh fondly when we remember the many series of stories that emanated from trips he made overseas, series that seemed to go on forever.
George also often introduced speakers at dinner or lunch events or conferences, and his introductions could rival the length of the main speech.
Advertiser library photo • 1992
But, the GC musts usually reflected things George knew were important in the community. His stories and speeches were meticulously researched and well-written. His writing frequently won awards.
George Chaplin cared deeply about fairness and accuracy.
George also pushed reporters and editors to be aggressive and competitive. Yes, he had ties in the community. But as a reporter for nearly 15 years under George's leadership, I never was held back from a story because it might ruffle someone George knew. Quite the contrary; I was encouraged to go after stories.
And George cared deeply about fairness and accuracy. Mistakes drove him nuts.
More than once since I became reader representative a year ago, I have remembered the time George got so tired of a particularly bad stretch of errors and corrections that he distributed pens to all the staff that said, "Get it first, but first get it right." The pens fell apart rather quickly, and I doubt anyone ever looked at the message on them again. But George's impassioned plea for accuracy resonated.
Both Hawai'i and The Advertiser will always be indebted to George Chaplin.
Aloha, George.
• • •
Some readers noticed Thursday morning that there were two variations of the front page in our morning final edition on O'ahu.
The difference in the two papers occurred because the story on the death of Fred Rogers, better known to legions of children as Mister Rogers, moved across the wires at 11:30 p.m., right on deadline for our morning final edition. (The presses were already running for the state edition, which is distributed on the Neighbor Islands).
Editors quickly changed the front page, removing the "Inside" column on the left side of the page and replacing it with the obituary for Rogers. We printed about 105,000 papers for the morning final, and 68,000 included the Rogers obituary.
It's what we call a "chase," when we send out updated pages to be switched after the press already has started running.
Senior editor Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's reader representative. Reach her at 525-8033 or at aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com.
