Posted on: Sunday, August 22, 2004
AFTER DEADLINE
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By Curtis Murayama
Advertiser Sports Editor
It's "close-your-eyes time" again.
It's a phenomenon started decades ago in which local TV stations would warn viewers to turn away from their screens if they didn't want to know the score of a game being telecast delayed on another station.
It's now being experienced at The Advertiser, as it publishes its afternoon editions and covers the Athens Olympics Games.
A 13-hour time difference between Athens and Hawai'i, combined with NBC's mandate to telecast marquee events in prime time, have created a viewing/reporting quandary.
For instance, the recent men's gymnastics finals were finished in the morning Hawai'i time, but was telecast on KHNL (the local NBC affiliate) between 6 and 10 p.m., about
12 hours after it ended.
What to do?
Associated Press In other words, the readers are given a choice.
In the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, when the time difference was 21 hours, readers weren't given a choice.
And they sure did let us know about it when they would read the results on our front page before they could see it on TV.
Hard-core journalists will say we're not giving the readers the latest news. Some might argue that we are, but just not on the front page. Another argument might be that with Internet, radio and various cable outlets, people probably can't avoid seeing the results.
(Note: We will make an exception if a Hawai'i athlete such as Bryan Clay claims a medal.)
Anyway, probably only in Hawai'i are the media so accommodating to their audience.
Where did this all start?
If I recall correctly, longtime KHON anchor Joe Moore, current dean of Hawai'i TV anchors, started it back in 1969.
"The first time I did it, (it was), 'Turn down the sound,' " he said. "That was the very first time. But in between the 6 and 10 o'clock news, a lady called me and said her husband broke his leg rushing to the TV to turn the sound down because he didn't want to know the score."
Moore, then a sports anchor for KGMB, discussed the situation with news director and anchor Bob Sevey — Hawai'i's version of Walter Cronkite — and said, "We have to do away with 'Turn down the sound.' How about 'Close your eyes'?"
From then, it pressured other stations to follow suit.
"It's against the idea of 'Here's the news.' But it seemed to be the compromise that satisfied the most people," Moore said.
Moore said it's a no-win situation. "You're going to upset somebody no matter what you do. It's less severe now because of the cable outlets and venues that offer the score."
But now all local stations do it even if the event is being telecast on a competing station.
"Now, it's even hit the newspaper business," Moore said.
K5 replays
Don't always believe what you see.
On Fridays, K5 has been rebroadcasting University of Hawai'i football and volleyball games from the previous year. This past Friday it was UH vs. Army from Nov. 22, 2003.
But because the station doesn't put up a crawl across the screen indicating that the game is a rebroadcast, viewers have been calling The Advertiser wondering where our game coverage was in the next day's paper.
The station said it will consider adding a disclaimer in the future.
Curtis Murayama is The Advertiser's sports editor. Reach him at 525-8017 or cmurayama@honoluluadvertiser.com.
The Advertiser, after much discussion, came up with a compromise: We won't run on our front page any results of events to be televised at night. But we will tell readers that the results are in the sports section.
America's Paul Hamm, center, and Kim Dae Eun, left, and Yang Tae Young of Korea received gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals, respectively, Wednesday in the men's gymnastics individual all-around final.
