"How to write us"

“The Star-Bulletin welcomes letters that are crisp and to the point (150 to 200 words). The Star-Bulletin reserves the right to edit letters for clarity and length. Please direct comments to the issues; personal attacks will not be published. Letters must be signed and include a daytime telephone number.”


Although the Star-Bulletin says personal attacks will not be published in the letters to the editors page, they publish daily a personal attack against the President of the United States. How any person of good judgment could not clearly see that -- is one of the great wonders in Hawaii, and brings into question the fairness of the writers and editors at that paper.

To prove a point, I once took one of their letters published in that section vilifying President Bush for no substantive reason (as usual), and in every reference to the President, merely substituted “the editor of the Star-Bulletin,” and quickly got back infuriated emails from editors who had gone ballistic that someone would dare talk of them that way. I pointed out that that was the vile that they themselves were spewing -- as representative of the finest thoughts of the citizenry of Hawaii, and asked them to desist from publishing (propagating) such personal attacks (against anybody) and hate-mongering, in their misguided efforts to generate controversy they think will generate interest in their newspaper.

They also reserve the right to edit for distortion and misinformation -- as I pointed out when I submitted items to them that were occasionally published but “edited” not for clarity, but to convey a quite different impression and intent (many have complained about this as though it were an isolated incident rather than intentional), which was deliberate and malicious. That kind of manipulation has been going on for a long time now in the mass media (newspapers) in Hawaii, which accounts for their declining credibility and readership.

A former editor of the Star-Bulletin, would typically begin her rants with her belief that, “As the editor of the Star-Bulletin, it is my right and duty to speak for the people of Hawaii.” No, it is the right and duty of these editors to speak their own truth as best as they can express -- and let others speak their own truth -- in their own way, and in their own words, rather than suppressing, censoring and manipulating the other voices to assert their claims of primacy, superiority and how "objective" they are.

But that state of journalism has created the basis for the next generation of information and communication exchanges that are the rapid proliferation of these blogs. Even the New York Times is now merely a blog -- only as good as the information and insight they can actually deliver. And maybe as a sign of the times, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans became exclusively a blog out of necessity during the recent hurricane. The last place one can expect to read about this sea change is in the local newspapers -- where they’re still trying to convince us that we’re getting “all the news that’s fit to print.” The best of the readers and writers have already made the migration. Welcome.