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Not a Price of Paradise episode: a Honolulu Media Council public meeting held September 12, 1999, on the announced closure of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, with the first fourteen minutes of the recording consisting of pre-meeting room noise. Attorney and council member Janice Wolf moderates, with Jim Gaddy and John Flanagan as the primary panelists. Gaddy explains that when the Star-Bulletin was sold in 1992, only the right to produce content transferred — not the presses, plant, or real estate — leaving a "virtual newspaper" with little viable for a new buyer. The investors had counted on 5-percent annual growth in Hawaii Newspaper Agency profits that never arrived, making closure more lucrative than continuing. Audience questions press Gaddy on whether a buyer was sought, on Gannett's long-term commitment, and on whether the Advertiser will absorb Star-Bulletin staff and features. Gaddy announces 20 to 30 new newsroom positions, a beefed-up Capitol bureau, and a transition of starbulletin.com — which drew 50,000 unique weekly visitors — to the Advertiser's online presence. He rejects a conspiracy theory that Gannett engineered the closure. Flanagan describes the Star-Bulletin's journalists as having worked with near-total editorial autonomy and calls their run "a glorious ride."
Transcript
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