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Three media insiders examined whether news organisations in Hawaii were serving voters adequately as the 1994 election cycle began. The concrete question was whether the press and television were covering political campaigns in ways that informed rather than merely entertained, and whether they could do better. Anne Harpham, Managing Editor of the Honolulu Advertiser, described the paper's Island Voices project, in which readers rather than candidates set the issue agenda around concerns such as education, housing, and the cost of living. Kent Baker, News Director at KHON Channel 2, announced plans for extended on-air issue forums and cooperation with the civic initiative Pop 94, disputing the claim that television was imprisoned by sound-bite culture. Chuck Freedman, who had managed Governor Waihee's campaigns before moving to the corporate world, argued that politicians and journalists had each adapted to a flawed system and that real change required voters to push back. All three acknowledged that younger audiences were disengaging from both newspapers and broadcast news. Campaign-finance reform surfaced repeatedly in caller questions as a structural barrier to accountability that improved coverage alone could not overcome.
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