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This first instalment of a two-part series examined the quality of local television news. The standing question was whether Hawaii's TV stations were giving viewers the depth and investigative rigour the community needed. Gerald Kato, Professor of Journalism at the University of Hawaii, drew on a Honolulu Community Media Council study to argue that local news spent too much time on dramatic visuals and too little on substantive issues such as the state budget and Hawaiian sovereignty, and that investigative reporting was notably thin. Kent Baker, General Manager and News Director of KHON, disputed the council's methodology and said the volume and quality of news had expanded substantially. Wally Zimmermann, News Director of KITV, acknowledged competitive pressure—including the race to go live during the Sand Island hostage incident—but maintained that television, as a commercial enterprise, had to attract audiences to survive. All three agreed that more investigative journalism was desirable; both station managers acknowledged the resource costs that made it scarce. Dick Miller, chair of the Honolulu Community Media Council, called in to press the stations on their commitments to improvement.
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.
Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
