Hawaii Public Radio · 1993–1998
Price of Paradise Recordings and Commentaries
Hawaii Public Radio broadcast Price of Paradise from 1993 to 1998. Susie Roth produced and Randall Roth hosted almost all of the 220 broadcasts, bringing legislators, judges, scholars, executives and activists into the same hour to argue Hawaii’s hardest questions. Every broadcast below plays as a single complete recording, with a written summary and a full transcript. Episodes are being added as they are prepared.
Government and Media
Roth asks Diane Chang of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and media lawyer Jeff Portnoy about government and press relations in March 1994. Chang says officials have tried to harass and intimidate the media in response to investigative coverage. Portnoy credits the current administration with major improvements over Hawaii's previously closed state government, but says much more remains to be done. Both address the legislature's campaign against the press. Twenty state senators voted for a newspaper tax that Portnoy calls flatly unconstitutional; a separate bill requiring newspaper employees to disclose personal assets drew national attention before dying. Chang links these moves to official frustration with accountability journalism. Portnoy names Mayor Fasi as a particular threat, arguing his daily radio attacks on the press have become vindictive. On the JOA, Portnoy corrects the common assumption that the Star-Bulletin was the failing paper in the 1960s — it was the Advertiser — and dismisses the idea that Gannett secretly controls both newspapers. Portnoy also warns that the press itself risks public trust by chasing sensational stories, noting it now ranks alongside lawyers and legislators in public respect; Chang responds that rising letter-to-editor volume shows renewed civic engagement.
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.
Bishop Estate Discussion
Two weeks after their Broken Trust essay appeared in the Star-Bulletin, Roth hosts three of its co-authors — Samuel P. King, Gladys Brandt, and Charles Kekumano — for a live call-in on the Bishop Estate controversy. King opens by drawing the line clearly: the article targeted the five trustees, not the trust or the school, and calls the estate's use of its own staff and funds to defend the trustees personally a violation of that boundary. He also calls the five-CEO arrangement — each trustee drawing roughly $900,000 annually — "absolutely silly." Brandt describes how fear among faculty first moved her to act, and how the student body's visible support for president Michael Chun at graduation was unprecedented. Kekumano argues the core issue is whether the school, not just the buildings, is serving the people it was built for. Callers push back on the public nature of the campaign; one argues disputes of this kind belong in a courtroom, not a radio show. King responds that the Attorney General would not be investigating now without the article, and that no attorney general in the trust's 113-year history had previously moved against the trustees.
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.
Companion commentary 1 of 1 — click to open full size Bishop Estate and Nā Pua a Ke Aliʻi Pauahi
Nearly a year after a march on the Supreme Court building energized opposition to Bishop Estate's trustees, Roth hosts Toni Lee and Jan Dill of Nā Pua a Ke Aliʻi Pauahi and takes a call from State Representative Ed Case. Lee, who was in Florida during the original march, and Dill, who was in Turkey, describe how the student petition was the spark that ignited the Ohana. A second march is set for May 15. Case reports that a trustee compensation bill passed the legislature 50 to 1 — after nearly failing — shifting trustees from a statutory formula to a "reasonable compensation" standard; under the old formula, the estate lost $264 million in fiscal 1994 yet trustees were entitled to over $11 million in fees. Dill raises the additional concern that trustees have been collecting directors' fees from estate-owned corporations beyond their base pay, figures never fully disclosed. Lee argues the trustees are unqualified because they were legislators, not professionals suited to managing a trust. Callers ask whether a qualified trustee must be Hawaiian — Lee and Dill say no, qualification and values come first — and question how the estate spends its wealth relative to its educational mission.
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.
Related documents
Bishop Estate Issues
Roth hosts this Price of Paradise broadcast alone, fielding callers on the same day the Honolulu Advertiser reports that the Bishop Estate's McKenzie methane gas deal cost the estate $100 million. He walks through the deal's particulars: trustees committed over $85 million overnight on February 22–23, 1989, relying on materials from a promoter who was secretly earning a 3 percent commission; at best, $20 million appeared recoverable. Roth also returns to the honorary Waialae Country Club memberships held by trustees — worth roughly $40,000 apiece — and the 75-year lease the club subsequently obtained at terms leaseholders called fair. He argues that with no strategic investment plan, trustees cannot be held accountable. A law school colleague joins by phone to explain why Supreme Court justices' role in picking trustees raises judicial-ethics concerns: they must avoid the appearance of impropriety and cannot accept fiduciary duties to outside entities. Callers range widely — debating blood quantum and who qualifies as Hawaiian, asking whether the estate's land use on the Big Island serves beneficiaries, and citing a study in which 30 to 50 percent of Kamehameha students identified primarily as non-Hawaiian when surveyed anonymously.
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.
The Final Price of Paradise Radio Show
The final Price of Paradise broadcast, airing August 23, 1998, opens with Roth announcing the show is ending — at least until after the election, and possibly for good. He explains that he and producer Susie Roth have committed to volunteer for Linda Lingle's 1998 gubernatorial campaign and conclude they cannot maintain the show's nonpartisan reputation while doing so. Roth traces his path to civic engagement: a Tax Review Commission appointment in the late 1980s, where he found legislative leadership resistant and media cynical, led to the Price of Paradise books, the Pop '94 campaign, and five years of the radio show. Callers respond with a range of reactions: many express gratitude and regret at the show's end, but others challenge Roth for using a public radio hour to endorse a candidate — one caller says she is troubled by the show becoming a bully pulpit, another demands he leave the air immediately. Lingle's Maui record also draws scrutiny. At the close, Roth thanks the show's longtime volunteers and listeners; Susie Roth, joining him in the studio for the final minutes, delivers the last line: "This is and was the Price of Paradise radio show."
Transcript
Read or download the full transcript (.txt). Speaker labels were assigned automatically and may contain errors.