Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Meet the Press
by Larry Geller
I thought I would play photographer today at the 11 a.m. rally of “The Friends of the Honolulu Advertiser” in front of the Advertiser building on Kapiolani Blvd.
(click for larger pics)
The “real” press photographers have these phenomenally expensive huge cameras, and of course the TV crews were there. I’ve got my cute little Pentax. I left the tripod home. This thing has an awesome stabilization mechanism. Times have changed.
Afterwards I spoke with Ah Quon McElrath for a few minutes. If I understood her correctly, perhaps there will be fewer layoffs than the 54 planned. It was noisy, so I''ll wait for the evening TV coverage to hear what was said. I could either take pictures or take notes, got to figure out how to do both one day.
“The Friends of the Honolulu Advertiser” is a small but hopefully influential group. Honolulu is still a two-newspaper town primarily due to the work of a similar group ("SOS" or "Save our Star-Bulletin") which was active (and effective) when that paper was nearly shut down 1999-2000.
The first Honolulu Newspaper War
This is not the first newspaper crisis that Honolulu has weathered.
(Ah Quon in a Star-Bulletin photo 10/30/1999, same sidewalk)
I recall being part of a demonstration on the same spot when coincidentally the Advertiser decided 
that it was a perfect time to clean their sidewalk with high-pressure hoses. Things were getting a bit moist when I went over to speak to the workmen and told them how much I was going to sue them for if I just happened to slip and break a leg while they just happened to be blasting me with their water hoses. They turned them off.
Happy ending at Murphy's.
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