Hawaii Paper Attacks APEC
Honolulu 2011?
My headline this morning is intentionally egregious, but, then, so was the headline of the Honolulu Advertiser Saturday morning. Right at the top of the front page, not page 3 of the business section, was the main headline of the day: “APEC may hurt businesses“. The website version of the story had a more accurate title: “Hawaii businesses likely to lose sales during APEC summit.” The key difference is that the first was front and center in the print edition that nearly everyone in our state sees. The second, improved headline is buried as the 41st story if you search the website for stories from April 10.
So, why am I upset about the story the Advertiser ran? Honolulu is hosting the APEC Summit in November 2011. The Summit attracts close to two dozen heads of state and associated entourages (you think rock stars, certain golf pros or soccer stars travel with packs!), hundreds of top business executives from all over the world, and a huge press corps. APEC will rent the entire Honolulu Convention Center for at least eleven days. Waikiki hotels will sell between 10,000 and 20,000 hotel rooms. Honolulu’s finest restaurants will be overwhelmed with customers. Every limo service on the island will be fully booked. So will most of the flights coming in from Asia and elsewhere. Aloha shirt makers will see a surge in sales following the traditional APEC leaders photo op. Many of these people will take souvenirs home, and some will hang around after APEC to mix a bit of pleasure with all the business.
APEC is all about business and was established to improve international business. Yes, APEC now has a political agenda (thanks to our own President Clinton), but creating business is still at APEC’s core. The CEO Summit at APEC will likely spawn business relationships that will link companies for decades. Past CEO Summits have largely been limited to Fortune 1000 types, but the Honolulu summit is planned to include smaller companies as well, giving them – including many Hawaii companies – a chance to connect with the big boys. One result is likely to be business for Hawaii and Honolulu for many years to come. The multiplier effects from APEC are unknown, but likely to be immense.
So, why did the Advertiser run its story? Read the first sentence to get the gist: “Some local businesses could experience a decline in sales as a result of blocked streets and other security measures …“. (The underlining is mine.) The key point of the article was an interview with an exec with DFS Group who complained that during the 2009 APEC Summit the DFS stores in Singapore took a hit because motorcades and security made it tougher for customers to stop by. OK, this is to be expected when you have so many heads of state. Comes with the territory. Why is this the top headline in the paper? Especially when most of the actual article (I’m counting paragraphs here) begins to talk about the longer term business benefits to be expected from APEC. Even the DFS executive is quoted as saying: “But that will be short-term pain for a huge long-term gain”. That’s the real story, but it got buried in para 6 where you have to turn to another page. How many of Honolulu’s readers got that far? Not many I’d guess.
I can see two plausible reasons for running the story as it appeared in the print edition. The benign reason is that headline editors want short, punchy headlines to fit the page with large bold type. The headline editor sees a lot of stories and likely only scanned the first paragraph or two – and made a mistake about the content of the story. I don’t really think that happened. I’ve been in media a bit and have some feel for how the species thinks.
The more likely story is that, beginning with the reporter and his editors, the negative was accentuated because bad news sells papers and grabs eyeballs. Bad news, especially the pleas and complaints of the few, make for an easy story. You don’t have to do much digging or even thinking to highlight a complaint. You don’t even have to check your facts because you are merely quoting somebody. It gets you a quick story and requires little creative thought, no requirement to find the real backstory. And there is an added plus! Bad news tends to generate more stories, with more people complaining, that again require little effort. Irresistible, but irresponsible.
There was a time when local newspapers felt a responsibility to be a positive influence in their communities. Now, because of a loosely written headline and a badly constructed story, the Advertiser is building opposition to what could be a chance of a lifetime for Honolulu. Los Angeles and San Francisco are likely already lobbying Washington to replace us due to our local opposition. Don’t let it grow – or you won’t have those 2011 stories about the foibles of all those heads of state. They won’t be here.
May 12th, 2010 at 2:43 am
I noticed the headline, but not the buried line item. Like most everyone else. I think the HA should run a retraction, and if not, a clarification statement.
May 12th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Not a chance since the Advertiser’s editors are convinced that good news doesn’t sell newspapers. They did run my brief letter to the editor – nearly a week later, after the story was forgotten.