Carroll's first guest today is Albert Lanier, a local freelance reporter. His stories have been in the Hawaii Business News, the Honolulu Weekly, Civil Beat and other news outlets and magazines. Albert, Carroll and others have written many stories about the homeless in the past, but the situation has been mostly ignored. Now
it is a major story and is presented as a "crisis". Albert tells us the news in the major media is only about the prevailing interests, and is based on a choice and arrangement of information. That is why some stories written in the past for smaller news outlets have not gained the attention and results that were asked for, and are only now gaining attention by the major outlets. Besides the homeless, another example are past stories
about the rail project disrupting traffic and businesses, and the other problems that are still to come up with the rail project. They were mostly ignored. Only now that they are a reality are they being paid attention to.
Carroll and Albert discuss KHON's hiring of Nestor Garcia to cover City government knowing he was fined for ethics violations while in the City Council. They hired a crooked politician and violated the trust of the viewers. This is how our news media goes. They also discuss how "sound bites" from various politicians and lawyers are often
included in the news. Some of the people interviewed have nothing to do with the story, and do not know a lot about the story, but their comments are presented as facts and expert opinions.
Then, there are the unethical Ethics Commissions. Need we say more.
The second hour Carroll's guest is former investigative news reporter James "Jim" Dooley. He has worked for the Honolulu Advertiser and the Hawaii Reporter. He just published his book, Sunny Skies, Shady Characters: Cops, Killers, and Corruption in the Aloha State. The book is an insider's look at investigative
reporting and some of his stories about crime in Hawaii. The book will be available starting August 31 from amazon. com. It is also available at the UH bookstores and other outlets in Hawaii. Link here to UH Press.
Dooley talks about his book and how he got into reporting. He also notes that after the merger and consolidation of our major TV and newspaper outlets, there are a lot fewer voices, and it is noticeable. Social media makes up for it in some ways, but it is not as readily available as the daily newspaper and morning and evening news programs on our televisions.
Carroll asks why we are no longer seeing the type of deep investigative reporting into corruption and issues in Hawaii we saw in the past. Dooley also talks about his investigative reporting Bishop Estates.
Jim Dooley and Albert Lanier in the studio
Carroll makes some comments about inequities in our supposed "melting pot" of Hawaii. Why are most of the homeless Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders? And, OHA is just now popping up in the story? The government is the problem. Link
here to story and pictures.
