IT'S curious what people read into the paper. For example, a reader called to say he was offended by our heading ''Mo' Stuffs'' in the feature section. He wasn't familiar with the pidgin term and thought Mo' was an insensitive dig at black American speech. Now, don’t
get me wrong...After all, he said, there was no Mighty Mo coverage on that page, although our pages certainly have been full of Mo.
The three computers in our photo department are dubbed Larry, Moe and Curly, after the Three Stooges. Staff photos are scanned into Moe -- including our Mighty Mo pictures.
One staffer heard so much Mo-on-Moe talk last week that he created press badges -- tiny laminated mock-ups of a Star-Bulletin front page with the Headline ''Mighty Mo'' above a photo of Moe Howard, the Stooge. He issued these souvenirs to our BB-63 coverage team.
Another caller questioned a Thursday front-page story based on Linda Hosek's gripping interview with Robert Sua, accused of attempted murder of a police officer. Why would we ''glorify this man by giving him publicity?''
I've been reading Katherine Graham's account of Watergate in her autobiography, ''Personal History.'' I doubt Richard Nixon or Spiro Agnew considered themselves glorified by the front-page coverage they got in the Washington Post in the early 1970s.
People often confuse news with publicity. One way to tell the difference: News is often what somebody doesn't want you to know.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.