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Hawaii’s World
DECLINING interest by the general public in both newspaper and TV news was documented all too well in the Star-Bulletin's March 11 Insight section. Declining interest in
news is disturbingThe author, Gerry Keir, is former editor-in-chief of the Honolulu Advertiser and now director of communications for First Hawaiian Bank/Banc-West. He was a respected competitor for us at the Star-Bulletin. The charts and data on news followership that he presented to the Social Science Association are all from reliable sources...unfortunately.
Where does this leave us as a society? If the public is less concerned with news is our democracy the weaker for it? Are we carelessly delegating more power to special interest groups that do care?
Why should office-holders listen to those who may not even vote, which is something far easier than giving support via money or personal campaign service?
Can we hope that radio news, the Internet, news magazines, niche newspapers and books are filling in where TV and newspaper news followership are falling off? Keir had no figures on these. They certainly help the situation, but how much?
Overall I fear we are being swamped with choices well beyond our capacity to absorb in our waking hours. Thus we are making choices that isolate us more in our special-interest cubicles . We simply don't have the time to be the generalists who used to sop up "general news" by the bucketful.
That said, I'm sure our democracy will survive -- even thrive. We may develop policy through clashes of special interest groups -- as with environmentalists vs. developers -- but it will be workable for the most part.
With the environment, for example, there will be losses that are irretrievable, but the public interest may still work with reasonable effectiveness. Alerts certainly can be flashed with a speed never before imagined. It will be these alerts that can wake up the slumbering section of the public to yell: STOP!
So it may be also with more complex situations. We may even learn more promptly about the single words and single sentences inserted into legislation by special interests that can make a world of difference.
Hawaii's Congresswoman Patsy Mink tells of adding a brief paragraph into a long education bill to mandate no discrimination against women. Only later did she and the people on college campuses learn how radically this would revise college sports programs to provide female equity.
NO alert went out here because the impact of the wording was not fully recognized until later...and perhaps just as well, certainly for women if not for budget-balancing college athletic directors.
We could, however, because of faster communication, possibly have been alerted from the start about the full impact of this change. It's possible an alert would have stalled the change, which Representative Mink and others would regret.
One communication-plus is for sure. In this national presidential election year we have seen and heard more from and of the candidates than ever before. They have not ducked debates. We may not love them, but we surely know them. Al Gore and George W. Bush were chosen fair and square and out in the open.
This year there will none of the once-upon-a-time practice of nominations being bargained in smoke-filled back rooms at national conventions. Instead we are experiencing an unprecedented eight months in which to size up these known nominees.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.