To Our Readers
A friend of mine, a sailor, used to say every boat is a set of compromises. Design one for speed and it's likely to be expensive and uncomfortable. Build one for sustained, long-distance cruising, and you'll surely trade speed for comfort and convenience. The design challenge is
making skillful compromisesExtra features mean expense and weight. All those dinghies, awnings, antennas, barbecues and fishing poles also detract from the architect's lovely lines, the pretty shear, sculpted bow and tucked-in stern.
They also add to the cost, so your well-equipped, 32-foot cruiser ends up costing as much as a 40-footer without all the bells and whistles.
Nothing humans contrive seems to be immune from compromise -- no matter what the budget we're always limited in some way. It could be time, know-how, availability of materials, regulations, skill -- you name it.
The best designers, architects and engineers make good choices and create products that maximize our satisfaction given the limitations they face.
Newspapers are compromises, too. Each editor's job involves weighing everything known about what readers want and need against what can be wrung out of all the available resources, including the people, equipment, systems, services and dollars.
In the news business, time is a major limitation. If we spent more of it putting each day's newspaper together, we'd have a more accurate, better edited, illustrated and printed product. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be delivered when people want to read it and the news would be stale by the time it arrived.
As Roseann Roseannadanna said, it's always something.
Newspaper presses are phenomenal machines, but they aren't immune to compromise either. Run them fast and the quality slips a bit. Run them slow and the paper is late.
Starting tomorrow, we'll overcome a press limitation that limited the paper to two sections five days a week. We've added equipment that lets us print four sections at once, which is good news.
For many readers, a two-section paper was like a two-lane bridge. It might handle all the traffic, but four lanes is better.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 529-4748, fax to 529-4750, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813.