Talk Story
Two vets of the start-up
Star-Bulletin bid us alohaONE year ago at the Star-Bulletin, we were in the midst of upheaval. On March 15, 2001, David Black was to buy this paper and Midweek. The messy divorce of the Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser from what was known as the Hawaii Newspaper Agency would become final.
The six-day-a-week Star-Bulletin came without a delivery operation (Midweek delivered through the mail). It had no offices, no computer and typesetting systems, no library, production, accounting, advertising or personnel departments.
Moreover, Black knew that his success depended on revenue from a Sunday newspaper and that he had to launch one as soon as possible.
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I've worked on several Sunday-edition launches. Normally they take more than a year of planning and at least six months of hard work to line up writers, rearrange worker and press schedules, find delivery people, sign advertising contracts, perfect a design, create a promotion campaign, contract for new features and comics and hire additional staff.Black decided we'd launch the Sunday Star-Bulletin on April 1, two weeks after he took possession of the paper. No sweat.
When I left the old Star-Bulletin on Jan. 15, 2001, to become the new Star-Bulletin's single editorial employee, I joined a team of six. There were Black and Annabeth, his wife; Ruth Currie, Black's assistant; Don Kendall, our new president; Glenn Rogers, a Black Press director, and Mark Lewis, our new circulation director.
In two months the presses would roll with the first edition under new ownership. At the time, however, they were still in Australia where Black had found the used units we needed to almost double MidWeek's printing capacity.
Kendall had leased office space in Waterfront Plaza, and carpenters and electricians were at work turning it into a newsroom and business office. Computers were on order, a crew to help with the launch was en route from other Black-owned papers and Lewis was scrambling to assemble a seven-day home-delivery network from scratch.
I spent most of the next two months filling out the news staff, which grew from about 80 to more than 100. Besides beefing up the editing team, we added writers, including many now-familiar by-lines, such as Erika Engle, Rod Antone, Kalani Simpson, Scott Vogel, Lyn Danninger, Gary Chun, Nelson Daranciang and Grace Wen.
DURING all this turmoil, Richard Halloran became our editorial director and set to work creating, staffing and defining the new Star-Bulletin's editorial pages and Sunday Insight section.
Halloran brought to this task solid experience from a career covering Japan and Washington for The New York Times, The Washington Post and Business Week. After retiring from the Times, he landed at the East-West Center here, where he ran the Asia-Pacific journalism programs with skill, gumption and gusto before becoming a freelance columnist and expert on Asian security.
It's no secret that the downturn in Hawaii's economy put an enormous amount of pressure on Star-Bulletin resources, including the news operation. In the beginning, Dick fought to expand this section to two full pages Monday through Friday and six pages on Sundays. Since then, he has successfully maintained this space as a magnet for readers.
Now, at 73, Halloran has decided to spend more time with his family. Since last September, many of us have shared that desire and, goodness knows, Dick has earned the time off.
So, as he enters his second -- or is it third? -- retirement, I wish him all the best and thank him for having achieved his goal of producing the best daily newspaper editorial pages in Hawaii, bar none.
Take a bow, Dick.
ON another front, Mark Lewis also is moving on, headed to another newspaper delivery challenge on the mainland.
Lewis first came to Hawaii as a U.S. Marine stationed in Kaneohe. There, he met and captured his wife, Lisa Mooney, before also helping to retake Kuwait with Desert Storm.
Lewis, therefore, brought a history of success to the task of putting together a new Star-Bulletin delivery system, beginning with a blank slate: no list of subscribers, no staff and no carriers. It wasn't easy and it didn't happen overnight, but he got it done. If you're reading this in print today, it's because of his efforts.
Thanks, Mark. We owe you.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.