Trailblazing journalist
to be honored with
media award

She was one of the first Asian American
reporters for the Associated Press

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Star-Bulletin staff

One of the first Asian American reporters for the Star-Bulletin and the Associated Press will be honored tomorrow at the Honolulu Media Council's Annual Freedom of Information Day luncheon.

The luncheon at the East-West Center will also feature a speech by University of Hawaii President Evan Dobelle on "Let the Sunshine In: Public Access at a Public University."

The council will present the Fletcher Knebel Award to Ah Jook Ku, one of its founding members, who retired last year from the executive secretary position, which she had held without pay for 26 years.

The longtime media champion was part of the Save Our Star-Bulletin coalition that fought the attempted closure of the newspaper in 1999.

Ku was the first Asian American reporter for the Associated Press during World War II, a job she moved to from the Star-Bulletin, where she had been one of two Asian American reporters.

During the late 1940s, she was the English editor for the nationalist government in China, until she was warned by the American ambassador to return to the United States or risk being left in Nanking during the civil war.

Ku returned to Honolulu where she worked in public relations for a variety of organizations, including the Salvation Army, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Chamber of Commerce, Hawaiian Electric and finally the state Department of Education, from which she retired in 1975.