ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. Linda Lingle's trip to Japan has been overshadowed by criticism that the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau was to pay for travel by a KITV News4 crew. Lingle's trip included a meeting with Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara.
Lingle denounces hearings
on media junket as a waste
Democratic lawmakers pressed Gov. Linda Lingle's office yesterday over an investigation into a critical audit of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau and a local news station's state-funded junket with Lingle to Japan.
The joint House-Senate investigation into the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau has a "political motive," Lingle said yesterday.
Legislative leaders are talking about forming a joint investigatory committee, with subpoena powers, to probe aspects of the audit. They must wait until next year to form such a committee, so they are asking state Auditor Marion Higa to preserve all HVCB and Hawaii Tourism Authority documents related to the audit.
The joint House-Senate tourism committee will meet for a third time Friday to discuss the audit further.
The state attorney general's office is conducting a criminal investigation of the audit's claims, though state Attorney General Mark Bennett declined to describe the probe as a formal investigation. He said his office needs more information to put together a preliminary report.
Democratic lawmakers are interested in the audit's revelations that the Hawaii visitors bureau would pay for future services with existing state funds. The audit said it was suspicious that the bureau always finished every year by spending every dollar it could under its contract with the state Tourism Authority.
Sen. Donna Kim, chairwoman of the Senate Tourism Committee, said her sources have told her about memos that may show evidence of deliberate wrongdoing. Kim could not produce the memos when asked.
Bennett said the state would have to show some kind of loss as the result of the bureau's actions in order to have a legal case.
The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau has denied any intentional wrongdoing, though it has admitted it made mistakes in its business practices.
Reacting to two days of hearings on the audit and legislative questions about why HVCB paid for a KITV-4 TV news crew to travel on Lingle's tourism promotion trip, Lingle said the Legislature is spending too much time on the issue. Lingle's office had agreed to the travel arrangement.
"I think it is an interesting issue for discussion, but it shouldn't be occupying legislators for this length of time," Lingle said during a news conference yesterday at the state Capitol.
Lingle noted that the critical audit of the HVCB involves millions of dollars, while the legislative hearings are probing why $4,100 was spent for KITV's travel arrangements.
Kim (D, Moanalua Valley-Aiea-Pearlridge-Kalihi Valley) said it is the principle of the matter, not the amount of money.
Lenny Klompus, Lingle's senior communications adviser, was called before the House-Senate tourism committees yesterday to answer questions about the arrangement of the state-paid trip. Lawmakers pressed to learn who offered to pay KITV's expenses and whether the state got its money's worth from KITV's coverage.
Klompus said, "It was not our position to offer anything free to anyone." He added that during the trip, no one told KITV what to cover.
To avoid precisely this line of questioning, journalism organizations have codes of ethics that bar free travel.
KITV has since said it will reimburse the bureau for the trip.
Klompus said the Governor's Office wanted local media coverage during the trip to show Hawaii residents what is being done to prop up tourism, the state's No. 1 industry. Japan is Hawaii's second-largest source of tourists, after the U.S. mainland.
Klompus noted that everyone in Japan is now reading about the controversy over the KITV trip.
Rep. Mark Jernigan (R, Keauhou-Honokohau) described the hearings as an "inquisition."
While Lingle was critical of the Democratic majority in the House and Senate questioning the payment to KITV, she also had some advice to the local news media: Spend more resources on news coverage.
"I will sure try to encourage the media to spend some of the millions of dollars they make here in covering news outside of this island," she said. "I think it is important, and I don't think the resources are given to the reporting staffs that they need to paint a broad picture of what is happening in our state."
She said Honolulu's other television news operations should have considered devoting their own resources to the trip.
The journalistic rebuke from Lingle, who once edited a small newspaper on Molokai, was not warmly received by leaders in Hawaii's newsrooms.
"I didn't see anything that suggested that it was essential that we be there to report on it," said Jim Kelly, executive editor of the Honolulu Advertiser. "I think the business in Japan was a classic photo opportunity."
Frank Bridgewater, editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, agreed.
"We look at these trips on a case-by-case basis, and on this particular one it didn't seem like spending the time or the money on it would give us the return," Bridgewater said. "It was more of a goodwill sort of trip."
University of Hawaii journalism professor Tom Brislin said he agreed with the decision of island media outlets to forgo a trip to Japan.
"Her criticism is legitimate that all news media can do a better job than the routine kind of reporting that we do," Brislin said, "but to claim that her trip was anything more than routine is wrong."
Brislin, like Kelly and Bridgewater, said Lingle's critiques appeared to be an effort to avoid the main issue.
"It still doesn't answer the question, Why did you pay the bill for one media to cover you?" Brislin said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
