Covering the Big Island 24/7
Baron Sekiya is the editor/founder of Hawaii247.org, an online newspaper that covers the Big Island of Hawaii. Baron and I worked together for about two and a half years at West Hawaii Today, the daily newspaper in Kailua-Kona. I was a new reporter and he was a staff photographer. After he was laid off by West Hawaii Today, Baron launched Hawaii247.org. Here he answers some questions about his latest venture. (Full disclosure: I copy edit Hawaii247.org on a volunteer basis, time permitting).
Baron Sekiya, editor/founder of Hawaii 24/7
Karen: When did you leave West Hawaii Today? How long had you been the staff photographer?
Baron: I was laid off from West Hawaii Today, a Stephens Media Group newspaper, on Nov. 7, 2008. They said the decision was due to the poor economy, so I became the first employee to be laid off during the Great Depression of 2008-? from the newspaper. I’ve heard that others have been laid-off since from other departments. I’ve often been a pioneer at the paper.
I had been working at West Hawaii Today since 1990, so it was 18 years as a staff photographer. But I wore many hats since I did computer work, a little bit of graphics and writing and Web site development (I was their first webmaster). Eighteen years is quite a long time to work at one place, and although I had been made offers for jobs at other newspapers during the 18 years, I enjoy living on the Big Island.
Karen: When and why did you start Hawaii 24/7?
Baron: I built the site and started adding content on Nov. 14, 2008. I turned the site on and open to the public on Nov 21, 2008, as Hawaii247.com. I moved the site on Jan. 19, 2009, to Hawaii247.org.
It had always frustrated me that the newspaper had adapted at glacial speed to deliver news. With the proliferation of the Internet, it only magnifies how slow newspapers are, and the newspaper would embargo the news from its own Web site so it wouldn’t cut into newspaper sales. Because the [newspaper's] Web site is updated so late every day, their news content is two days old from when the events happened. You may be able to subscribe to a paid electronic version of the newspaper, which delivers the paper quicker and they do have a Web site so it isn’t like they can’t deliver news quickly.
When you see newspaper photographers and reporters rushing around on assignment they aren’t rushing around to deliver news to the readers, they’re rushing around to make a deadline so it can be printed in the next day’s newspaper if they’re lucky; if there isn’t enough room for the story it runs later than that.
That’s much of why I started the Web site, to cut-out all the wasted time, energy and resources delivering the news. To think that to create the newspaper they need to manufacture the paper (lots of trees, recycled paper and energy for that), ship tons of newsprint and ink to Hawaii, run the presses to print the paper, drive the newspaper out to homes or newsracks, then folks drive the old newspapers to a recycle center, then the old newspapers are shipped back to the mainland where it’s mixed with more dead trees and the cycle starts again. I wonder about how much oil is being burned in the process.
The newspaper would raise the cost for both consumers and advertisers when newsprint prices would go up. Last year the newspaper printed editions with less pages than normal because a shipment of newsprint was ‘lost’ and they were afraid they were going to run out of paper. The newsprint showed-up; the shipping company just lost track of where it was.
So that’s why I started Hawaii 24/7, to deliver news in a quick and efficient manner for both the public and the environment. Less time wasted, less resources wasted.
Karen: How would you describe the site?
Baron: It’s hard for some people to wrap their heads around what the site is when first describing it them, but if you say it’s like a newspaper on the Internet they pretty much get it.
Hawaii 24/7 is a news site covering the Big Island (Hawaii Island), delivering news as soon as we can get it onto the Internet. One of the first things I decided when I started was that we would not call any news ‘breaking news’ on the site. The ‘breaking news’ term came from the broadcast industry where they would ‘break into’ a program to bring you a current news item. Newspapers also use the term on their Web site when something missed the deadline to make it into their print edition. We don’t have a deadline to go to press, we don’t have a regularly scheduled newscast so to us it’s all just ‘news.’
We cover much of the same subjects as a newspapers, such as spot news, sports, politics, feature stories, education, health care and media releases concerning the Big Island. We also have news from outside of the Big Island if it may be of interest to our readers.
If a highway is blocked by a landslide, folks need to know right away so they can make a detour instead of being stuck on the highway or backtrack. It’s not going to help folks reading about it in the next day’s paper (unless they want to see their photo stuck in traffic). Often if we report something online the local radio stations will mention it and attribute it to us. We use the Web site, Twitter, Qik, YouTube, push RSS feeds out and a few more things are in the works to deliver content.
Karen: What do you do at Hawaii 24/7?
Baron: A little bit of everything and a lot of some things. I play editor, webmaster, visual journalist (a fancy term for a photojournalist who can shoot still images, video, records audio), writer, graphic artist and dog catcher.
Karen: How were you able to segue from a print environment to an online environment? Did you have help building the site?
Baron: The segue from a print to online environment from a news gathering perspective isn’t very different for journalists other than the additional features the web can offer such as video, audio and interactive graphics. People keep calling it ‘new media’ when I think of it more as ‘new medium.’ The news gathering is mostly done in the same way as a paper product but just doesn’t need to be delivered on the medium of dead trees. I mean, the Wall Street Journal has a successful Web site and it just doesn’t seem like the word ‘new media’ fits them.
As for the technical structure of the Web site, the aspects of servers, choosing WordPress to build it with, buying the theme for the layout and keeping it running, I did that myself. WordPress is a robust, easy-to-use system and although the general layout of the site was purchased, I spend a lot of time tweaking the code to get the site working the way I want it. I still have to wrestle with code and server issues all the time to fix things when they are broken and to make updates as necessary.
As for the content of the Web site, I have the tremendous asset of having Karin Stanton working with me as a contributing editor. Having someone who comes from a newspaper background, and the fact that she can write and shoot photos on a variety of subjects, is incredible. The days of journalists being only a writer or photographer at a local news organization is gone. She also makes many updates to the Web site content so computer skills are essential too.
We also have talented contributors to the Web site for photos and stories that have the same passion for community journalism that we have. It has been almost shocking sometimes, the generosity of people submitting content for the Web site.
Karen: What type of feedback have you gotten from the community?
Baron: For the regular readers of the site, they love not having to wait for information being delivered and having a second voice on the island for a publication since most of the other publications on the island are owned by one company. Most feedback has been positive, the only real negative feedback is that folks want more content–but that’s the same thing newspapers are hearing too.
Unlike a printed product, when we have errors or omissions in stories we can make corrections to the original story. As any journalist will tell you having an error that is forever on a printed page is haunting. Everyone hates errors, journalists lose sleep over errors that can’t be fixed. Sometimes we get feedback from the community on errors and we fix things, sometimes we get more information to add to the story after it has been posted and we add to the story.
Karen: What is your goal for the site? What’s next?
Baron: Well, the goal is monetization and survivability of the site, to grow staff and to grow coverage. One of our role models has been the Voice of San Diego (www.voiceofsandiego.org) where they run a non-profit news site. Can a non-profit model work in the news industry? Many consumers don’t realize that the Associated Press is a non-profit organization and they are a giant in the news industry.
Eventually I’d like the site to cover the whole state. I didn’t name the Web site Big Island 24/7, as the plan has always been to grow beyond Hawaii Island.
Karen: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Baron: There has been a lot of interest by journalists about the Web site. A lot of folks want to see if it will work and if they can do the same thing where they live. Journalists want to work, consumers want news content and businesses want effective ways to reach consumers. Hopefully we can satisfy all three.
