I have not bought a printed newspaper in years, perhaps since I last clipped out one of my son’s football pics, but decided to do so today since it is the last day in the 154-year run of The Honolulu Advertiser. From the editor: The last word.
That neighbor island pricetag is at $3.50 and I was fine with paying it ($2.00 in Honolulu, I think), though I saw many others just shake their head and walk by, as we are so accustomed to the small likelihood of any neighbor island news being found within it. But mostly, I think it was the preponderance of ads. To the new Star Advertiser: I understand your chosen name in deference to the merger, but I hope you have a better business model. Newsworthy journalism is what sells newspapers!
Interesting to see the stamps up top of its previous mastheads as the Commercial Advertiser and The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. All 3 are names this final edition really lives up to today upon first impression, for it is filled with ads and a paper bag - “20% off everything you can fit in this bag” from OfficeMax. While par for the course on Sundays, the whole ad thing made me feel incredibly sad. It would have been a class act to publish a final edition that was ad-free and truly looked like a precious storybook collectable worthy of the publications 154-year history. Alas, it was not: I have not actually read it yet, but the overall look has not been compelling enough to draw me in this morning… it was easy to give my attention up to other things. As for the businesses who took advantage of this dying breath without explicit homage to The Honolulu Advertiser, poor form guys, you came off like opportunists with another strike against you besides our under-performing economy.
I decided to buy the West Hawaii Today as well, because there was no coverage in The Honolulu Advertiser of the Ironman 70.3 yesterday — at least not that I could see while rifling through it at the supermarket newsstand, even though pro/Honolulu native son Tim Barr was the first Hawai‘i finisher.
Going to have some afternoon tea and read the final edition. Though a neighbor islander now, I grew up with this paper, and clippings fill our older family scrapbooks when news was not digital. I’ve been one who has ached to see the slow deterioration of the paper over recent years, fully remembering its glory days as our “essential community rag.” Honolulu Advertiser, you will be missed. Mine will not be the popular view, but in many ways I prefer your ending with some dignity versus watching your steady decline into obsolescence, for you have continually chosen the ugliness of radical cost-cutting versus reinventing yourself over recent years. This final edition looks to be another example of persisting with what had not worked for these times, and I so hope the article reading proves this first impression wrong!
