 This is Community Matters. I'm going to talk about the media. We're going to talk about how COVID has affected the media in our community, namely KITV. So Jason, General Manager and Janice Jinn is the news director. This is very important. This is the heart of the station. And the first thing we want to do is get some graphics going because after all, you know, video is all about graphics. So Jason, why don't you go through the video you wanted to show us and sort of give us the parameters of what the station is interested in these days? Okay, sure. Absolutely. So the first thing I think we're going to show here is a picture of the living room live. Oh, number one. So we wanted to definitely be a partner in recognizing people in the community who are going above and beyond in the sense of whether they're donating PPE or sewing masks for our healthcare workers. It's just a platform just to basically acknowledge and recognize people who are contributing then to our community. So the next one there I think we have available to want to show you guys whereas the, I don't have the order, Jay. Okay, put the next one up. Okay, well, this we have living room live. So living room live is a platform in conjunction with I Heart Radio that we worked on and obviously a lot of artists can't be performing in live venues during this COVID time. So we wanted to bring that music back to the living rooms back to our Hawaii audience, and also partner up with various nonprofits that need money to continue what they're doing, whether it is our artists fund for that Henry Kaponos Foundation, or working then with the Hawaii food bank to raise funds for them. And then when situation where we get to bring in artists and be allowed into perform, you recognize and also raise money for the community. Great, great. It's all about community isn't it. Always is to tell the station serves in that role for sure. Absolutely. In the fabric. So what's the next one. Bring up another one. All right, this one is interesting. So give a lot of every day is underwritten by Levin you money and so on, and it's a program that allows them to help nonprofits who don't necessarily have a voice or platform to educate so what their needs are currently. So we worked with Levin you money and so on or put this platform together and we've helped out with the Hawaii food bank. The farm stable programs. A lot of other nonprofits here that gave them then a platform to talk in high profile positions obviously when the television viewing audience is higher than ever right now. So, yeah, that's a win win win. And Levin your money sold there has been one of your supporters sabotages for a long time and truly that's why everybody knows their name everybody is interesting how that works. Oh, there we go. Coronavirus got to be an important news item. So I'll add John is sort of kind of tell you a little bit more about this graphic. Yeah, that's the thrust of our show but let's look at that from the point of view of news selection right. I mean the big thing for a news director is to make a list of the news stories that could be covered, and then you know, select the ones that will be covered and allocate the amount of time for each one of them. So obviously, since what February March Coronavirus has been a major news story. Tell us how that has gone for you. Jay we have actually be covering Coronavirus since the middle of January. The main issue in China. Knowing that we have a lot of visitors here as an international port. I said, Oh my God, this is a big, big, big deal. So I like to believe that a KTV, we were actually about two weeks ahead of everybody else. And then the state started talking about, you know, everybody started panicking over Coronavirus, then the travel stopped, and then everybody got crazy. Everybody wanted a test. So in that time we were able to start talking to, we had people here in Honolulu, who are from Wuhan. They were visiting one of our schools. We try to get a hold of them like, what's it like when you know everybody in your town is like locked down. What's it like about those trying to keep perspective about what was going on overseas and how that affects us. People stop coming here. People stop wanting to come here. Our tourism starts to get hurt. And people like, you know, across America is like, Oh, we don't know if we're going to do a shutdown. And then we find out that we get these tests. The test kits don't work. Now that's an indictment on the federal government. And Hawaii was very self righteous about it. The public, I'm not sure was as sympathetic about it. So our responsibility is to say, Hey, this stuff is going on, man, and you got to know about it, and the government is trying to do something about it. And then public, as you know, gets impatient. Right, we want the test tomorrow. Well, CDC screwed up, they gave us the wrong test. Not once but twice. So like, okay, we finally got our stuff together is looking ahead down the road. What do people want to know the first thing we did was we created a half hour special for six o'clock new at the back end of our special, we're going to answer your questions as best we can. We got very lucky and having great guests. We had the Department of Health director on not every week, but just about every week. And then the governor started having these press conferences, so that help enhance our storytelling. And then also we start closing everything down, everybody having a panic. And for those who are not hair challenge, we're all upset about can't get my hair done. And like, really, this is the last thing that's really a. I mean, it's crazy to talk about being in the middle of the community. Wow. They're crazy about it. So, over time, we just have to reflect what our community is looking at, and put in perspective, when to get crazy and when not to get crazy. I'm going to ask the hard question if you recall with the Department of Health kind of like killed somebody and said that I died for Coronavirus and then back down. Sorry, we're wrong. I'm like, how do you make that mistake. Hello. Everybody's panic. We're talking about fear out there. Everybody wondering whether they're in the line of fire. You're talking about great public interest. And you're talking about news that keeps on coming every day, every minute. It's a it's a it's a media delight in that way, isn't it. You know, I have to be honest with you as a media hound. Yes, it's a great delight. It's great when you can ask the governor, the mayor, it's great to see the mayor and the governor, not see eye to eye. Like, who's going to push who first to make the decision right thing. That's what everybody's talking about. What I find hilarious. I should use the word hilarious. We have sister stations across the country who are in markets that are not like Hawaii. When they whether it's riots or Coronavirus, for example, when Coronavirus is going crazy on the East Coast in New York, if I lived in York, I would be scared as you know what, but when don't I live in Hawaii. So they're like, well, what about this and what about this I go, really people, we have 17 deaths, less less than 700 positive cases. And Hawaii is doing a really great, really great. But I also tell my friends on the mainland, we're doing great here. Don't come here. We don't want your kind. We don't want you to come to Hawaii sorry. They're like, can I stay in your house. No, don't come here. Don't want you here. I think the rest of the West West of the East Coast is like behind us, because we started covering this in January. That's your credit. That's that's really a fabulous thing I must say. I really wasn't out there wasn't out there until, you know, the end of January at the earliest and you know even even the White House didn't get onto it until you know my 10 days into January, and every day counts. So you were way ahead of the curve way ahead. It's very strange that I was actually on a trip in Washington at the very beginning of March, probably the last person to ever travel, you know. So, even at that time they were starting to get really serious in Washington, having said that that my counterparts on the East Coast group who are also news directors trying to cover this, they're like two weeks behind in the panic. And I say they're two weeks behind when we know how to wear a mask, because our culture, we've been doing it with every Japanese tourist that comes to comes to Hawaii right normal. So we know how to make mass we know how to do that industry. I have news directors on the East Coast good. Oh my God I have to figure out how to make a mask. They're kind of behind us. But you know they have a right to be behind us. They have thousands of people who are dying. I was watching this from the very beginning, when I could see the numbers growing. I get frustrated. I've lived on the mainland. So I get frustrated when everybody is like clustering and having a good time at the park and at the beach. And I'm like, we're going to see another wave and I don't know about it. Well I you know I would you know I want to circle back after we talked to Jason for a bit on the question of how the protests play into all of this. That's a news matter. So Jason, here you are you're a business like any other I suppose you're an essential business as the media is. But this has to have a profound effect on your management of the station can you talk about that. It relates to the protest. Sorry. As related to COVID. Oh okay okay. Well first and foremost I think what we need to do is make sure that we are taking every precaution to ensure that our employees are safe during this crazy time. So we kind of almost immediately between Janice and I we kind of implemented a work from home if you can kind of situation, and the technology kind of didn't follow that after the direction. So as we were kind of figuring it out. I think what was the coolest part was that our audience was very forgiving in understanding that the technology didn't quite catch up with what we wanted to do and to ensure the safety of our employees. And we've gotten at this point to the point that we can operate pretty smoothly working remotely. And this is with both producers working from home, some anchors actually reporting and anchoring from home are our MMJs or reporters that are on the street kind of working outside the building to the much extent as possible. So those departments all working from home sales admin all working from home to the extent where we got we probably had less than 10 people in the building at any given time. Wow, that's as remarkable and demonstrate flexibility, but that is, you know, the core of being media, you have to react to things quickly have to catch the wave, all the time, including when the wave is heading at you. So what you know you talk about things that a lot of businesses have done, but it also strikes me that some of the things you've done some of those nimble changes are actually changes you might consider on a long term basis. Have you have you thought any of them would be useful on a long term basis. It's so funny we had a conversation with someone just today in fact about who might come and work with us about that exact sort of situation moving forward which, you know, six months ago was like you want to do what remotely you want to do this remotely and what did you like you were crazy, but understanding then that the audience is sort of understands that the dynamic of things and we can still put together a solid newscast, not necessarily the pretty show, but, but definitely a solid newscast and bring them into the conversation in a, you know, informative and yet engaging way. And that has more to do with the content than it has to do with the with the flash of the show, if you will. And I think that's the basis of us being able to continue to be successful in getting the message on our news out every single day. I'll offer a couple of thoughts on that from my observation. And one is that, you know, it's nothing uncommon to see somebody being interviewed at home. That's commonplace now. And furthermore, a few weeks ago was really problematic about production values. The light would be wrong and the angle would be wrong and the sound would be squishy and and then it would glitch, you know, and, and she but everybody was tolerant to that. I mean, the viewing audience. Hey, we're in a crisis, we're going to be tolerant. Then something started to happen. People started to invest in little microphones. They started to invest in home green screens. They started learning more about how to achieve production values. I mean, both the individuals out there who may have a lot of exposure, but also the staff inside the studio the production staff. Is that been your experience. For sure. Yeah, go ahead. I think that we in our, in our eating to work at home, adapt to the applications that we could do, usually take down for advantage. We absolutely did that. You're you are very astute because I experienced basically the same thing with everybody going at home doing their thing stuff wasn't exactly right. So we tried to get them the equipment they needed to have a better setup. And then all of a sudden, I don't know why all of a sudden one day. I started getting emails from people who said, Hey, can you make your audio better. This is viewers now. Can you make your audio better. Can you get your video cleaner. What do you guys, I thought, wow, what a discerning audience that is down for the workers. You know, some people want to invest on their own thing like I really want a nice light so I look good. So I'm going to buy. Some people bought lights. I have one person who bought themselves a teleprompter. So they could actually have a teleprompter at home. I'm like, I didn't ask you to do that. I appreciate that you did. But people are starting also learning about their own technology. And so technology has really been our friend in a scenario. I encourage it. Not necessarily to my full expense. But you know people want to trick up their own home I go you really want to turn your house into a studio. Okay. Okay, but you know, given the way we call it the acceptance by the public of a different say a different production quality when this happens. Increasingly I mean everybody getting used to it it's a new normal. If you want to use that term. This means this means that anybody you or us for that matter can use this zoom approach the remote approach to reach people. You might not have been able to reach given the parameters of production quality before. I mean you could talk to a newsmaker in Singapore. No problem. You might not have done that before you might have had to wait for footage, you know to be transferred electronically or even by by transportation. But now you can go around the world because nobody really nobody really makes the distinction. It's okay that you're getting, you know, less than less than perfect production values. So why not go around the world. You can be if you like, a national news gatherer be international news gather because of that it opens new doors for you doesn't it. It opens tremendous doors to it and that's what's great about the media, you can bring the voices in, but I'd like to point out that, you know while technology means to have technology means you have to be a have and not a have not. So I want to do an example a couple I think was last week, the mayor did a little Facebook thing. And he had all the, not the mayor's governor, and he had all the other mayors in the little boxes. And then we actually carried that live on our air. I can't tell you how much the public appreciated that, because they don't have zoom technology. They had a phone with unlimited data, and they were so happy to see their island represented and listening to their lawmaker talk about what's going to happen in the community. So what I as a broadcaster always worry about is the people who don't have the means and access to what we have. You know that we carry other programming. So whenever the governor has a press conference for example, we will carry it live. Sometimes that interferes with soap operas. People go crazy. Priorities. On the other hand, I would have people who call me at 1230 and say, is there going to be a press conference today. Just viewers, and I go. Well, the governor has this. Yes, well, the governor needs to speak. I go if he speaks, it'll be 230. So they want to see the lawmakers. And I think that's the biggest role that we have played for our community, because I believe that everybody should have access to having this information, not just people who have a cell phone. Yeah, you know what you know what's interesting about that the lawmakers you talk about have never had this kind of intense experience before, and they may not know how to actually pull it off. That is to be candid to be complete to be, you know, to inform the public and calm the public. It's a big problem. I mean it's a real problem in Washington with the problem everywhere really absolutely right. So let me shift back to you for a minute Jason, you know, all this changes, the changes in doing the news, the changes in where, where the staff is located and where they can work or not work I mean, this has to affect the KIT view from a business point of I'm really curious to know how that has been for example, have you had to put anybody on furlough or terminated any employee employees or services or contractors, or does it all still work fine. And, you know, how about advertisers, especially the ones who had to go out of business or can't operate. What do you do with them. So can you talk about the economics for a minute. This is still unfolding clearly without anything defined yet and yet initially when this first came on we had some initial cancellations in terms of advertising and whatnot. And if you think about the fully completed month of then April we were I think the business in general was about total revenue is down about 40%. So for a long term play that we can't operate at that level but you know it was really a lot of pride of working for a little broadcasting and that they basically said you know just take over employees they kind of assured everybody we're good so just just keep going keep doing your job. Stay health, stay focused on your health and your, your families and your job obviously in the moving forward standpoint but and so so that that's sort of confidence to let everybody focus on getting what they need to get done. It changes a lot about the accountability in terms of how people function then in a remote way. So, you know, communication. You know these technology like these zoom calls that we're doing even this interview on enables us to kind of look still people and I and understand where they are and where they're taking their business or taking their roles that's going forward. And so I think it's super important that the camera aspect is included in, you know, the these these technologies that allow us to kind of get more of a read than just their tone of voice when I'm talking to them. Definitely, definitely impactful overall to our business we're learning to adapt through and it's really interesting to see the type of businesses that are using our platforms whether it's on the television side or digital side, really seeing it as an opportunity for them to grow and grab, you know, market share in the situation or at least depending on the mission or gain help with whatever community initiative they have because obviously we have clients of all sorts. But it was initially that shock I think of everybody cancel canceling the advertising wasn't necessarily because they were scared necessarily they needed to change their messaging and they needed to include in their commercials. You know, a message of understanding and empathy going forward and not just hey we're this this cars on sale today, you know, or get this loan today. This is about you know we're here for you and for them as corporate message to get out the fact that they understand the situation that they're in right now and that you've seen that across the board, both on the national and the local level, but you were encouraging them to do that to get current. So definitely, especially for the smaller businesses that don't have an ad agency necessarily put their messaging together, definitely talking about smaller, you may take out businesses and with, and to encourage and to put modify the commercial so that we show that what what the current offering might be given what all that is going on so help them stay current and look like it's not you just being obtuse in the situation because that's what it would seem like if you didn't modify your message. It's not like you're using old footage and you haven't caught up and all that. You know, but what you what you say, Jason really, you know, opens to me this question. You know, we have in Washington right now and I wouldn't say to some extent it happens here, but we have in Washington dysfunctional government we have we have an executive this dysfunctional. Congress is dysfunctional lumpy. A lot of people don't have confidence in the in the courts right up to Supreme Court anymore. We've had, you know, a number of discussions and think tech about those things. And that leaves you know the need for somebody soft and warm and altruistic and honest and earthy and you know somebody who you want to warm to. Who is that that's the media. That's the media that's the media nationally and to a significant extent it's the media locally. So all of a sudden you're different in my view, in the eyes of the viewer in the eyes of the public. They come to you because they need, they need that support. You need to talk to somebody they believe in. And do you feel that happening on your side also. We definitely became more and John is getting color add color to this to I think we definitely became more relevant into everybody's daily life now still, you know, our research show that people spend an average of six hours, plus per day with intelligence that with various news and in entertainment programming. I think that has increased a lot more before when you think about when prime time was is anywhere between a six and 11 o'clock every night when most people were home watching TV right now. It's prime time all day and all night because everybody's basically still at home. So, it's really, I'm not. No pressure. No pressure. But I would say that you know, in our sense of responsibility. This is what I deal with the newsroom is this idea that we are here to serve the public. We are here to make them feel assured. We are here to tell them what we know, and not to lie, and not to, not to color if you will, the story, if people are dying people are dying, you want to be rude about it but just saying hey, you need to do this, but also give words of assurance that you spoke about Jay, about words of assurance that say, we're warm and fuzzy, we're here to help you. We want to honor those people in our nabampono. If you will feature those characters who have the way I wrote the copy was who and who just on their own gave to the community. Nothing was they were not hired by you to go do a program. They were hired by their own heart to want to help make mass want to give something, and that we should honor them because that's Hawaii. That's what we do. And our responsibility. I felt that can TV was to tell that story to not hold it. So then we get to the hard question. Okay, you know a question that always besets television station locally or nationally. You tell the people what the people want to know what to know about, or you tell the people what they should know about. Okay, you want to educate them or just satisfy their curiosity. And there's a big issue right now and I'll tell you the issue and you can use it to, you know, to express your thought about it. So right now. So we have the protest in the street. Everybody wants to know about the protest. It's like the protest show. It's an eight day show so far. And you know the national media is just doing it right up. And, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's not important. It's very important. However, all the oxygen is going there. At the same time, COVID has not ended. COVID is still keep killing people at the rate of thousands of people every day. But the, but the oxygen is on the protest. And you as a news media and your counterparts as news media is in every station, those local and national. What is the choice of how are you going to allocate your time. What is the public going to like what are they going to come for and also what they really need to know to be educated citizens, you know, and educated members of the electorate to how do you make those choices. How are you making them now. I think it's really important for the media, any media to try to put perspective on what is going on. So the why we had actually from a corporate standpoint there was a lot of discussion as I said, we have sister stations across the country. And there's like all this concern about, about writing, and they have right and they have COVID and they got all the problems that they got masked, they got all of it. I said, you know what I, we have to put in perspective what this writing is about. It is not just about writing, if there's a deeper seated issue. And then the question for Hawaii is, why is that issue, not big to us. And I find it fascinating. I don't know the answer. And I always trying to find that answer. Why don't we have when Floyd happened we had no protest. Then we had a protest on Saturday from my vantage point as a news geek. I go, yeah, a protest. So then, okay, what are they saying what are the protesters saying why are they there. And, yeah, we're not knocking heads we're not fighting with police. We're not doing that stuff. But what is the meaning here. My responsibility, I think it's the media is to try to give you that meaning, and in some ways put in perspective why Hawaii is not writing. Yeah, we have to ask these questions. We have to see ourselves as part of the firmament, you know, against the context of national and international events. So we only have a couple of minutes left. Let me, let me ask. Yeah, go ahead. Coronavirus. We have been trying to also keep the riot story, kind of related, not related, but we're not ignorant to the fact that it has an impact on Coronavirus. I'm very concerned in the big picture, you talk about people dying. We're going to see this another proliferation, all these major towns in the east coast. I think it's going to happen. This is, this is different from the quarantine. You know, this is going to happen people are so passionate and standing next to each other. They're going to infect each other. And then what are we going to have. And then we're going to arrest them and send them back home. That's what we do. So I mean, I think the Coronavirus is going to be a subtext right now, because there is no leadership right now to quell the rioting going on in America. Yeah, and all of that touches the economy. And the economy is another huge story. Let me, I'll go on record to say that if you have hundreds of thousands of people across the country in protest, they're not working. They're not, they're not involved in the economy. It's something else. So you have a secondary effect there. But let me turn to a last issue, which I think is, you know, important in our time. Perhaps it's more important with the high profile television media on the mainland, but it's also important with you. And it's the First Amendment. You know, we have an administration now that doesn't feel the same way that Americans have felt for the last couple hundred years about the First Amendment. And we have insults going back and forth. We have a kind of something filtering out there into the community. I mean, for example, it really troubles me that the police are also beating up on the media. And for that matter, some of the protesters are disrespecting the media. The media has lost its sacrosanctuary, so to speak, as First Amendment, because of things this administration has said. So how do you feel about that, Jason? How is it affecting you? What do you think about that going forward? The First Amendment is so critical, not only to the media itself, but to the whole country. What are your thoughts? It's a big question. You said you have a couple of minutes, but basically, I think, I don't have an answer for you, aside from the fact that there just needs to be, as a media, we try not to make our personal opinions known because we're supposed to be, we should be as even keeled and present the information and let people make their own decisions. So it's hard for me to kind of inject my own opinions into this without affecting how we, as a journalism organization, as a news organization going forward. But there is, like you said, a lack of leadership in that way. There's a lack of respect, not just for journalists as an institution, but many of the other institutions. It's not limited to journalism. It's across the board where there's a general lack of respect of what the roles and the protections that each institution is supposed to offer to the next one. And as a watchdog or otherwise. So I stand with, you know, our brothers and sisters, journalists and brothers and sisters on the mainland, and say, you know, as an industry, as a, as the role that journalism plays, journalists play in our market and in our country, that we need to protect them more. And I think we're seeing a lot of that all the way 5000 miles away from Hawaii where we are. It's hard for me to kind of raise my, you know, arm with them but I'm there with them in spirit and I definitely would do whatever I can to protect it. If that was to happen here would do the same thing. There are plans. I don't think you're going to see the kind of riots you see in Hawaii that you've seen on a lot of the big cities on the mainland. But we're ready. If that happens, we're going to protect our people and make sure that they are empowered to continue to do their job without risking their personal safety. Again, that's our job as their employees of these fine journalists here that work for them. And sometimes government does not hold itself accountable. There's only one organization that's dedicated to that. That's the media that, you know, looking forward that's that has to be that has to be central than the preservation of our democracy. One last question for you. And that is, how do you see the news evolving? How do you see the the news going forward. I mean, I know that news directors are always looking ahead. They're trying to figure out there's they're speculating maybe but they're trying to figure out what's coming down the pike. And what kind of news and what the priorities are and how it fits in, in the mosaic that you offer. So, Janice, what, you know, what are you thinking about these days because we're in a big tumult now, but you must have ideas about where it's all going. I have a lot of opinions, but I will keep my first amendment opinions to myself to say, I will fight for my goal. But having said that, what I look out in the future and I appreciate your recognition that part of my job is to look out in the future is to look at something about this community. And it's really about employment. Well, we have focused so much parting and crying and yelling at the unemployment office and process. We're not we really are not looking at employment as an issue because, for example, I went out to get picked. I picked up food last night. The woman who brought me the food and I said, so tell me what's going on inside your restaurant. She said, we're getting ready to open on Friday. I said, how many people got hired. Only seven people for their staff got rehired. Seven. That means what maybe 20 people did not get a job. There's going to be 20 people on the street on Friday with no job. What is the story? How do you find a job when there is no job? What skills do you have to do in a job interview that's going to get you that one job that everybody's trying to get. And it very well may be to be a barista and not high paying. Well, you know, it's a how to thing, you know, on YouTube, the most popular sites on YouTube are the ones that answer how to. So how to get a job, how to start a business, how to how to get food without money, and on and on, you know, and this somebody has a question. Everybody has a question like that. I mean, I know that your viewers would like to hear those shows. But I'm looking at the future and that's where our future is right now in this community. That's where I think that media, we can play some role in educating, helping mentoring, whatever. I'm not saying you run a job bank. I'm just saying, how do I help you get your next job, Jane? Right. What's the right answer when somebody asks you whatever the question is. So be Jason. I mean, Janice is really pretty terrific. Have you noticed? Yeah. I just, I want to ask you one last question, Jason. Okay. Okay, I TV you're in competition with others. And everybody more than more than before even relies on on local TV news and entertainment, whatever the content is. What would what message would you leave you started doing this when we went through the slides but what message would you leave to your viewers and your advertisers at KITV. How do you see it going forward? What is your, you know, your, your connection with them now? We look as to our, we want to be there. We're the community partner. We're their voice, as he said, in terms of getting information. If they have an issue that they do want to bring up to us that we can help investigate for them as well. Be, you know, broadly so for broader issues, obviously, we will do that. But I think for them, for our clients know that if our job at this point is to make sure that every day we bring breaking news to the room in terms of not just news from a standpoint not just regurgitating a story, but being more insightful and digging deeper if we need to, or bringing information that nobody has seen before on many levels. And I think that's why, why people who choose to watch Ki TV do choose to watch Ki TV. And I think that's, to Dave, we would just recognize with a moral word for breaking news. Oh, that's great. It was, it was a nice feather and a cap for the team here at Ki TV. So we're grateful for that recognition. So that's great. Well, thank you, Jason. Jason, how you are a general manager. News director, you guys are terrific. You're terrific in what you do. You're terrific in your style and your thought process. And I really appreciate, you know, the way you've answered our questions. And you're also terrific in the fact that you came on Think Tech. That is something. And you share. Our pleasure. Thank you, Dave, for including us. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha. Now, both of you go wash your hands. Thank you.