 Welcome to Think Tech on OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Marianne Sasaki. Think Tech tries hard to cover the important happenings in Hawaii and to bring you in-depth analysis with the people making them happen. Our show this time will take us to a roundtable discussion on the recent changes in Honolulu's media landscape, changes that affect the news we get, which therefore have a profound effect on our lives together in Hawaii. The event was organized and co-sponsored by the East West Center and the UH Manoa School of Communications Journalism Program. It took place on October 12th at Burns Hall at the East West Center. Of course, a lot is happening in the news media in this country and around the world. We are deep into a new world of internet news. There are more smart devices and subscriptions in the world than there are people. Sixty or seventy percent of the audience is now mobile. Instagram sold for a billion dollars. This app sold for nineteen billion dollars. But the New York Times sold for nine hundred million dollars. What does this mean? Certainly, the new technology coming at us can provide more powerful methods for delivery. But citizen journalists are now everywhere. And news consumers are showing new tastes and expectations for content. For the media, it remains, as always, a competition for content. Journalism itself is changing. With the ease of video and podcast streaming technology and the emergence of embedded native news, it's harder to discern fact from opinion or to feel confident about ethics. How important is news literacy to the younger audience? Who do readers trust? And how can news media monetize that trust? With the proliferation of new platforms and social media, it's harder and harder to make a buck in basic news. Some countries, Canada and Australia, support news organizations, and those organizations still claim to be independent. Will we see more support from government? Will that support transmute to greater governmental influence? How will the business model for news evolve in the years to come? And a lot is happening in local media in Hawaii. Civil beat has transitioned into a non-profit business model and changed its focus to news over sports and entertainment. China Daily USA will be publishing a print edition here. And Hawaii Public Radio has recently taken on a new president. The star advertiser in midweek in the more conventional press is going through staff and content cutbacks. There are other changes too, of course, in broadcast news, internet news, and print press news that have been taking place. As over the past several years, the news media in Hawaii are in transition, if not transformation, just as they are in other places in the country and the world, all due to changes in technology and public case for consumption of news. The discussion at the program that day was moderated by Karen Knudson of the East West Center, and it featured remarks by the new president of Hawaii Public Radio, Jose Fajardo, on his vision for the station, and longtime civil beat editor Patty Epler on the recent changes in their business model and their website and newsletter. I'm very pleased to meet Jose Fajardo. He's general manager of HPR. He started in May, and he was previously executive vice president for the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce and CEO of MFETV and FM, the public broadcasting TV and radio station in central Florida. Welcome, Jose. Hawaii Public Radio started 1981, actually here, I think on the campus of the University of Hawaii, by a group of citizens who were looking to add public radio to the voice here at Hawaii. John Henry Felix serving as the founding chair of Hawaii Public Radio. Hawaii Public Radio and all of public radio has been really the center of think of community voices throughout the country. Having worked in commercial radio and having many friends in commercial broadcasting, there is a vacuum of news that we help serve. While a lot of commercial broadcasters do a really good job of providing the headlines of today's stories, what I call the fast food of journalism. Public radio and public television to some extent, we provide that Sunday afternoon lunch, dinner around a family, around familiar voices. So we go a little deeper. We have a voice in Hawaii for our local community. We need to connect our listeners to other listeners and connect our listeners to the community of Hawaii, connect all the islands of Hawaii, but also connect Hawaii back, not just to the mainland, but around the world. And we take that as a very serious role in the work that we do. We have a local news team led by Bill Dorman, not just doing local news, but also talk programming. And we're looking to the future here in the next few months in 2017 to really start focusing more on local stories and local news and investing more in our local news department so that we are able to cover important news of affecting Hawaii, but also how news from outside of Hawaii affects Hawaii. Public radio, or radio started long, long, long time ago. And we've had to adapt to the changing times where we're seeing a lot of our younger listeners no longer listening to terrestrial radio. A lot of the younger demographics don't have radios or transmitters like we used to have, or transistors like we used to have. They give their content on their iPhones, on their smart devices. And that includes audio. So the world that Patty is getting into with podcasting is the world where a lot of our young listeners are going and migrating to. So they know the moth, they know this American life. They know, wait, wait, don't tell me. But they know it not through their public radio station, but through their smartphone device. So it's our role to make sure that we make that connection for them, but not just with those national programs, but also with local content. Of making sure that we are on those digital platforms and that we're providing our content on those digital platforms. The world of the non-profit, the membership organizations that also that Patty's getting herself into is a world that we have lived in all of our lives, we give away our content and we hope that our listeners support us financially. But what that has allowed us to do is allowed us to have a protective barrier against commercial influence, which I think is very crucial to us. And I think it's gonna help also with civil beef that having that arm distance away from commercial entities allows us to provide more important journalism and in-depth journalism, journalism that's not tainted perhaps by commercial aspects. So we have to pay attention to these smart devices. However, that being said, the majority of the people who use our product still listen to us on the radio. Perhaps not in front of a fireplace with a big vacuum tube type radio, more in-car radio listening, but for us we're still terrestrial, but we have to be also on social media platforms. And Patty Epler, editor of Civil Beat and HuffPost Hawaii. We started in 2010, founded by Pierre Omidyar, who's the eBay founder and philanthropist. We started as a for-profit, switched to a non-profit on June 8th. And I think probably the biggest reason that we did that is we sort of recognized who we really were. We never have had a retail strategy. We've never sold ads. We've never really even done much in the way of sponsorships of stories or whatever. So we've always been more about the mission. And Civil Beat's mission has always been to try and do in-depth stories that people can really find out things that they should know about public affairs or strictly a public affairs operation, no sports, no entertainment, no dining guides or any of that kind of stuff. And so it's sort of after five years, our board of directors asked us, well, what is our world view? Where are we? What do we want to be when we grow up in another five years? And we decided that what was really important to us was more about having impact in Hawaii and really helping bring about positive social change and that we could do that through a number of things, not only our journalism that we do, but also by providing a place for the community to contribute, such as community voices or we do a lot of events now where we'll put on sort of panel discussions out in the community. We've started a new series called the Hawaii Storytellers where it's kind of like Moth Radio Hour, but sort of a local version of that where folks who are in the news or are involved with issues that are in the news will just come and tell their stories and so it's kind of like neighbors get into no neighbors in that regard, so it's been pretty fun. Last week we did an election trivia event at Capulani Community College that sort of pitted the student government against the faculty Senate, I guess, and it was just questions about local elections and national elections and bottom line students won. It was kind of sad in a way, so we're starting to do more of that kind of thing. We're branching out into podcasting. We have a new podcast that we're doing in conjunction with PRX, which is a national radio distribution outfit and that launches tomorrow, so it's called Offshore, so if you guys go to offshorepodcast.com or to iTunes or any of the places where you download podcasts, it'd be great if you'd subscribe because that's how we would make revenue off of that would be by subscriptions on that one. I don't know what else to tell you, things are just super busy at Civil Beat now. We've turned into a membership model, so instead of a subscription-based model and people are actually responding to that in a really great way. It turned out they didn't want to buy a subscription to Civil Beat, but they would like to give us money to keep doing the kind of news that we do, so we've had a really great response there. We hired a new director of philanthropy, a guy named Ben Nishimoto came to us from PBS Hawaii. He's doing a great job. We hired an outreach and events person, Mariko Cheng, who was most recently at Hawaii Theater, I believe. For us, it's all about content, so content is always, always, always number one. I want to say it's part of the problem because this has also been part of what's been good about a lot of new delivery systems being out there is there's been this tidal wave of civic journalism, of anybody can be a journalist if they have an iPhone, right? So what happens is that muddies the water because all of a sudden you have a lot of content being delivered to you by all these new systems that it's become harder and harder to decipher what is real and what is opinion, what is made up. A lot of people are getting, you know, the journalism is now being delivered to you in 140 characters on Twitter or 20 seconds worth of Snapchat and people think that's journalism. Well, it could be, but you have to make sure that we are getting out there the content that we need. The business model of that is pretty difficult and I think, you know, some of our print journalist friends in the room and the friends that I've had in Orlando and in Texas, that's been hard to maintain because media and content is becoming available for free in other places, right? And people are bypassing paid journalism. A lot of people who started in the digital world started with paywalls and have abandoned paywalls because that just wasn't a business model that was supporting journalism. People want things for free. Now, they're willing to pay for a newspaper still, the hard print for newspaper, but they don't want to pay, you know, a paywall for civil bead or other media institutions. Now, for public ready, we've always provided it for free, but it is a tremendous investment for us to invest in a bill and a Mali Solomon, but that takes money, that takes resources. And by the way, we'll lose Mali at some point. You know, Mali is here in Hawaii, but at some point she's going to be taken away from us and go to San Francisco or New York or Boston. And in Hawaii, that's an additional problem of how do you maintain, you know, journalists here in Hawaii and contain the high level journalism in Hawaii. So that's just another level of complexity here for Hawaii. But I know it's hard, but for us, its content is king. And delivery for us is terrestrial radio. We have it on the website. We push it out on our different platforms. But for us, it's content first before delivery. The nonprofit model is actually where a lot of people are heading. We are a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which is more than 100 news outfits in the US now. Texas Tribune, Minn Post, you know, some of these places that are the result of a lot of layoffs in the print business and people started their own websites and they're sort of now growing up into these online sites that are supported by the community or supported by funders. So I think that's probably at some point the lines between for profit and nonprofit are going to cross and nonprofit is going to probably be the way people go. We don't have to migrate to a digital model, try to make money on the digital platform because we're making money in a nonprofit mode in a terrestrial model. So when we talk about the younger demographic, while they want it for free, they will pay for what they love and they will pay for what they have a passion for. But it has to be created in the way that they want to receive it in a very user-friendly way, in a way that they're passionate about. So that's the model I think that we have to find in that world is delivering in a way that they want to receive it and in a cost point that they can pay for. But Netflix is working in Spotify and Pandora and those types of issues. It's advertisers writing the stories that you're reading, you know, and so a lot of outfits are resisting that. They have separate staffs that do it, but like at Huffington Post, they have a global motherhood site that's paid for and written by Johnson and Johnson, you know, and so there will be no negative comments about Johnson and Johnson or questioning of their products or whatever on that site, you know, so it's kind of bad. For us, it's about staying relevant in our community and making sure that we're connecting with our local community. So as we see more of the technology of smartphones and iPads being out there and consumers going to the smart devices to get their news, and it's becoming shorter in terms of content, we have to make sure that we're only not just providing our content terrestrially on radio, but also on these smart devices. But making sure that our content remains relevant. So for us as a public radio station, for us it's about being connected in the community, raising the money from our community and then delivering that content to our local community. I do think that the future of news is in the online space and that more and more people are turning away from print and getting their news online. And so it's important that the online news organizations adhere to very strict journalistic guidelines, reporting standards, ethics, that kind of thing, so that we're separated from the blogosphere, which is people just throwing out whatever they want, whether it's accurate or not. And I hope more people will support online news organizations that are independent and straightforward so that they continue to grow and become valuable in their communities. I think Hawaii is grappling with the changes, economic changes, impact how people are consuming their news just like every place else around the world. And I think it's a realistic and a little scary for some of us, again, to get accurate news and bringing ethics into it. I'm always hopeful because we have to be hopeful and we have to adapt to the changes. So again, building a strong educated constituents and building a lot of ethics into journalism training. That's the way of the future. We also heard from UH Journalism faculty members Ann Almond and Brett Opelgaard on the impact of these media changes in Hawaii. Brett is a regular contributor to Civil Beat and has also appeared on various Think Tech talk shows. G Tao, president of China Daily USA, was also to have appeared at the discussion to tell us about China Daily's entry into the Hawaii print market. But he couldn't make it that day. We'll try to catch up with G Tao or someone else from China Daily for a Think Tech talk show to discuss their plans. Think Tech considers these changes in our news media important factors and a barometer of the social and political evolution of our community. That considered we're going to break down our coverage of this program into two separate parts on Think Tech on OC 16. This is the first part of that two part series. Thanks so much to the East West Center and the School of Journalism for having organized and presented this program from a news and journalistic point of view. This kind of program is truly a community service. And in fact, it should take place on a regular basis. And now let's take a look at our Think Tech calendar of events going forward. There's so much happening in Hawaii. Sometimes things happen under the radar and we don't hear much about them. But Think Tech will take you there. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on OC 16 several times every week to stay current on what's happening in government and in communities around the islands. Remember also that Think Tech broadcasts its daily talk shows live on the internet from 11am to 5pm on weekdays. And then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and weekends. If you missed a show or you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com slash radio. This is ThinkTechHawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links or sign up on our email list and get the daily docket of our upcoming shows. Think Tech has a high tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to be part of our live audience or if you want to participate in our programs and help us raise public awareness, you can contact us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at ThinkTechHI. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in Hawaii. We want to stay in touch with you. And we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. If you'd like to speak out on an issue or event, you can. We love the First Amendment and we love hearing from our viewers. You can come down to our speakers corner and make a video statement on the web. See ThinkTechHawaii.com. And you can call in and join our talk shows live. While you're watching any of our shows, you can call in at 415-871-2474 and pose a question or make a comment. And now here's this week's ThinkTech commentary. Hello, ha! Angus McTech here with What's the Upside? In the run-up to Election Day, newspaper editors usually expect to see endorsements on the editorial page. But I question that practice. Newspaper endorsements have become much part of the American political process since the 1800s. American newspaper editors view endorsements as a vital public service, even though their impact is considered minimal. I still think they should keep their opinions to themselves. Newspaper editors see it as their duty to help inform the public and help foster their discussion about important issues. Some even think it is important in their civic duty. If their goal is to help voters make a smart informed decision, then you should stay correctly in the position of the candidate, perhaps even some point or a counterpoint. That's it. Most newspapers have editorial boards made up of opinion writers, top editors, even company executives who decide the editorial direction. These editorial boards operate independent of the newsroom. And who's the journalist? The journalists are expected to report the news without bias or favor. So why not have the editorial way to do the same? It is obvious that Honolulu's privatizer is partisan and their opinion leaders do have strong opinions about what is the best residence of their communities. So do you think Eva are smarter than you are readers? I didn't think so. There is no conclusive evidence to show that newspaper endorsements actually influence voters. So do us a favor this year. Stop endorsing candidates and just report. I'm Angus McTech for Think Tech Hawaii and Ibachi Talk. Be sure to watch us Fridays from 1300 till 1330 and follow us on YouTube. And remember, let's see, upside. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech. But first, we want to thank our underwriters. OK, Marianne, that wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you're going to watch Think Tech on OC 16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it just like Marianne does. For additional times, check out OC16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechhawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer and intern, and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Marianne Sasaki. Aloha, everyone.