Disappeared News

Pics of the protests snapped by Brad Parsons. Check out the signs. Strong feelings!

Today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21400600@N03/sets/72157603469348875/
Yesterday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21400600@N03/sets/72157603463859123/
Two days ago:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21400600@N03/sets/72157603454736835/

By posting his photos, Brad demonstrates the value of citizen journalism. Newspapers have limited space, of course, and editors have demonstrable biases. Not only is the blogosphere relatively unlimited, but the absence of self-censorship editing means that you, the reader, get to sort through the information yourself.

The blogs differ from recent newspaper accounts on the number of passengers, how many of those were reporters and how many might have been relatives of Superferry employees. Brad has been keeping a count of passengers and vehicles.

If the papers are interested in giving us useful facts, they might do their own occasional count and report on whether this ferry is really so important to Hawaii that people are actually using it. Will the editors actually allow an honest passenger count to be reported?

They might also be honest about the conditions on board. The first voyage last week seemed grim. People aren't supposed to get sick when they travel from one place to another.

Depend on the blogs

Not everyone who writes a blog is, well, just a blogger. We have several fine journalists out there, and they are following, among other topics, the ongoing Superferry saga.

Both Joan Conrow and Ian Lind have written about the appointment of Kauila Clark to the Superferry oversight task force, noting that he is closely tied to Superferry management although Say appointed him as a cultural practitioner. Remember where you learned about Say's own ties to the ferry: his son is/was an employee. Where is the editorial outrage? Not in the newspapers.

Joan wrote:

I was rubbed the wrong way by the revelation that Kauila Clark, appointed to serve on the Superferry oversight committee, actually blessed the vessel before it sailed. The connection was made in a comment on yesterday’s post, and followed up today by Ian Lind, who raises the question of whether Clark was paid by Hawaii Superferry for his various services.
 
...

It seems that of all the cultural practitioners in Hawaii, Rep. Calvin Say could have come up with one who wasn’t already so closely linked to Hawaii Superferry. That’s the sort of thing that further erodes the public’s confidence in what is already widely perceived as a bogus process that began when the state exempted Superferry from an environmental review.

Ian Lind's article is longer and has a picture, so I suggest clicking there and reading that.

And did any of the papers mention the machine guns toted by security personnel?

You just have to read the blogs to find out what is really going on with this ferry. But more than the ferry, you'll have to look at the pictures and read the blogs to learn about the seething resentment against our "popular" governor.

Protests or not, perhaps the ferry ridership will increase. Or maybe it won't. Predictably, protests will taper off. Nature, in the form of rough seas, will not, so let's see how this goes. Read the blogs and stay in touch with the pulse of the people.