Blogging the Aloha State and Beyond
Hawaii Gov. David Ige has urged all state department heads to “strengthen efforts to increase access to public information, ensure that government business is conducted as openly as possible, and enhance government accountability.” The executive memo, issued without fanfare on Aug. 25, reiterates Gov. Ige’s push for more openness and public...
Even though I’m a retired old-school podcaster, I’m still a voracious podcast listener. And over the last few weeks, I was surprised to hear ads for Hawaii companies while listening to National Public Radio podcasts. On NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” I heard a pre-roll ad for First Insurance Company...
“The Forbidden Isle” will be featured in an upcoming episode of “This American Life.” Titled “I Don’t Make the Rules,” episode #611 of the popular radio program will visit the island of Niihau, which is privately held and nearly impossible to visit.
On this week’s “Geek Beat” (part of the “Sunrise” morning news show on Hawaii News Now), Burt Lum and I told Dan Cooke about apps that let you host your own show online. We featured three different ways to share your conversations online: in text, video, and audio. First up...
KTUH, the college radio station based at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is shifting frequencies and doubling its signal strength next month. Currently broadcasting at 90.3FM in urban Honolulu and 91.1FM on the North Shore, KTUH will then be heard island-wide at 90.1FM. The student-run radio station first hit the...
Hawaii Public Radio kicks off its fall pledge drive tomorrow. Thanks to record levels of early giving and a rising number of “sustaining members,” the fundraising goal is 15 percent lower. But HPR still needs 100 percent of the community’s support to wrap things up quickly. HPR, like many of its mainland...
You might not think of a YouTube star as being a startup, but for the Big Island-based GVS Accelerator, an online musical comedy series is a promising investment. The GVS Accelerator hit the road earlier this summer in search of its second cohort of companies. But rather than looking for the next hot...
Jackie Claxton is a normal, average girl… except for the fact that she has the special ability to cross dimensions and into parallel universes to save people and battle evil. And later this month, she and her many incarnations and creators will be celebrated at “Claxtonfest,” a unique local film...
Newspapers continue to struggle, but local television news audiences have grown slightly. Most people now get their news on mobile devices, but the once niche medium of podcasts has seen its audience surge. And that’s only in the last year. Journalism and the overall media industry is in constant flux, which...
Disney has given fans a colorful, musical, and celebrity-fortified preview of its upcoming animated feature, “Moana.” The film, due out next November, is steeped in Hawaiian mythology, telling the story of a young woman named Moana who sets off across the ocean and meets Maui, the demigod who is said to...
Hawaii Public Radio, for which I have served as a volunteer talk show host with Burt Lum for seven years as of this week, is trying something new tomorrow with “$5-a-Month Friday.” Public radio pledge drives have been the medium’s signature fundraising method for nearly 40 years. As public broadcasting budgets relied...
On Friday morning, the NOAA research vessel Okeanos Explorer will depart Honolulu for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument on an unprecedented deep sea expedition. A team of scientists will seek out teeming communities of diverse marine life, and conduct the first survey to map the details of the sea floor in...
On Sunday, I described the GVS Accelerator as one of Hawaii’s lesser known accelerators. Or at least lesser known on O’ahu, as it is based on Hawaii Island. A event tomorrow night in downtown Honolulu hopes to change that. GVS founder and accomplished Hollywood director David Cunningham is hosting a pau...
After days of deliberations and globe-spanning conversations, the Solar Impulse team announced at 1 a.m. Hawaii time this morning that it would be suspending its ambitious around-the-world flight until next spring. The news quickly spread across the world, from CNN to the BBC to Gizmodo. But seven hours earlier, my Hawaii...
Apple iOS users can now read this blog in the new Apple News app. Well, as soon as they can get the new Apple News app. The new Apple News app is part of the upcoming release of iOS 9, the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system. Although it’s...
The local online lifestyle media space will get a little more crowded this week with the Wednesday launch of Thrillist Honolulu, which is adding O’ahu to a growing list of more than 35 cities in the U.S. and Europe covered by the Thrillist Media Group. The Thrillist network is adding...
I’m delighted to see that new, independent, local voices are still emerging via podcasts. This year, two new island shows have caught my eye: Hot Better Pop, a personal development podcast launched last month by Kimi Morton and Pualena Pakele and Cabot, and the Hawaii Business Podcast, an interview and talk show from Trung Lam...
Update – May 13, 2015: Following the broadcast, “Winning Girl” was added to PBS’ streaming library. Watch it online for a limited time here. If you ask the Guiness Book of World Records, the quietest place on Earth is in a sound test chamber at a lab in Minnesota. Most people can’t stand the...
A local couple is hoping to raise funds to finish their martial arts documentary, “Warrior Arts Deadly Dance.” Al and Jayne Cloutier are independent filmmakers based in Honolulu who have made seven films over the past seven years. Al is an independent filmmaker and commercial videographer who came to Hawaii from...
You’d have to have a heart of stone to not love the films from Pixar. From their groundbreaking animated blockbuster “Toy Story” in 1995, every major film the studio has released has been a hit, and most of them critically acclaimed as well, with Pixar movies earning 26 Academy Awards...
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