The Honolulu Star Advertiser

[mel]

Getting back to the subscription thing.

I recently found out that the Starvatiser gives deep discounts to selected people. One person I know is getting a $52 a year subscription... $1 a week for both paper and web. This person resides in Honolulu.

So for those of you actually subscribing to this thing, is the money you are spending for the subscription worth it? Paper or web?

I've stopped reading their web except for the breaking news tidbits I get on my iPod Touch. I occasionally read the paper edition if I find one lying around for free. Otherwise its on to Civil Beat (even with paid content they have more free content than Starvatiser) and HawaiiReporter.com.

[Kaonohi]

As long as they keep Prince Valiant in the comics and report on the magnetic anomaly on H-3 before the end of the year, I'll keep them.

What's the hold up on the H-3 magnetic reversals???? Federal secrets, or what?

[mel]

While I mostly disagree with a lot of the editorial viewpoints in the Honolulu Weekly, in this week's edition they had a good story about Media Monopolies in the Hawaii market, mostly singling out the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now mergers and monopolies.

http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2011...edia-monopoly/

Surely the Weekly has an axe to grind against the Star Advertiser given that their printing rates went through the roof and that the big paper asked them to pay up or go to court. So I can see why they published this article.

Overall for the Hawaii market the mostly one paper town has been an expensive deal for advertisers, other papers and consumers. They pointed out to the tiered expense of subscriptions being more costly for Oahu residents vs. those on the neighbor islands and the mainland... and then I know of an Oahu resident who got a deal of subscription for one dollar a week.

[mel]

The Starvatiser has stooped to a new low early this evening. Here I am at home, minding my own business, eating my early dinner.

I get a phone call. I pick up the phone. And guess what? It's some TELEMARKETER calling me from the "Star Advertiser"!

What's up with that?

I am on the National DO NOT CALL list for my phone number. And now the Starvatiser is cheating and using telemarketing to get people to subscribe or what? I have never, ever done business with the firm since they became the "Star Advertiser". Many, many years ago I did subscribe to the weekend Honolulu Advertiser just to get the TV schedule and ads.

But that subscription expired many, many years ago. And at that time after I cancelled I told them never to call me up to get me to re-subscribe. So officially I should have never been contacted by the new entity because I have never done any business with them except browse their website anonymously when it was free up to this past August.

Now I don't want to have anything to do with the Starvatiser in terms of being a subscriber ever. The "Star Advertiser" gives favor to one bunch of subscribers over others in terms of what they get based on where they live. Plus some people get plum deals of $52 for 52 weeks in both print and internet. Most do not I presume.

Needless to say I gave the hapless woman on the line a piece of my mind,

So in essence I continue to hold my ground of not wanting to subscribe... now or ever. Getting a telemarketing call from their subscription department further cements my position.

May they go down soon if they are stooping to using telemarketing tactics. No one wants to be bothered by telemarketers, email spammers and junk faxers.

[mel]

About the only good thing for local residents and visitors alike about the APEC conference is that the Honolulu Star Advertiser website is offering all of their content FREE from now to November 14.

After the diplomats leave it's back to paywall mode.

BTW, Apple Safari users should add the AdBlock extension to their browser. It effectively kills all of the annoying roll downs, pop ups and pop unders that infect the Star Advertiser site as well as many others. Adblock is the most popular extension for Apple's Safari.

https://extensions.apple.com/

[pumpkinboy]

Not all of the online content is available....there are still "stars" attached to certain articles or sections of their website that are only accessable to subscribers.

I thought that perhaps one of the paper's competitors would have pointed this out...as it is not true to say "All Online Access is Free," but I guess not.



Besides, having to sift through typos, misspellings, grammatical errors in the Staradvertiser reports gets old after a while.


This is what can happen when you have only one, major newspaper in town.

Quality suffers.

About the only good thing for local residents and visitors alike about the APEC conference is that the Honolulu Star Advertiser website is offering all of their content FREE from now to November 14.

After the diplomats leave it's back to paywall mode.

BTW, Apple Safari users should add the AdBlock extension to their browser. It effectively kills all of the annoying roll downs, pop ups and pop unders that infect the Star Advertiser site as well as many others. Adblock is the most popular extension for Apple's Safari.

https://extensions.apple.com/

[pumpkinboy]

Here is one example that I found after a few seconds perusing one of the StarAdvertiser reports:

"Police say two males got into an argument that escalated into a physical confrontation"




The proper way is:

"Police SAID two males got into an argument...."




This is basic, Journalism 101 stuff. *sigh*

[Amati]

Good: Free online access is through Nov. 3.

Bad: Which gave me the opportunity to spot this [Man sentenced in death of homeless man in Manoa church lot]:

A judge sentenced David Orpin to 20 years in prison today for the beating death of a 70-year-old man in Manoa.[photo caption]

A state jury found David Orpin, 60, guilty of manslaughter for the October 2010 beating death of 62-year-old Arthur Martinez.[article]

ahhh..... ??

[Amati]

Who writes the titles of newspaper articles? The article's writer (reporter)? The editor?

"Man appears in court for allegedly sex assaulting woman over 8 years"

A 35-year-old Nanakuli man made his initial appearance in Honolulu District Court today for allegedly sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman over an eight-year period....Police said Inere-Hanohano allegedly sexually assaulted the girl from Jan. 27, 2005 when she was in the seventh or eighth grade to June 28.

Sex assault was from the age 10/11 through 18. Sex assault of a "woman" is bad enough, but how about the headlines reflecting the true slimy aspect of this pervert's crime of having sexually assaulted a CHILD FOR EIGHT YEARS!

[Amati]

Who writes the titles of newspaper articles? The article's writer (reporter)? The editor?

The same worker must still be in charge of titles.

Blood found at 2 burglaries gets Moanalua man in trouble

Police tracked down a burglary suspect after tests showed blood from the scene of two burglaries matched his.

Kakugawa’s blood was recovered from both crime scenes, and his DNA was later matched to the blood that was recovered.

Wasn't being a thief what "got him in trouble", and leaving behind DNA what "got him caught"?

[Walkoff Balk]

The one and a half page advertisement cover in a newspaper is as annoying as the subscription cards in magazines.

[Amati]

It seems that the SA is into comedy writing for its Breaking News nowadays:

Car collides with pig in Haleiwa; its condition is not known

Police responded tonight to a traffic collision between a car and a pig in Haleiwa.
Police dispatch said that just before 6:30 p.m., the car struck the pig at Paalaa Road and Uka Street.
No one in the car was injured, the dispatch supervisor said.
However, the condition of the pig was unknown, but probably it was not good if a car hit it, the dispatch supervisor said.

[Amati]

Must be a slow news day. Tonight's important breaking news:

Police charged a 38-year-old man with theft after he allegedly stole a pair of sunglasses from a Waikiki store on Friday evening.

[Walkoff Balk]

Jon Stewart said on his last The Daily Show to look out for hyprocrisy. I found one in The Honolulu Star-Advertiser message board. My comments were not offensive with vulgar language, racist or sexist posts. They were satire to make points. They were still deleted. I can't support a newspaper that doesn't believe in Freedom of Speech. So, I had to cancel my subscription. And they say that the newspaper industry is dying.

[mel]

Looks like the Honolulu Star Advertiser did a massive website redesign.

I don't like it, especially the fact that they seem to have discontinued the MOBILE SITE which was posted at this URL:

http://www.staradvertiser.com/mobile/

Now when I click the above it goes to a new site that seems to be less cluttered than the former design of the main site... but now the headlines on the side of the big picture are too tiny.

The mobile site was highly simple to use, headline links easy to read and click on and free of clutter.

I do not like the new design. The mobile site was not broken. Should not have abandoned it.

[D'Alani]

Totally agree the older version was so much more easier to navigate also.

[Walkoff Balk]

https://www.kitv.com/story/42245852/...ending-layoffs

The hard print version gets thinner, while the price goes higher.

[mel]

Who reads the print version? I don't. I get snippets of news from there online and other sources all over the free parts of the internet. No one wants to pay for news these days.

[Walkoff Balk]

The Honolulu Star Advertiser and the Iolani Palace might be just a memory if they're not supported.

[helen]

Who reads the print version?

Well I do have the print version delivered to my home. However I am reading the print version when I get home after work.