Wounded Journalist

Every once in a while something happens in the war in Iraq that hits close to home. The wounding of ABC anchor, Bob Woodruff, and cameraman, Doug Vogt, is one of those incidents.

I was at the gym on Monday and a woman asked me what I knew about the latest on Woodruff and Vogt. I told her about their injuries and with each detail, she grew more and more distraught. It was like we were talking about a good friend who had been critically injured.

Every day, we report on the latest in Iraq and it’s so easy to become de-sensitized to the news of death and violence. Woodruff and Vogt’s wounding is one of those incidents that reminds us all of the incredible sacrifice of our soldiers, the journalists and their families.

Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

Busy Monday

Today was an atypically busy Monday for KITV 4 Island Television News This Morning. For starters, we had that water main break that shut down Kapi`olani Blvd for most of the morning. We dispatched our live truck out there. But at around 6:20 am, we got word of the house fire in Salt Lake. The live shot at Kapi`olani was taken down so our cameraman could get to the fire, while Dan left the studio to meet up with him. This meant Mahealani had to take over one of his newscast interviews with little preparation, which gave her two back-to-back interview sessions, and the producers had to juggle things around a bit to add Dan’s live reports.

Monday mornings are usually quiet affairs. This one sure wasn’t. But this is what we do, no matter what day of the week news decides to break.

Ben.
bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com

Happy Year of the Dog! Part 2: The Photos

Here’s the Hawai`i Lion Dance Association on Maunakea Street.

Getting ready to get into the lion’s head.

Inside, ready to take a dollar.

Sometimes you gotta reach really high to get to eat.

Doing a switchover. I’m handing the head off to the guy behind me while the new “tail” man gets into position.

And finally, the whole gang!

Photos by Christopher Korsak

Happy Year of the Dog! Part 1

One of the unique experiences of living in Hawai`i is seeing so many of the different cultures that make up the warp and woof of the local fabric. And one of the perks of being a reporter is being invited to take part in some of the cultural practices to a degree you don’t expect. One of those invitations came from the Hawai`i Lion Dance Association, who appeared on our newscast Friday morning to help celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Dog. Kelfred Chang of the association let Dan and me actually get into the lion to perform. The association invited us to take part in the Lion Dances Friday night in Chinatown. I decided to take them up on that invitation. Now, I’ve gone just about every year to the Lion Dances as a spectator and to feed the lions some money for good luck. But I still was a bit apprehensive since I was a total lion dance neophyte, about to perform in Chinatown for New Year, with very little practice. Okay, no practice. I was just going to dive in after watching the “pros” do their thing.

If you’ve ever seen the lion dancing, it looks pretty easy. But as one member put it, “Our style is very energetic. Or actually, it requires a lot of energy.” He wasn’t kidding. If you’re “playing the head,” here’s what happens: You’re basically gripping a framework inside the head, which weighs maybe about ten pounds or so. One hand holds the main frame, while the other one grips a bar to which the mouth is attached. It’s your job to keep the mouth closed, unless you’re eating money. And you’re also dancing and walking, and thrusting and parrying the head about, making sure you don’t hit anybody. And you can’t really see anything unless you open the mouth for a moment to get your bearings. If you’re “playing the tail,” it’s a little easier, except you see even less (mainly the bottom half of the person playing the head, who you have to follow, and the ground), and you’re also bent over.

Fortunately, there were 25 or 30 lion dancers from the association at the event. And they rotated heads and tails at a rather dizzying pace. Most of the time, you’d be in the lion for only 30 seconds to at most a minute before someone would relieve you. When you’re ready to go in, you figure who your partner will be, and whether you’ll be the head or the tail. If you’re playing the head, you approach from the left side and pat the person in the lion firmly on the back. He’ll then lift the lion head all the way up, and you quickly position yourself behind him and grab the rails. When you’ve got a firm grip, the departing player quickly scoots out to the right, and you’re off! It’s a similar and simultaneous procedure for the tail, except when you scoot out, you quickly make sure the tail fabric is draped properly over the new tail person. Then you get the heck out of the way. The transition between each team takes less than a count of three.

The perspective of being in the lion is interesting. You don’t know exactly what’s going on outside. Fortunately, other group members are either pointing at the ground at where you should be going, or steer you around, or point toward an area where people want to feed you some money. Being in the lion also made me feel a little like a character at Disneyland, since many kids who fed me money wanted to pet the lion a little bit. Now, there are two ropes inside the head that allow you to wiggle the lion’s ears and blink its eyes. I was able to do that only a few times, but the kids got a big kick out of that.

I was able to get through about two hours of this without making a fool of myself. The association members were great, giving me high fives after a particularly good session playing the head. They also decided to risk asking me to join them from time to time. The experience also gave me an even bigger appreciation for the pros who lion dance on top of the poles. I’d be in traction if I tried that.

All of this is quite the workout. I’d rank this pretty close to mochi pounding for calories burned.

My thanks again to Kel Chang and the Hawai`i Lion Dance Association for the opportunity. And Gung Hee Fat Choy!

Photos coming up in Part Two.

Ben.
bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com

Most quotable line from the chaos…

I just had to add this small observation to the last post:

In the middle of the chaos, Dan makes the comment “Why is this so hard? It’s not like it’s Rocket Surgery!”

I about died laughing! Whenever we face a challenge, that is the first thing I think now!

"Stretch! Stall! Go to break! No! Throw to Dan & Mahea!"

It may not have been evident on the air, but this morning’s newscast was one of the more hectic ones we’ve had in a while. For starters, the Teamsters Union and Hawaiian Cement reached a tentative contract agreement at around two o’clock this morning. Mahealani was busy getting and writing last minute updates on the story all the way through the first hour of the program. Right at 5:14 am, when I’m in the middle of giving a traffic update, ABC News breaks in with a special report on a new audiotape that may be from Osama bin Laden. This is big news. We have no idea how long the report will last, so we hold in place trying to figure out where we’ll go next. Drop weather? Go to Mahealani…what? It turns out to be a short report, so we just pick up where we left off and drop a few features to make up the time, while in the newsroom new scripts and video are prepared on the bin Laden story.

During the second hour, Mahealani returns to the anchor desk. Mel Kahele of the Teamsters Union comes in on two and-a-half hours’ sleep for an interview. I get told in my earpiece to stall while the crew gets Mr. Kahele in place and miked. I go into elaborate detail on the weekend forecast and think I’m going to turn it over to Dan for the interview, but then I’m told we’re going to go to Mahealani first, so I toss it to her.

Also during the second hour, it’s my turn to chat with Rod Antone for the daily update on the stories in today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin. But there’s a last minute switch to go to Traffic and Weather first (it’s 6:24!), and then talk to Rod. And then…what? Go to break? Island images? Ah, toss to Mahealani and Dan, I’m told. But I need to stall again so a camera can get in place. The camera operators look like they’re doing a ballet on three espressos and a six pack of Red Bull as they hustle to get the camera in the right spot.

It also was decided yesterday that I would interview Lost podcaster Ryan Ozawa, which is usually Mahealani’s kuleana, since she would be busy with the Hawaiian Cement story. We get through that without injury, and then, again, here it comes…what? I’m told to toss to the break. I do so happily, and then run upstairs to the weather center to get the next weathercast ready. By this time it’s 6:42 am. There’s only 17 more minutes, and they pass by relatively calmly. But I’m sure that upstairs, the technical director, the one who pushes the buttons to put all the cameras and tapes and effects on the air, is about to have an aneurysm.

At 7:00 am, the newscast is over. I discover I have finished only half my coffee. I guess I didn’t need it.

I think I’m alone now

I’m not one for having everything revolve around me, but today’s show was just that.. and not by choice. Dan was under the weather, Ben got to enjoy the weather because he had the day off and Dave Hisaka had the day off as well. I anchored the entire 2 hour show by myself and boy was it lonely. Thank goodness I had Rod Antone from the Star Bulletin to talk to and Jen from the Surf News Network.

So since I’m all alone today… I’ll reveal some photos that we got from Hoku award winning singer Weldon Kekauoha. Here is Dan Meisenzahl (aka Shaggy from Scoobie Doo) during his high school years at Kalani.

Can’t wait until when the crew comes back. Hee hee.
Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

Dancing in the Honolulu Weekly

One of my favorite parts of the Honolulu Weekly is the Media Watch section because I can see who they’re writing about now. To my surprise, the Weekly’s column in the Jan 11 to 17 edition talked about our morning show.

Writer Chris Haire wrote, “Morning shows are as fluffy as cotton candy. We just have to accept that. But sometimes even they can surprise us with how desperate they are to fill their time with harmless filler.”

What the Weekly referred to is our coverage of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and how we had some local ballroom dancers critique local girl Tia Carrere’s performance.

The Honolulu Weekly went on to say, “Of course, the segment probably had less to do with spotlighting Hawaiian resident Carrere than with ABC affiliate KITV’s desire to increase the buzz about one of their own primetime shows. If you doubt this, consider that discussions about the dance moves of NFL great Jerry Rice followed the Carrere critique, while later in the broadcast, another segment focused, yet again, on Dancing with the Stars.”

I must say that I am flattered that someone has taken notice of the new format of our morning show and I respect the opinion of writer Chris Haire.

I also must say that our show is striving to have a balance between hard news and feature news. On KITV-4 Your Island Television News this morning, you’ll get your traffic and weather every 10 minute and the days top stories twice every half hour. When fires erupted on the Leeward side and behind the Makaha Valley Towers, we were the only station out there live in the morning. On December 7th, we were the only station live at Pearl Harbor to interview bombing survivors. We strive to deliver fresh news of the day instead of re-hashing old news, and believe me that can be a challenge in the overnight hours when most people are sleeping.

At the same time, we are allowing ourselves to have fun and laugh when it’s appropriate and talking about ABC’s hit show Dancing with the Stars with its local connections seemed like a good idea. In fact, the segment was MY idea since I’ve danced for many years and was excited about Tia’s appearance, and it was not some big plan by the KITV brass. Besides talking about Tia, we also included judge Carrie Ann Inaba’s comments since she too is a local girl. As for why we included talking about Jerry Rice. My response is why not? People were talking about his appearance on the show and it’s all in fun.

I can guarantee that we’ll do things on our morning show that will get people talking so I guess according to the Honolulu Weekly, we accomplished just that.

aloha,
Mahealani
mrichardson@thehawaiichannel.com

We’re Not Drunk, It’s Sleep Inertia!

We’ve talked in earlier posts about how hard it is to wake up in the morning to prepare and do the newscast. Now there appears to be medical evidence that could explain our behavior during those early hours. According to the article at ABCNews.com:

A new study shows that the grogginess we experience when we first awake from sleep may affect our ability to think clearly, known as “sleep inertia.”

This is according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

One article about the study said the so-called “sleep inertia” is similar to having impaired thinking and diminished cognitive abilities from being drunk. But it varies from person to person:

“There appears to be some diversity in this trait — some people jump out of bed and hit full speed immediately, whereas others struggle through a shower, two to three cups of coffee, before they wake up,” said Dr. Robert Ballard, director of the Sleep Center at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.

Most of us on the morning crew would fall into the latter category. However, neither Mahealani nor Dan, to my knowledge, drink coffee on a regular basis. I couldn’t function at all without it.

So, how long does this “sleep inertia” last?

The researchers noted that the people in the study performed the worst within the first three minutes of awakening. Previous studies have shown that sleep inertia may affect cognitive performance for up to two hours, the study authors note.

Two hours, huh? That’s about how long the newscast is. That may explain a lot.

Ben.
bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com

The Day I Met Dave Hisaka in Person

That, interestingly enough, would be today.

Now, Dave’s been doing the traffic reports from the City & County Traffic Management Center for the morning newscast for quite some time now. However, he’s up at the center, and I’m in the studio or the weather center. While Dan and Mahealani have had to meet with him from time to time to discuss changes in the program and similar subjects, I’ve never actually had the chance to meet him in person, mainly because it wasn’t absolutely necessary to do so. We were actually supposed to meet sometime in October since I was stopping by the radio station where he also works, but he had to pick up a friend at the airport or something like that. Therefore, an in-person summit didn’t happen until today as he brought in donuts (see Dan’s post below). And even then, it didn’t last all that long because he had to take off for the Traffic Center immediately afterward, and I had to re-set the weather computer for the next weathercast. We shook hands and got on to our work.

Personally, I don’t think I really missed out because, the way this business works sometimes, you establish some very close working relationships without actually meeting the other person. I thought, Okay, I met Dave. But I talk to him and see him every morning, albeit not in the same room. (In fact, until a camera recently was put into the Traffic Center to show him, I had no idea what he even looked like. And the folks from the Surf News Network? I have no clue what any of them look like, save for Doctor Surf. But they’re great to talk to!)

This also works with people who work in the building with me. Anyone who works on the six and ten o’clock newscasts, whether anchors, reporters, or crew, I won’t see unless they come in on their off-hours, or during the holiday party season. If someone told me, “When you see Shawn (Ching), tell him I said ‘hi,’” they may see him sooner than I do. In fact, when was the last time I was in the office at the same time as Shawn? I can’t remember. I think I saw Paula Akana a few times last year. My weather counterpart, Justin Fujioka? In December, we had a planned meeting to discuss our department one day, rang bells together for the Salvation Army the next, and the following week saw each other at two Christmas parties, making a total of four times that month, a record.

So if you watched the newscast this morning and saw all four of us together at the desk, keep that picture in your head. It’s not going to happen again very soon, not because we don’t want it to happen. It’s just how things are. But it was still nice to get to meet Dave. It’s not often here that you get to meet everyone you work with, face to face.

Ben.
bgutierrez@thehawaiichannel.com