Today at 2 pm. in Capitol Room 325, the state House Committee on the Judiciary (JUD) will be hearing testimony on important campaign finance bills.
HB 2376 – TRANSPARENCY FOR INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES - This bill will change campaign reporting requirements by:
The World Economic Forum just closed their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland for 2012. Just prior to the meeting Thomson Reuters debuted Reuters TV. So, finance blogger Felix Salmon was in the Swiss snow with a camera crew for the conference. This video gives an interesting take on the public relations and journalism game at a major international conference.
*The videos with Henry Blodgett and Arianna Huffington are also worth watching.
For the upcoming elections, WYNC’s On the Media has brought back Media Scrutiny Theater, a political advertising version of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield provide colorful commentary and a bit of fact-checking to candidate advertising in the 2012 election cycle. These segments are excellent accompaniment to your regular news, Daily Show and Flack Check viewings. Below is their latest addition, featuring an Elizabeth Warren attack Ad.
Tim Karr, Senior Strategy Director at FreePress, published a comprehensive report yesterday on campaign Ad spending entitled Citizens Inundated. In it, Karr features current projections for campaign spending and the over-sized influence this money is having on the Federal Communications Commission and local media outlets, particularly on television. His findings and recommendations are issues that, we at the Media Council feel, are worth sharing and applying here in Hawaii.
National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation host, Neal Conan will sit with MCH Board member, and Associate Professor of Journalism at UH Manoa, Gerald Kato for a panel discussion on journalistic ethics, at 7:00 p.m. on Feb. 28th in the UH Manoa School of Architecture auditorium (map link).
Entitled, “Keeping a Clean Shop in the Marketplace of Ideas: A Discussion of Journalistic Ethics,” Civil Beat Editor John Temple and The Star-Advertiser’s Mike Gordon will also participate in the panel moderated by Hawaii Public Radio‘s Executive Talk Show Producer, Beth-Ann Kozlovich.
The discussion will be open to the public. Tickets $10, free to students with ID. Seating is limited. Call 955-8821 for reservations.
Neal Conan has served as NPR’s Bureau Chief in New York and London, executive producer of All Things Considered. He is coming to Hawaii on tour with a multi-media program called “First Person: Seeing America.” For more details go to HPR’s website.
Hawaii’s 2012 legislative session is motion and the other day I heard someone say, “bills are already moving so fast.” True enough, but not much gets past web natives, especially when you threaten their rights. HB 2588 saw that first thing this morning.
Check out the Storify after the jump
HB 2267 “RELATING TO THE ISSUANCE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE REVENUE BONDS TO ASSIST CLEARCOM, INC., IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE IN HAWAII,” already has 21 co-sponsors (just shy of half of the representatives in the House) and is currently being heard in committee this morning.
Who is ClearCom, Inc.? And why should the state set give them $100 million to improve the state’s fiber optic network that also allots for the construction of a hydropower plant?
ClearCom is affiliate company of Sandwich Isles Communications, Inc. (SIC), which provides telephone service to Hawaiian Home Lands. According to Brandon Roberts’s 2008 report in the Molokai Dispatch, ClearCom built a telecom network which involved drilling beneath Molokai’s southern fringing reef. However, the project wasn’t just water under the bridge.
After assuring the community that no Molokai water would be used, ClearCom consumed up to 44,000 gallons of Homesteader’s drinking water everyday of drilling to make a special mixture of mud to push the undersea drill.
The bill notes that fiber optic cables can be installed in abandon water mains, which appears logical enough. Yet given the experience by Molokai residence and current issues with the state watershed and waste water systems, is this the best use of funds?
