Reading: Honolulu’s Newspaper Columnists
I love the print editions of Honolulu’s daily newspapers, The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. I also read the weekly MidWeek newspaper printed by the Star-Bulletin’s parent company. We’ve got some outstanding columnists, as well as some who are simply horrid and a waste of newsprint and ink. Here are my top two and my bottom two:
The Winner: Star-Bulletin’s Erika Engle and her business column “TheBuzz.” It is informative, as you would expect of a business-related column, but lively in a nonbusiness way, if that makes any sense. I’m not a businessman, but I look forward to every column.
The Winner: MidWeek’s Dan Boylan and “Mostly Politics.” Literate, intelligent, timely, amusing and thoughtful. While it’s just one man’s opinion on things happening in Hawaii, that man sees and hears things that matter for all of us, and he writes in a manner that invites you to think.
The Loser: MidWeek’s Larry Price and “The Right Price.” Gibberish babble from a man who makes a living babbling gibberish on radio.
The Loser: Advertiser’s David Shapiro is intelligent, but when he bites, and he bites often, it is dripping with bitterness. He writes with a chip on his shoulder and wants to bring his target down to his level. A reader does not have to go far beyond the lead paragraph to sense the level of Shapiro’s pain. He has a very good way with words, but who wants to step in his mud pile? Not me, so more often than not, I stop reading. Too bad, what a waste of talent.
