KITV 鈥� All the flashy graphics and live shots in the world cannot replace journalists with background and experience. The years that Denby Fawcett and Keoki Kerr have spent covering local politics paid off with the depth of their questions at the candidates’ headquarters, and Daryl Huff鈥檚 keen observations and commentary from the State Capitol was right on target. KITV was also the first station to put up legible graphics of the results after the first printout, and even highlighted their social networking presence. Their coverage and analysis was first rate all evening. However, their real time closed captioning could use a dictionary. Most voters went to the polls, not 鈥減oldz,鈥� as was captioned on their screen. Grade 鈥� A

Hawaii News Now 鈥� This was the first planned, long-form breaking news event for the three channel newsroom. They were going to be working long and hard, and they let you know it throughout the evening. Dan Boylan鈥檚 commentary was insightful and the graphics were excellent. Hawaii News Now was the only television outlet to have a reporter with live feeds from a neighbor island. The feeds were sent via Skype and looked more like a trailer for the 鈥淏lair Witch Project鈥� than a breaking news update. The audio was noisy and hollow. At least they remembered there is more to Hawaii than just Oahu. Their score would be higher, but there was too much time spent on self-congratulations. Both Keahi Tucker and Maliki Dudley did pieces on the fact that Hawaii News Now was ready for a long evening of coverage. Look, they have water. They have energy bars. They have two anchors, a commentator, and interviewer, and seven reporters and crews in the field. Such sacrifice! In November, I hope there will be less self-aggrandizing and more actual reporting. Grade 鈥� B

KHON – Good old Channel Two. Joe Moore is at the anchor desk and everything is right in the world. Nothing flashy in their coverage and far fewer in-studio interviews than their competitors. A competent job, even if Joe forgot what campaign headquarters Kirk Matthews was reporting from. KHON does not have the journalistic depth it once had, and it showed. While KITV and Hawaii News Now had real time closed captioning of their real time coverage, KHON did not. KHON was factual, accurate, and dull, dull, dull. Grade 鈥� C

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser 鈥� Sunday鈥檚 print edition had a nice morning-after section on the results, including quotes from the winners and losers. There was even a single commentary piece by seasoned political reporter Richard Borrecca. It was obvious that the paper鈥檚 full local reporting staff was busy with the primary. The special section was the only place to read coverage. Nothing in the metro, or more surprisingly, the opinion section. In fact, there was only one breaking local news story outside of the election in the entire Sunday edition. There was, of course, coverage on the latest Warrior鈥檚 loss in the sports section, but it is clear that outside of the single crime story, the entire journalistic staff was covering the election results and nothing else. I鈥檒l give the print edition a grade that does not include its online presence, as they were two different platforms. Grade 鈥� B minus.

Online and social networking 鈥� As more and more people depend on the web and smart phone platforms for their news, the importance of such delivery systems cannot be downplayed. All three television news outlets played up their on-line platforms during last night鈥檚 coverage. Only KITV had frequent on-the-air updates on their social networking sites, even if Jill Kuramoto could not pronounce Estonia, where the results were being followed. The real on-line crime of the evening was the delay in the Star-Advertiser鈥檚 posting of the first printout results. The television stations were quick to post results on their web sites in user-friendly formats. Perhaps the most startling example of the Star-Advertiser鈥檚 lateness is the fact that the New York Times had posted the first print out results of our congressional races on their web page, well before the Star-Advertiser.

It is also a shame that in place of thought-provoking insight and opinion, most of the real time comments left on the local news outlets social media sites were of the 鈥渕y guy won, your guy lost鈥� variety of name calling. Grade 鈥� C

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