For Kauai Newspaper

http://www.forkauaionline.com/

From Joan Conrow...

I also think it’s good that there’s a brand new newspaper in town, called For Kauai. It has a print edition that initially will come out monthly, as well as an online version that will be updated regularly. The paper is still taking shape, in terms of content, but with reporting veterans like Anne O’Malley, Jan TenBruggencate and me contributing the articles, it promises to be a bit more solid than the competition.

And make no mistake, For Kauai is definitely out to compete with both TGI and MidWeek. It’s a freshened up, newsier, less fluffy reincarnation of Kauai People, the hugely successful weekly newspaper that made a lot of money for its previous owner, The Honolulu Advertiser. When the Star-Bulletin took over Tiser, it turned Kauai People into MidWeek and decided to milk that cash cow even harder, which meant cutting back on the Kauai copy (and thus freelancing fees) and replacing it with a lot of Honolulu-based content — the column by blowhard Bob Jones is a good example — that Kauai folks don’t care about.

Readers have rejected it, but most importantly, so have local advertisers. That’s why they’re abandoning MidWeek and going with For Kauai, which is published by Barbara Bennett, the woman who started Kauai People and went on to sell the ads for MidWeek. She was so upset by the loss of our community paper and the shabby treatment she received at the hands of MidWeek/Star-Advertiser management that she decided to launch her own publication.

And happily, since advertising pays the bills, her accounts eagerly followed.

The result is a publication that, unlike its competitors, can claim to be “100% Kauai news and information” — or as its name suggests, For Kauai.

So I hope you’ll take a look and spread the word and give us feedback, as well as time to build and smooth out the rough edges. It’s a work in progress, but finally, the Garden Island has a locally-owned alternative that's truly For Kauai.