We lost our local paper months ago

Last Friday’s front page on the digital revamping of The Maui News had the publisher of The Maui News attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Our local news coverage was taken from us many months ago with the departure of the excellent, prize-winning journalists who diligently covered local and statewide events.

For months now, we have had no coverage of the deliberations and activities of the county council or the mayor’s administration.

Budget season is all but over and The Maui News carried not a single, in-depth article about the process and content of the council’s work with the administration’s proposed budget.

The coverage of the fires of last summer was primarily covered by syndicated news journalists; only a few Matthew Thayer photos were published.

We appreciate that Matthew Thayer still takes photos and writes human interest stories from time to time. Jon Woodhouse does an occasional arts and entertainment story and Robert Collias does some local sports coverage, but even these journalists work is limited.

The national and international news presented to us is usually at least two to three days old by the time The Maui News publishes it.

We lost our local paper months ago. We miss our local news and events coverage and the excellent journalists whose work we enjoyed for so many years.

Maui County residents are deprived of the important local information of our governance and there is no one reporting and keeping us informed of the work or lack thereof of our elected representatives.

Indeed, a sad day.

Jay F. Penniman Ha‘ikū