In Hawaii, student journalists find rich stories while 'on our own'
Pacific culture and political history fuel unique storytelling in Hawaii's student media
When Emma Caires was the editor-in-chief of a California community college newspaper, her training centered on fundamentals of journalism — covering assignments, gathering quick reactions to breaking news and conducting man-on-the-street interviews.
But when she transferred to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, her reporting approach shifted.
Journalism in Hawaii, she discovered, required more than mastering the basics — it demanded a nuanced understanding of the islands’ cultural fabric and the ability to translate that for an audience unfamiliar with its complexities.
She began to view her work through a cultural lens, recognizing the importance of building personal relationships with her subjects and understanding how the islands’ history and values shape people’s lives.
“I didn’t realize how much of a shift it would be to start writing on a secluded island,” Caires said. “Every single story here has that layer of ‘OK, how is it impacting the people who are living here, how is this impacting us on a local level?’”
Caires is a contributor to The Mānoa Mirror, a one-year-old student newsroom at UH Mānoa that’s among about a dozen student reporting projects that received funding from a $20-million Press Forward grant aimed at strengthening local news.
The university’s journalism department underscored its belief that student journalists possess a unique advantage — they don’t just learn how to report; they learn how to report with the culture.
But this advantage comes with its own challenges, including limited resources and the state’s geographic isolation.
Being nearly 2,500 miles from major media markets on the West Coast, Hawaii offers a distinct historical and cultural context for storytelling, according to Hye-ryeon Lee, chair of the School of Communication and Information who teaches communicology.
“There’s a lot of traumatic experiences that people went through,” Lee said, referring to the United States’ annexation of the islands. “That politics, a lot of the outside people have no clue about, so I feel that it’s really important for us to be able to tell our stories for the world to really see and understand.”
Caires noted Native Hawaiians have been welcoming to student journalists, facilitating easier trust-building as they navigate their roles as guests on the islands.
Despite her family roots in Hawaii, she said she never fully grasped the region’s cultural complexity.
Recently, she covered the 2024 Women of Impact Award ceremony for Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine.
“It was really kind of mind-altering because it was so many people from different regions in the Pacific that were all in the same room,” she said. “They’re all dressed in their cultural attires and were talking about different struggles that happened in the Pacific.”
Caires realized this wasn’t just reporting on the event itself but she had to understand the broader context of the award, rooted in the ongoing struggles of women in the Pacific region.
Then she had to bridge that context for an audience that might not immediately appreciate its significance.
“It's kind of a battle between knowing that our student body is mostly people from outside of Hawaii, so trying to write for them, but also provide enough information and connection for them to foster an understanding of the culture,” Caires said.
Lee said the UH Mānoa’s journalism program helps students develop this nuanced approach to storytelling.
“I think our students do get special exposure for sure (in terms of) how you cover each issue that is sort of situated in this kind of special context,” Lee explained. “If you don’t do that, I think you kind of fail as a journalist.”
Lee believes that mastering this type of storytelling in Hawaii prepares students to adapt anywhere.
“If you move to New Zealand, for instance, then you recognize that they have their sets of contacts and that you will learn how to kind of adapt and be able to work with that,” Lee said.
‘Isolated’ from mainland
While Hawaii’s isolation offers unique opportunities for students, it also presents challenges.
The state is home to the only journalism school in the Pacific. The distance from major media hubs limits access to resources, conferences and cross-school collaborations.
“We’re kind of here on our own,” Lee said.
However, the university has forged partnerships with organizations like the East-West Center, a federally funded program that offers journalism students some of the resources they might otherwise lack.
This past summer, Caires and other students traveled to Manila in the Philippines through the center’s program.
Still, reporting from Oʻahu, the small island that’s home to Honolulu, can feel like working in “an echo chamber,” Caires said.
“You’re trying to get things out but then you think about it and you’re like, OK, it’s probably the exact same people reading this over and over again,” she said.
Yet Caires sees this as an advantage.
In contrast to California’s competitive student media scene, Hawaii’s smaller media landscape allows journalists to delve deeper into stories without the same pressure to differentiate their work.
In Hawaii, “you don’t have to tweak it much because it already has that rich culture and that deep-rooted appreciation for place and land and people,” she said, noting each story naturally resonates on its own.
Strengthening The Mirror
Relatively new, The Mirror serves as a classroom-based newsroom where students pitch stories to faculty, receive feedback and collaborate with local news outlets.
However, the publication has lacked a cohesive editorial structure, Lee said, a gap the Press Forward grant is helping to fill.
The $50,000 in new funding has enabled the program to hire a part-time fellow and begin compensating student editors, fostering a more consistent and efficient workflow.
This infrastructure is aimed at strengthening The Mirror’s editorial direction and expanding its impact on the local news landscape, according to the department
“It just really helped us to put in some critically important infrastructure to help The Mānoa Mirror take off and become stronger,” Lee said. “We can really make this a student-driven and student-led organization.”
Asked for an example of The Mirror’s local impact, Lee highlighted the program’s collaboration with Honolulu Civil Beat.
Through this partnership, students work on in-depth reporting that might not appeal to larger outlets, focusing on issues of importance to younger audiences, such as coverage of the state legislature through a section called UH Beat.
“We want to cover the issues that engage young people,” Lee said. “It’s a way to meet a need for that population.”
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