Predicament

The basic gist of my second "spec" story for Hawaii Public Radio is "Why did the city and county of Honolulu stop the music?"

The Mayor's office of Culture and the Arts has decided to stop putting on these "Aloha Lunchtime Concerts" at Tamarind Square in downtown Honolulu. I got the assignment last Thursday after completing my first news spec piece (on Hawaiian quilts). I was given two contacts: the first was a spokesman from the Mayor's office and the second was a concerned citizen who called the radio station to complain about the city and county ending these lunchtime concerts. So why did the city and county stop these concerts?

My first roadblock was that after two attempts, the concerned citizen hadn't returned my phone calls. The second –and I feel most important –roadblock was that the last lunchtime concert at Tamarind Park already took place the day before I got the assignment. I was supposed to go down and record some ambient sound and maybe get some interviews with business folk who were enjoying the free entertainment at the park, but now I won't be able to do that.

On top of that, I'm realizing that maybe doing these news stories aren't feasible for me in the long run. I'd only be doing one piece a week and my compensation wouldn't really justify all of the effort I'd be putting into it. Maybe if I was a freelancer who had a bunch of things on the side could I see myself doing these arts and cultural news pieces once a week, but I'm leaning towards getting some full-time work with either a local newspaper or television station, which wouldn't leave that much time to research, interview, write, voice, edit, and produce a news story once a week.

Oh, I did manage to talk to someone at the Mayor's office and I pretty much got a bureaucratic and diplomatic answer: budget cuts.