Press Club awards Torch of Light, Lava Tube, O‘o

The Big Island Press Club has awarded its annual meritorious Torch of Light Award to Cindy Reves, Hawaii state director for the Journalism Education Association, and the Lava Tube dishonor award to former Gov. David Ige.

The Torch of Light award is given to an individual or entity for illuminating the public’s right to know, while the Lava Tube dishonor is given for a lack of communication and keeping the public in the dark.

The awards are announced yearly on March 16, Freedom of Information Day.

It’s the birthday of James Madison, widely regarded as the father of the U.S. Constitution and the leading advocate of openness in government among the founding fathers.

In addition to the two usual acknowledgements awarded annually by the press club, there’s a special O‘o Award this year for a journalist or public affairs representative who’s dug especially deeply and unearthed information that creates groundbreaking news.

Torch of Light

Reves is the adviser for The Pinion at McKinley High School in Honolulu. It took two years, but Reves, the local driving force behind a national effort to shield student journalists from censorship and advisers from consequences, was successful in getting House Bill 1848 passed, making Hawaii the 16th state to join the student-led grassroots effort, the “New Voices Movement.”

The measure allows student journalists from the University of Hawaii and other public primary, secondary and post-secondary schools to exercise their rights under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, at their state-sponsored school newspapers, without censorship from the administration, with the exception of libelous or obscene material.

Reves will be presented with BIPC’s iconic torch award at the organization’s annual meeting later this year.

Lava Tube

Ige was selected for the Lava Tube dishonor for vetoing two public records bills that the Legislature passed in 2022 after two years of consideration. Ige previously won the Lava Tube in 2020.

One measure would have capped fees for access to public records, another would have required electronic audio or video recordings of public board meetings be maintained as a public record and posted.

While BIPC generally supports greater public records access for all, the club was especially concerned when Ige, in his veto message, said “agencies may be forced to prioritize responding to records requests over the agencies’ primary functions.”

“Again, the former governor just doesn’t get it,” said longtime journalist and BIPC Secretary Nancy Cook Lauer. “Responding to public records requests doesn’t take away from a government employee’s job. It is, in fact, part of the job.”

There were many times during the past eight years that BIPC submitted testimony reminding legislators that public records do, in fact, belong to the public.

O‘o Award

The first-ever O‘o Award for a journalist or public affairs representative who has dug especially deeply and unearthed information that creates groundbreaking news was awarded to Pat Tummons, publisher of Environment Hawaii.

Tummons, in a series of articles, exposed questionable dealings in Hawaii County’s Office of Housing and Community Development that ultimately led to an FBI investigation and guilty plea by former OHCD employee Alan Scott Rudo to accepting almost $2 million in bribes. In announcing charges in the alleged $11 million scheme, U.S. Attorney Clare Connors praised the reporting by Environment Hawaii that first raised red flags about Rudo’s schemes and, she said, led a county employee to alert the FBI.

The Big Island Press Club will hold an awards luncheon to present the awards and honor the winners in December.

Tickets to attend this event will be available to both members and non-members about a month beforehand at bigislandpressclub.org.