New look for KITV’s morning team
By Nadine Kam
Aubrey Hawk photo
The KITV Island Television News This Morning team, from left, Yasmin Dar, Dan Meisenzahl, Mahealani Richardson and Amber-Lynn Hyden had some fun at J Salon before hopping into the stylists’ chairs. At far left is J Salon owner Joe Randazzo.
Had some fun with the KITV morning news crew last Friday when they were at J Salon for a team bonding session to welcome Yasmin Dar to the telecast with makeovers that would allow them to put up a united, cohesive face on air.
That makes sense. You see some newscasts where outfits clash — some are in suits, some aloha wear, some scoop-necked T-shirts — and it’s jarring. It’s not like I’m not going to watch the news because of the way someone is dressed, but it can be distracting. Instead of listening to the news, I sometimes listen to the voice in my head that’s complaining, “Put a jacket on, will ya?” “What happened to looking like a professional?” or “Someone needs to hire a stylist.” And I’m not even that critical or distracted by looks.
I would think that the distraction of one’s appearance is a concern for anyone trying to communicate. I find that to be true when I’m talking to men sometimes. They’re looking at me and pretending to listen, but I get the feeling their mind is blank, or saying, “When will this be over,” and they’re not hearing a word.
One of my friends had the same complaint about her husband, so my advice to her was to talk low so he would be forced to lean in closer to pay attention rather than just watching her mouth move, and slow, so he could absorb the content of the conversation and she could gauge his understanding. She said she would try it as soon as she got home, and she cheerfully called me right away, saying, “It worked!”
Since talking to Dan Meisenzahl, Mahealani Richardson, Amber-Lynn Hyden and Yasmin, I got a better idea of the trials of our TV cousins. Print journalists work unseen by the general public, so we can be as lax about our appearance as we can stomach. For these four, the maintenance is continuous as far as hair and skin.
For print journalists, our work is fair game for a critical public to pick apart — and they do — but we’re free from more personal attacks about our appearance. TV journalists get it on both fronts.
All that maintenance costs money that beginning journalists don’t have, so having the proper clothes becomes an issue. There’s no extra money for those though, so it comes out of their pockets. Even so, I find there are always nice jackets to be found for less than $100 at Nordstrom Rack, so there’s no reason not to have a couple of decent ones to start.
You can see my story here. I went in with the idea that it should be funny and in the spirit that they were doing the makeover, but I guess I take these kinds of issues seriously, so the story came out more serious than intended.
Print stories are still so different from blogs in that there’s more formality and value-added aspect to it. As much as reading has become a preaching to the choir sort of thing, where people seek out only viewpoints they agree with, or opposing viewpoints they can attack, I still hold out hope that somewhere someone might learn more about others’ lives and learn to empathize, or learn of ways to improve their own lives.
You can see the KITV video here. (I had better luck opening it in the Firefox browser than Safari.) They don’t really show it (so kind), but Mahealani fell asleep during her shampoo and snorted herself awake. I’ve done that during hourlong massages, but I was like, how do you fall asleep in 5 or 10 minutes. But they work crazy hours, waking up in the middle of the night. I would really hate that.
