KITV anchor and reporter Yunji de Nies interviews President Barack Obama today in Washington, D.C., and the interview will air on this evening’s newscasts.
Being the first local reporter to have a one-on-one interview with the nation’s Hawaii-born chief executive is what’s known in the business as a "get." And it’s a huge one, especially considering recent rancor amid the White House Press Corps about the administration’s manipulation of the media and, most immediately, the lack of access to Obama as he played golf with Tiger Woods over the weekend.
De Nies has sought the interview since joining KITV in September. "He’s never done an interview with local Hawaii media, and I really pressed that hard," she said.
She has some connections, as she was a White House correspondent for ABC for the last year of the Bush administration and the first three years of Obama’s, but that didn’t matter when Obama came to Hawaii for Christmas, nor when she went to the nation’s capital for the inauguration.
"When you’re a journalist, you keep pressing," she said.
The hard-won fruit is a five-minute audience with Obama she hopes he’ll allow to go at least a little bit into overtime.
The White House "wants to talk about ‘Fix It First,’ a public works initiative he mentioned in the State of the Union address, but she also will ask viewer-generated questions, such as the site he’ll choose for his presidential library, she said.
Honolulu is his hometown but Chicago is his adopted hometown, she observed. "I think it’s worth it to ask, because a lot of people want to feel connected (to the president) and want to feel like he’s connected to Hawaii."
Many also want to know what local foods he loves and what he misses about the islands. "Hawaii’s so proud to have a president of the United States," that she has to ask some of those kinds of questions in addition to the substantive policy questions she needs to ask.
Other interviews with other officials, as well as a White House tour or two, will air over the coming days.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Hopes are high that Hawaii will have another James Beard Award winner, now that three restaurant industry professionals are among the 2013 semifinalists.
Chuck Furuya, managing partner of Honolulu-based DK Restaurants, master sommelier and Star-Advertiser "By the Glass" columnist, is among 20 nominees for Outstanding Wine, Spirits or Beer Professional.
Ed Kenney III, chef-owner of town restaurant in Kaimuki, has been nominated as Best Chef: West, along with 19 other chefs.
Quinten Frye, executive chef and part-owner of SALT in Kaimuki, is among 27 nominees from all over the U.S. in the running as Rising Star Chef of the Year.
"If you look at the list of nominees, I’m definitely one of the small potatoes," Furuya said, so he doesn’t want to make a big deal of this, his first nomination.
The semifinalists were chosen from more than 44,000 online entries by a committee that narrowed down the choices into 20 categories.
The sprawling, nine-page list will be whittled down to five finalists in each category by a volunteer group of more than 600 restaurant critics, food editors, past winners and others, and will be released next month. The 2013 James Beard Foundation Awards will be announced in May.
While the foundation in recent years has shown respect for Hawaii’s culinary industry illuminati with its semifinalist nominations, each year’s list of finalists seems to omit any who ply their craft in the islands.
As for the Best Chef race, one issue seems to be that the foundation keeps mucking about with the category in which Hawaii professionals compete.
In 1993, 1996 and 2003, when Roy Yamaguchi, Alan Wong and George Mavrothalassitis won their respective Best Chef awards, they were in the Northwest-Hawaii category, which included Washington and Oregon.
For the past few years we’ve competed solely against California in the Best Chef: Pacific category. Now, perhaps given Las Vegas’ burgeoning high-end restaurant scene, our category has been renamed Best Chef: West, and Nevada also has been invited to the party.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
2013 James Beard Foundation Semifinalists
