MEDIA UPDATE

Continental Airlines inflight magazine features Guam manager

Sylvia Crafton, manager of passenger service for Continental Micronesia, is featured in the Continental Notebook section of the October issue of Continental, the airline’s inflight magazine. Crafton was interviewed about her community service as a member of Soroptimist International of the Marianas and about the organization’s mission. Crafton has been a Soroptimist member for 18 years and currently serves on the Founder Region Board as a district director, Guam and Hawaii chapters. The SIM club in Guam is a major supporter of Erica’s House of Hope.

Saipan in SKY magazine’s travel spotlight

The attractions of Saipan are to be in the spotlight in the January-February 2010 issue of Delta Air Lines’ inflight magazine, SKY. The Marianas Visitors Authority hosted two media representatives of the magazine in November when they visited Saipan to gather data and photograph points of interest. SKY is seen by 520,000 readers each issue. Japanese- speaking Delta passengers are the target market segment for the magazine. It is anticipated that the article on Saipan will cover five pages, the equivalent of a total estimated advertising value of $65,000.

PBS Guam Goes Digital

PBS Guam, the island’s public television station, received a $199,500 Public Telecommunications Facilities Program grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Sept. 22 to upgrade its master control room, making the station a fully digital broadcast facility. In addition, PBS Guam will purchase an Emergency Alert System receiver and decoder with the award money.

Guam maligned by online gossip reporter

Newser, an online gossip news site that aggregates news information from different sources and then summarizes articles from these sources, posted a story Nov. 25 of a Japanese man marrying a video game female character. The report was by Kevin Spak who wrote that the Japanese gamer ‘“married” his virtual digital “girlfriend” before a real-life priest though the priest declared the marriage not legally binding.” Spak claimed that some gaming Web sites say the video gamer brought his so-called bride to a wedding chapel in Guam where, without substantiation, Spak wrote “the marriage laws are looser.”

Guam 2009 ProStart team on The Food Network

Four George Washington High School students, who represented Guam at the 2009 National Restaurant Association’s National ProStart Invitational culinary competition and placed fourth position in San Diego earlier this year, were featured on the nationally broadcast The Food Network. The popular food channel aired a half-hour special program called “Top of the Class” on Dec. 5. The program follows the culinary competition and various teams from orientation to the award presentations. The host is Guy Fieri of the network’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” program. The GW team was enrolled in Guam Community College’s ProStart program.

Northern Mariana Islands quarter now in circulation

The U.S. Mint launched the new quarter commemorating the NMI on Nov. 30. The Northern Marianas quarters, the final coin in the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories Quarters program, were struck at production facilities in Denver and Philadelphia. About 700,000 of the coins were released for circulation to the Federal Reserve Bank in the mainland U.S., according to a press release from the office of Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan, the NMI’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The new quarter shows sea birds in flight, a latte stone and a proa. An official NMI quarter release event took place on Dec. 10 in Saipan.

GTA TeleGuam and ceo featured in online trade e-zine

Fierce Telecom, an online telecommunications industry trade magazine, published a story Oct. 15 about local phone company, GTA TeleGuam and its launch of IPTV (digital televsion) and 3G wireless services on Guam. The e-zine also published an interview Nov. 2 with Daniel G. Moffat, president and chief executive officer of GTA, about the company’s experience as it reaches its fifth anniversary in January 2010 as a private enterprise. GTA TeleGuam is majority-owned by Shamrock Capital Advisors Inc. through a holding group, TeleGuam Holdings.

New faces at Glimpses

Glimpses Publications welcomes Letitia Law-Byerly onboard as assistant editor. She brings 27 years accumulated experience in broadcast journalism and marketing communications working in leading corporations dealing in telecommunications, luxury brand consumer products and five-star hospitality service. She came to Guam in 2002 via Singapore and Hong Kong, having worked for such global corporations as Hyatt, Seagram and Estee Lauder. She has also worked for the Guam Visitors Bureau and GTA Teleguam before joining the Glimpses team.

Law-Byerly has bachelor’s degrees in Asian studies and mass communications with minors in political science and foreign languages from Washington State University.

Glimpses also welcomes reporter Kenneth V. Quintanilla. Quintanilla is a 2008 graduate of the University of Guam where he was a writer for Triton’s Call, the university’s newspaper. He has a bachelor’s in communication.

Local surfers in Atlantic

The November issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a Washington-based general editorial, literary and cultural commentary magazine, published 10 times a year, quoted local surfers in a story about the transfer of U.S. Marines from Japan to Guam. Correspondent Jeanette Lee interviewed members of the local surfing association and Sen. Judith P. Guthertz about the impact of the military buildup. Lee, who is from Hawaii is familiar with protective attitudes about surf spots, and in “The Military: Wipeout” discussed the Guam surfers’ concerns that local surf spots will become overcrowded with the increase in population.