Outlet profile

Honolulu Star-Advertiser

U.S. center-left

Owned byCarpenter Media Group (managing operator), with Canadian financial partners Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. and Deans Knight Ltd.; acquired via stock purchase of Black Press Media in March 2024; operated locally through Oahu Publications Inc.

FundingAdvertising and paid subscriptions (print and digital); standard commercial newspaper model

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser launched on June 7, 2010, as a merger of two older Honolulu papers: The Honolulu Advertiser (founded 1856) and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (founded 1882). Canadian publisher Black Press Ltd. purchased The Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett for roughly $125 million in February 2010, then merged it with the Star-Bulletin, which it already owned. The combined paper became one of the larger metropolitan dailies in the United States by circulation within its single-market footprint. Black Press owned the Star-Advertiser for about 14 years before financial difficulties pushed it into Canadian creditor-protection proceedings in early 2024. In March 2024, Louisiana-based Carpenter Media Group completed a stock purchase of Black Press Media, with Canso Investment Counsel and Deans Knight sharing ownership while Carpenter manages day-to-day operations; the paper continues to run locally through Oahu Publications Inc. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it as slightly left-center; AllSides assigns a Center rating with low initial confidence. The editorial board has regularly challenged Trump administration actions that affect Hawaii, including federal energy-funding clawbacks worth tens of millions of dollars to the state, and has reported critically on the administration's cuts to Hawaii's Medicaid fraud-fighting unit and its immigration enforcement operations.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-07-14; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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