It's what passes for "news" in South Florida in the year 2008. Really.

Wanted to call your attention to a clever and sardonic blog post by Eric Barton that was made just last week at The Juice, the new blog that was born at the Broward Palm Beach New Times at the beginning of the month.

It concerns a subject I've written about very often here -perhaps too often for my own good- and yet no matter what I write, I always feel like I'm not even coming close to sharing 99% of what I actually know to be true and believe.

Anecdotes and facts I've heretofore kept to myself or my close friends, for fear that I'd otherwise sound hopelessly naive for having these feelings: the piss-poor job local print and electronic media do of covering local news in South Florida and holding people in authority accountable.

And what they report on instead.

Of which the most obvious example I can cite for you here and which I have personal experience with is -yes!- the Miami Herald NOT sending a reporter to cover a single Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting since June, despite all the emotional fireworks, shenanigans, recriminations and ethical hijinks that have taken place in those six months, 99% of which have never made it into 

print there.

Yet, their Editorial Board deigns to give actual citizens of this city an endorsement last month in the HB City Commission races, based solely on the candidates trooping off to the Herald's Broward office in Pembroke Pines and talking to them for a few minutes en masse.  

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Morning Juice: Reporter Solves Porn Problem, Transsexual Makes Boynton More Boring

December 26, 2008 

Channel 10 Solves Problem of Pesky Porn Bus Handing Out Cash

Channel 10 has this whole team of reporters who do nothing but go around and solve people's problems. And recently, Local 10 Problem Solvers tackled this burning question: Who's behind that van of dudes who go around and pay women $500 to have sex with them? Turns out it's Local 10 Problem Solvers' own Matt Lorch. 

Or at least it was for a day when he went "undercover" to find out who's in the van. Here's an excerpt from Lorch's undercover work:

Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2008/12/local_10_problem_solvers_answers_burning_questions_about_porn_bus.

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Old conventional wisdom: Combination of heat, sunshine, crime, vibrant clashing cultures, frequent weather-related crises and criminally-inclined pols made South Florida TV a veritable hot house incubator of solid, knowledgeable reporters destined for heavy use at networks: Ike Seamans, Susan Candiotti, David Bloom, et al.

New conventional wisdom: With a few notable exceptions, South Florida TV is largely the domain of clownish, dim-witted third-rate faux reporters who have seemingly ZERO knowledge of South Florida's history/culture pre-2000, and who seem to prefer covering staged press avails on South Beach, to better practice their interview skills for the demo reel they're sending to Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, than actual enterprise reporting that requires connecting dots that people in power don't want connected.

And in the world of completely predictable upcoming paint-by-numbers TV network news stories, what's the over-and-under date for the first network TV news story on Black churches from Philadelphia, Mississippi chartering buses to the Obama Inaugural?

I'm predicting we'll see it next Saturday, January 3rd, on ABC News.

No doubt while one of the NFL Wild Card games is on opposite.