Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida

Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida.

That is, if they cover it at all.

If so, it'll be just like this one -website photo above,article below- that took place on Flag Day, June 14th.

Do I even need to say that it was written by Alfonso Chardy, he said laughingly?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/14/2266824/becoming-citizens-on-a-special.html

Like most Mainstream Media operations in this country, they WON'T ask the new American citizens what their opinions are regarding current immigration issues or whether they favor the so-called DREAM Act.

(If you want to incentivize illegal immigration and encourage fraud, pass that poorly-written and completely non-rigorous legislation and watch what happens.)

Specifically, they won't ask anything along the lines of whether these newest Americans, people who consciously chose to follow the laws of this country and go thru the procedures, support the Herald's pro-amnesty editorial page position, one that essentially argues that all non-violent immigrants should be allowed to stay once they get here, and that anyone who says any differently is clearly a racist and likely an anti-Hispanic zealot in particular.

They won't ask the newest Americans if they feel like chumps, since as far as the newspaper and many of its reporters and columnists -like Alfonso Chardy- are concerned, there's no real reason for anyone to go thru all that trouble when all you have to do is say that you want to stay, since after all, you can't deport everyone, can you?

Oh yes, the intellectually dishonest 'they can't deport everyone' mantra they use as their fail-safe position.

The reason they don't dare ask these new U.S. citizen what they think is because of how very badly it would look for the patronizing newspaper and their pro-amnesty pals like Cheryl Little at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, (FAIC) -the number-one resource for the Miami Herald and the rest of South Florida's news media for completely one-sided, factually-impoverished stories on immigration, as I've stated here many times before- if the very people for whom the Herald imagines its position would most help, middle-class people who just want to fit-in and contribute and be the future backbone of any community they're in, reject that policy outright, what does that say about the people at the Herald and other pro-amnesty redoubts?

That they are fundamentally out-of-touch with their community.

The Herald's chronic failure to be able to show some basic fairness and moral integrity when they cover immigration issues grows worse by the week, as is its complete failure to ever acknowledge on its own pages that polling indicates over-and-over that its particular editorial position -and the clear-cut personal opinions of many of the Herald's reporters and columnists- is in the clear minority in this country, this state and South Florida.

It has a terrible and irreversible case of 'clientitis'.

For instance, one of the central tenets of the Herald under the present McClatchy Corp.'s leadership, with publisher David Landsburg and executive editor Aminda Marques in

charge, clearly seems to be to NOT write or print articles that would likely antagonize influential economic sectors -read real estate and hospitality industry- large traditional advertisers and their customers, or large blocs of citizens, no matter how accurate the particular article.

(Everyone paying attention here knows that's it's true, especially the TV reporters I talk to all the time. They shake their head at what they see and are glad they don't work there.

Question: Where's the Herald's recent news story or editorial on Miami heat owner Micky Arison continuing to stiff-arm M-D taxpayers and not live up to the contract he signed? Missing-in-action!)

In South Florida, and especially in Miami-Dade County, home of one of the largest Hispanic, foreign-born populations in the country, that usually means, yes, Latinos.

Imagine that!

So, everything else being equal, you'd think that a story about how Hispanic students are faring in school would be a natural for Herald to get into the paper given the area's demographics, right?

Surprise! When the news is NOT positive for them, no, that story does NOT appear in print.

Besides not seeing it in the newspaper that day, the other tip-off that it was too hot for the Herald to print was that as of Monday night at 7:30 p.m., there are ZERO public comments, which as anyone knows, is VERY, VERY UNUSUAL for any story about Latinos in the Herald.

Here is the article, read it while you can:

Hispanic, white achievement gap as wide as in 90s

By Christine Armario

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on Thursday, 06.23.11

MIAMI -- The achievement gap between Hispanic and white students is the same as it was in the early 1990s, despite two decades of accountability reforms, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/23/2281273/hispanic-white-achievement-gap.html

"Everyone into the pool" is not a sound public policy or a winning strategy.

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/14/2266824/becoming-citizens-on-a-special.html

FLAG DAY

Becoming citizens on a special day

A total of 181 people took part in a naturalization ceremony in Hialeah on Flag Day.

By Alfonso Chardy

June 15, 2011

Citizenship ceremonies are normally emotional events, particularly for the immigrants swearing allegiance to the United States — a few of whom dab at their eyes to wipe away tears.

But on Tuesday, María Betancur could not contain her joy as rivers of tears streamed down her cheeks. They came at the moment when she joined 180 other new citizens in a rendition of God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood.

Betancur, 66, born in Colombia, stepped out of her place in the auditorium and ran to an area below the stage where the officials were standing, crying loudly in front of everyone.

After the ceremony, Betancur said she couldn’t contain her pride and love for the United States.

“I have deep gratitude for this beautiful country that has given me and many other immigrants great opportunities,” Betancur said.

On Tuesday, she was among the new citizens swearing allegiance to their new country during an hour-long citizenship ceremony at the Hialeah Field Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — an event made all the more memorable because it helped mark Flag Day.

The day, officially proclaimed as National Flag Day in 1949, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14, 1777.

During the ceremony, they waved a sea of small U.S. flags as they sang.

Among the others who became citizens was Cuban-born Teresa Medina, a former resident of Mariel, whose family symbolized the immigrant odyssey of Cuban refugees.

Medina, 60, was the first of her immediate family to reach South Florida, arriving on a boat with a group of other refugees 21 years ago.

She was followed by another sister, Lupe Medina, who arrived during the Cuban rafter crisis of 1994.

Their mother, Josefa López, 80, came in 1993 on a visitor visa and stayed.

Cubans made up the largest contingent of new citizens in Tuesday’s ceremony with 99. They were followed by Colombians, 27; Venezuelans, 13, and Jamaicans, 10.

The new citizens came from a total of 20 countries.

Answer: It's about Donald Trump. Question: Why is a month-old story still on Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'? Blame Jay Ducassi

As of 1:20 a.m. Monday May 16th, in the opinion of the editors of the Miami Herald, this April 13th Herald story about Donald Trump not only deserved

to STILL be on the Herald's Broward County homepage under Breaking News, but desercving of being ranked fourth.

THAT'S why it's the Miami Herald.

May 16, 2011 photo by South BeachHoosier

Answer: It's about Donald Trump.Question: Why is a month-old story about Donald Trump -from April 13th- still on the Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'?

(Due to computer problems, I was not able to post this on Saturday.)

That April 13th story has been there for WEEKS, and as of 5:30 p.m. Friday, the 13th of May, is placed as the #4 story under Breaking News.

Hmm-m... you think that nobody at the Miami Herald HQ on Biscayne Bay is paying attention?

Oh dear friends, it's SO very much worse there than simply NOT paying attention and giving readers in South Florida the solid first-rate reporting and analysis they want.

So very much worse!!!

I almost have to laugh at the idea of it being something that simple, since if it was only chronic inattention to detail, you could always change that with some personnel moves, including some long overdue firing.

It's even worse -it's the culture of second-rate, after-the-fact reporting where some story or issue you never heard of before, that's actually been going on for weeks or months, suddenly appears in the Herald's periscope and appears out-of-nowhere, lacking lots of important context, facts and even-handed reporting,

I was already seeing troubling signs of that myself when I came down here from D.C. in 2003, where important stories lacked any photos or graphs, and where once solid news reporters suddenly seemed to be appearing less-and-less in print, and having their column inches filled by people whose understanding of the particular issue consistently seemed less than mine or that of my friends.

That's one of the reasons I kick myself for not having started this blog then instead of in 2007 when the die wasn't just cast but was painting entire parts of South Florida as no-go zones for Herald reporters -municipal city halls.

As to this curious case involving Donald Trump -whose NBC-TV show I have intentionally never watched- it's much more old-fashioned: greed.

The powers-that-be at the Herald want eyeballs coming to their awful, clunky, embarrassment of a news website, even if many if not most of those eyeballs are from readers who don't live in the Sunshine State and couldn't care less what you or I think about anything, much less, about what we think of Donald Trump's aspirations.

That's how shameless the Miami Herald has become.

Otherwise, that Trump story would have gone straight into the Herald's Paid Archives, wouldn't it, like most other articles a week-old?

The awful Herald Archives that's an industry joke, and which doesn't include photos or graphs and often has spelling and syntax problems, unlike not only better newspapers, but even newspapers with lower circulation.

But that article hasn't gone into the archives, has it?

There's absolutely nothing accidental about that 'oversight.'

Below is a snapshot of the Broward County homepage at the Herald 16 days after the Trump story first appeared.

As you can see for yourself, the link for it -in the left column- is, according to the editors of the Miami Herald, the number-one Broward County Breaking News story.

Really? Sixteen days later.

Why?

As to the larger issue of the Herald's perfectly dreadful -NOT just dreadful, perfectly dreadful!- coverage of Broward County person, places or issues, plain and simple, rather than have current news about Broward there of relevance to people living or working there -like me- as I have been commenting here for years, instead they run non-Broward stories there so often that most of the time, most stories appearing there have nothing to do with Broward County and its residents and business owners.

That's how bad it is, and trust me, I have dozens and dozens of screenshots I have taken over the past few years that prove that point, regardless of what time of the day it is.

In fact, you're just as likely to find stories on the Broward homepage about flooded Miami Beach streets or something going on in Pinecrest or Doral or Kendall as you are about Fort lLuderdale or Hollywood or Pembroke Pines.

Or, need I even say it here, Hallandale Beach.

In fact, I mentioned that Miami Beach street flooding story last year in this space.

Why do you suppose that I have written here from time-to-time that the Herald's terrible local news coverage, esp. of local government, is something that incompetent people like HB mayor Joy Cooper is thankful for?

She's laughing at how much she can get away with with without anyone outside of the city ever hearing about it, esp. the people who voted her head of the Florida League of Cities.

Yes, laughing her ass off!

Who should you blame for this situation?

The correct person to apportion the largest share of the blame to is Jay Ducassi, the former Herald reporter and current editor of the Herald's State & Local section.

Under his direction, the newspaper's quality and quantity of coverage of local and state issues has steadily plummeted into sheer ludicrousness, and now it finds itself a joke within the newspaper industry.

At least, among people paying attention, which may or may NOT include you.

I hold Jay Ducassi personally responsible for the 1,001 reasons that former Miami Herald readers and subscribers have jumped overboard in droves to save their heads from exploding with anger at the sheet stupidity and witlessness of most of what appears there most days.

It's so much worse than embarrassing folks that you would be surprised at how many emails I receive from people I now know -and didn't before- who send emails about what is going on there, often sending me examples of one article or another that had the current Herald's trademark -lack of context, lack of facts and one-sided bias.

What we here at the blog refer to as the Patricia Mazzei-ification of the Miami Herald, since chances are good that almost any story that carries her name on it, esp. her's alone, lacks important context and facts the reader should know about and is full of spin and bias.

Unless something unexpected happens, the posts I promised you about her and Alfonso Chardy, her male counterpart in terrible journalism, are likely going to be here before the end of the month.

That context, facts and fair-mindedness are always missing in their stories about illegal immigration is particularly noticeable, which is why so many of the articles that I'll post here by them have that in common.

You will almost never see anything approaching a level playing-field in their stories, as they are always on the side of the illegal alines with a hard luck story that has been fed to them by their go-to source, Cheryl Little, the greatest media manipulator in South Florida.

Even when Little's name is not specifically mentioned -though that's almost every time the subject of immifration is broached in the paper- you can clearly see her fingerprints on the stories, which read like press releases from her group, rather than honest straightforward journalism. No dissenting voices are permitted to sound off and make sense.

Ironically, on the one-month anniversary of the Trump story still being Breaking News for the Herald, Little was given some space in Friday's newspaper, opposite their editorials, on a page they call, with a straight face, "Other Views."

Of course, by 'Other Views,' contrary to what is the normal practice at newspapers with a more old-fashioned view of journalism, where at least the appearance of dissent is sought, the Herald doesn't mean contrasting points-of-views, they mean voices NOT named the Miami Herald editorial board, saying things that AGREE with their particular editorial p.o.v.

(Often that is the perfectly awful Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star.)

You won't be surprised to discover that the title assigned to the essay written by the woman who is the number-one South Florida proponent of amnesty for anyone who gets to the United States, regardless of how that came to be, was "Still waiting for Congress to act" -as in immigration.

Wow, what a coincidence, last week President Obama was in El Paso pitching his ridiculous and unpopular amnesty program while once again ignoring Arizona, a position the Herald agrees with.

And now they run an essay by someone who agrees with them on a page named "Other Views."

That's why it's the Miami Herald, no?

That Mazzei has been making a mess of the news up in Tallahassee, continuing to make the same mistakes in a different area code, only tells me that this woman is clearly destined for big things at the Herald.

That's of course very bad news indeed for its rapidly diminishing number of readers.

The sheer witlessness and obliviousness of the news coverage in the paper some days makes it seem but a step above a Junior College newspaper.

A bad Junior College newspaper.

I become that many of you will be believers in what I say in the near-future when you see what kind of old-fashioned evidence is in plain sight: photos of the Miami Herald itself, and the lack of Broward stories.

It speaks for itself.

Oh, and the kicker is that the Trump story wasn't even written by a Herald reporter!

-----

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/13/2165204/donald-trump-to-push-gop-2012.html

Donald Trump to push GOP 2012 presidential candidacy at Fla. Tea Party rally

GEORGE BENNETT

Palm Beach Post

Posted on April 13, 2011

Politicians often claim they don't pay much attention to polls, especially ones taken several months before the first voters head to caucuses and primaries.

Then there's Donald Trump.

Less than two hours after CNN released a poll Tuesday showing Trump tied for the lead among potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, the billionaire developer and reality TV star wanted to make sure a reporter interviewing him had seen it.

Trump also directed an employee to e-mail the reporter fresh ratings numbers showing that the latest episode of his Celebrity Apprentice show on NBC had clobbered CSI: NY on Sunday night.

And Trump reminded his interviewer that a recent Wall Street Journal poll showed him as the top presidential pick among tea party voters.

"I wasn't that surprised," Trump said of the tea party poll. "Because my values are very similar. They're hard-working people. They're people that don't like to be taken advantage of by other countries."

Part-time Palm Beacher Trump will make his tea party debut Saturday in Boca Raton when he speaks at an outdoor rally organized by the South Florida Tea Party.

It's the latest indication that Trump is serious about exploring a presidential run.

Trump also considered a run in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate who favored abortion rights, universal health care and a one-time 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth greater than $10 million.

As recently as 2009, he was giving campaign contributions to Democratic senators and Republican archenemies Harry Reid and Charles Schumer.

But as he looks to 2012, Trump is courting the GOP's base of socially and economically conservative primary voters.

"I'm pro-life," Trump told a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer last week, explaining he'd changed his views on abortion years ago.

At February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Trump declared: "I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it, replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country.

"If I decide to run I will not be raising taxes. We'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us."

Trump spent much of his CPAC speech pledging to stand up to China and OPEC and other nations he says no longer respect the U.S.

Since then, Trump has made bigger waves by questioning whether President Obama was born in the U.S. and meets the constitutional requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen."

Obama has produced an official certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health attesting that he was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961. The week after he was born, two newspapers in Honolulu included Obama in birth notices using information from state health department records.

The Hawaii document is accepted by courts and the U.S. State Department -- and by the conservative National Review and many Obama critics -- as conclusive evidence the president is a U.S. citizen. But Trump has joined those in the "birther" movement who demand that Obama produce a 1961-vintage "long-form" birth certificate as proof.

Roger Stone, the legendary Republican political consultant who is a friend of Trump but not an adviser to his latest presidential exploration, says Trump's raising of the birth certificate issue has "served him extremely well It has helped him galvanize a base. I don't think you could run on that issue alone."

Stone points to surveys by Democrat-oriented Public Policy Polling that show Trump was viewed favorably by 31 percent of Republicans and unfavorably by 53 percent of GOP voters in mid-February. At the end of March, after weeks of fanning the birther controversy, a poll showed Trump with a 40/33 favorable/unfavorable score among Republicans -- a gain of 29 points in Trump's net approval rating.

Asked about the birth certificate issue in Tuesday's brief interview, Trump said, "I think there are a lot of people that have questions and I certainly do."

But Trump said he believes voters are responding more to "my stance on China, my stance on OPEC, my stance on foreign countries" who Trump says have been "taking advantage of us."

Trump said he accepted the invitation to Saturday's tea party event in Boca Raton because "Florida is very close to my heart."

Organizers are expecting a large crowd.

So is the poll- and ratings-conscious Trump, who says, "I hear it's going to be like a monster."

Wash. Post story highlights fallacy of open-mindedness among some MSM and their websites: Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected by TheRoots.com

A simple headline in the Washington Post -"Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected"- highlights the fallacy of free-flowing, open-minded political and philosophical debate on public policy matters among some MSM and their niche websites, in this particular case, TheRoots.com.
Free-flowing, open-minded political and philosophical debate is great until someone or something they like is gored, then, the principles -and principals- are tossed overboard.

Strangely enough, that's the Miami Herald's longstanding M.O., too, as I've regularly opined from this perch.

-------

The Washington Post
Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected
By David Montgomery,
Thursday, April 14, 8:19 PM

A blistering review of historian Manning Marable’s best-selling new biography of Malcolm X was rejected this week by ­TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine devoted to African American perspectives whose editor in chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., is an admirer of Marable’s work.

" 'Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention’ is an abomination,” wrote reviewer Karl Evanzz. “It is a cavalcade of innuendo and logical fallacy, and is largely reinvented from previous works on the subject.”

Evanzz, a former Washington Post news researcher and author of a book on Malcolm X’s assassination, continued in that vein for more than 2,000 words.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/negative-review-of-malcolm-x-bio-is-rejected/2010/11/18/AFM9zUfD_story.html

As of 1 a.m. Saturday morning, a little more than 27 hours after it was first put on the the WaPo's website, guess how many other media outlets have deigned to even mention the controversy over a book review of a book on Malcolm X?

Well, there's the Washington Post and there's mediabistro.com and...
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/malcolm-x-biography-review-generates-controversy_b27912

Two if you count mediabistro's précis of the WaPo story.
That's the whole list!

Of course, in some ways, if you want to take the long view, it's weird to even talk about book reviews in a place like South Florida, given that for so long, the Miami Herald has been a shadow of what it once was in the 1970's with regard to serious literary criticism.

Back when I was a teenager attending JFK Jr. High and then North Miami Beach Senior High, I was a big fan of Jonathan Yardley's work, before he fled to the comfy confines of The Beltway, Baltimore and the WaPo.

There, he continued to write so many memorable things about culture, sports, Charm City, and the interplay of ideas, media and pop culture that he earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 while I was up at IU, where I read the WaPo down in the basement floor of the IU Library, where it and all the interesting out-of-town and foreign newspapers and magazines were kept, and where the A/C was always 'just right.'

Once I moved to the D.C. area myself, he was, of course, among the handful of reporters, columnists and critics that my friends and I routinely discussed at some point when we got together, since many of us cut his essays from the newspaper and discussed the ideas in them amongst ourselves, whether out in the bleachers at Camden Yards or while walking around Georgetown or Old Town Alexandria, doing something on The Mall, or eating somewhere between Baltimore and Charlottesville.

Those high-minded and often lengthy talks amongst my smart, clever and well-informed friends, back when the newspapers were forever writing about 'salons,' are one of the things that I miss most about being in South Florida, which is perhaps why I over-do things a bit in my lengthy emails hereabouts.

Though almost everyone I know down here is much less busy than my friends up there, the ones down here all think they have less time to get together, which I suspect is why it's harder to make friends for some people once they move down here -people here are just more easily distracted, but not actually busier doing something.

Plus, well, everything percolating in the rest of the country, whether good or bad, always seemed so much more tangible when I lived in Washington.
"A" because it was, but "B," because I knew so many people from elsewhere who had reason to fly around a lot more than is the case here, and share what they saw with us upon their return.

Here, now, I'm constantly reminded of the parallels between how far away from reality and the honest discussion of ideas I sensed South Florida was when I was growing-up down here before cable TV, and my new reality.

Before there was an Internet, or should I say, before I first had my first email account, Hotmail, about 15 years ago, once my best friend Shannon left D.C. for Japan, I routinely made multiple copies of the columnists that I liked most over at the Kinko's in Georgetown or Capitol Hill, and then walked over to the nearby Post Office and sent them out in my frequent letters to friends around the country.
My initial Distribution List!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/25/LI2005032502370.html



C-SPAN: 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C.
Francis Fukuyama challenges his former professor, Samuel P. Huntington, about Fundamentals of The Clash of Civilizations.
http://youtu.be/zS-tSbZh6eQ


(Seriously, does anyone even STILL read that Herald section they call Tropical Life anymore? The very place where serious discussion of big ideas about South Florida's future should be taking place, with plenty of give and take, given the feeble Herald Op-Ed page. It's terrible!!!)

Not that the Herald's output then was ever great, but it was at least pretty good, most of the time, and was both well-intentioned and aiming for something higher than merely placating the locals who rubbed shoulders with the Knight-Ridder execs downtown.

More recently, though, it has been the sort of place where serious books that run counter to the upside-down world of the Miami Herald's past and present Editorial Board, seem NOT to get reviewed, even when they are national best-sellers and the subject of multiple TV chat shows and news magazine profiles.

The best example of this since I returned to South Florida would have to be Samuel P. Huntington and his The Clash of Civilizations, a book of sufficient importance and original thought as to be discussed regularly among serious public policy players, and referenced over-and-over again in myriad essays appearing in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and the New York Review of Books, to name but three
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/samuel-p-huntington

But not one review or unbiased article about that book ever appeared in the Miami Herald that could explain why the book struck a chord and was so popular with so many Americans.

I know this with certainty because I not only was constantly on the search for such an article or essay, but at various times when I noticed this intentional avoidance taking place, checked and then double-checked the Herald's own archives.
Then after having gained that recon, I had Herald reporters I knew triple-check, using internal Herald search methods I couldn't employ.

In each case, to their credit, these Herald reporters grudgingly confirmed what I already knew:
that it appeared that the Herald's management seemed to be going out of its way to make sure the Huntington book -and their like- was never mentioned in a neutral or positive way in print.

(I recounted this story to great effect as a guest at a forum on U.S. immigration policy and demographics in Coral Gables at the University of Miami's Bank United Center a few years ago.
Recalling it now makes me think that in the near future, I need to share some of the thoughts of the invited panelists here, as well as my pointed retorts attacking many of the very naive and self-serving comments expressed by some of the pro-amnesty panelists, inc. a prominent 'Usual Suspect' of the Herald, Cheryl Little of FIAC. http://www.fiacfla.org/

Those comments delighted many in the crowd, who came up to me after the event and told me how pleased they were that someone had thrown cold-water on those absurd falsehoods being spread as if they were true, and some even admitted that they had wondered about some of the same things for years, too.
I told 'em that they should start a blog, too, and add their own voice to the rule of reason and logic.)

Locally, the findings of those books (and their authors) are/were continually publicly vilified by the Herald's Latin America-centric columnists, who didn't like them because they directly challenged -head-on- their self-evident rose-colored views of Latin America.

Turns out that most Americans, but esp. those NOT living near large centers of Hispanics, DIDN'T agree with the Herald's apologists for any and all things Latin American, a perspective that still exists at the newspaper and which is just as intellectually dishonest as it ever was, resting as it does on a house of cards.

---
Upcoming HBB posts

Due to some time constraints caused by some family health matters I've had to deal with for a while, some posts in draft on some of these matters, the Herald's invisible coverage of Broward County and fixation on all things Latin America, esp. illegal immigration and efforts in Washington Tallahassee to enact policies and laws that are more in line with what the vast majority of Americans and Floridians want -NOT amnesty- have not yet been posted.

There's one post in particular about what the Herald completely ignored about Obama's trip to Brazil that will both surprise you, and yet, surprise you not at all, since the articles in the paper that appeared on that trip read like they were written by Obama staffers.

That'll also include pieces on the Herald's longstanding Patricia Mazzei problem, a problem for the paper's readers which shows absolutely no sign of ending, even while she's writing up in Tallahassee. With Mazzei, there's simply so much evidence that proves my point, my problem has been selecting which of several dozen articles she's written to choose from that highlight her unsatisfactory and one-sided reporting of "news."

Many of you readers in South Florida have even written me back that you have remembered these examples of hers as well, after I brought them to your attention again via emails.

There will also be a piece on the recent completely unsatisfactory performance of the paper's sports section on one of the most important sports weekends of the year, something which I discussed already with many of you out there in the blogosphere via email.

Yes, the photos will tell the story, and what pathetic stories they will tell.
Likely, this week.

As predicted here, McClatchy & Miami Herald never refer to illegal alien status of convicted killer of Chandra Levy in article. Shocker!

In this space on Friday, February 11th, in a blog post I titled, "Killer convicted! Illegal immigrant from El Salvador sentenced to 60 years in prison by D.C. jury for 2001 murder of Chandra Levy" http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/killer-convicted-illegal-immigrant-from.html 
I posited the deeply-felt personal belief that within days, when the time came for the Miami Herald to finally run their story on the verdict of this murder trial, they would completely ignore the fact that the convicted killer of Chandra Levy, Ingmar Guandique, was an El Salvadoran who was in the United States illegally.
And, in fact, Guandique had been here illegally for YEARS.

As you can see from my snapshot of that article as it appeared in print, above, and the actual article, below, my prediction went from my brain and lips to the Miami Herald's printing press.

That I could predict such a thing with such utter confidence ought to give you some real insight into the extent which the traditional Chinese Wall between editorial and reporting is a non-existent one at the Miami Herald on the issue of immigration policy.

They don't even bother trying to pretend anymore and hide their bias.

The real kicker is that the McClatchy reporter, Michael Doyle, actually used the word "immigrant" in his version of the story.
"Immigrant?"
"Immigrant," really?


Knute Rockne was an immigrant. Albert Einstein was an immigrant. Lou Gehrig and Martin Scorsese's family were immigrants.
Ingmar Guandique is an illegal alien who stone-cold murdered an innocent woman named Chandra Levy, a 24-year old young woman with an outgoing personality who continually gave to her community in her hometown, and was killed because to Guandique, she was just a loose-end to his latest crime.
Period!

Guadique is a person with a very long criminal record that this Herald article, as it actually appeared in print, hardly even begins to skim the surface of. The Washington Post reported on that criminal record in detail years ago, but but for whatever reasons, the Herald has NEVER ever mentioned it.

Tell me, why would the Miami Herald censor his long criminal background for so long?
And why was he STILL here?
Those are good questions, why don't you call illegal alien advocate Chery Little, founder and executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and ask her?

There's clearly someone up in the Washington, D.C. area doing the same thing for the illegals up there that she does in Miami, where she has serially manipulated the hell out of the pliant South Florida news media, especially the Miami Herald.

Little limits information on the carefully-chosen 'clients' she trots out for the news media
and keeps the illegal alien parents -who came here and ignored U.S. govt. notices to return home or update information- completely out of the reach of reporters.
All in order to get the most positive spin possible for herself, FIAC and the issue.

If you have paid close attention to her and her dog-and-pony shows for the local South Florida media thru the years, it's hard not to notice that her 'clients' are almost always straight out of Central Casting, and that's not by mistake.And did you ever notice how few of the Hispanic 'clients' are dark-skinned?
I have!
And so have many of my friends throughout South Florida.


That was especially noticeable when she was trying to rally public support for the absurd and unpopular DREAM ACT that the vast majority of Americans have always opposed.
The people she trotted out were almost invariably articulate high school kids getting very good grades with lots of potential and lots of options, as if that was at all representative of what most of the kids here in South Florida illegally have.
It's completely preposterous.
But the South Florida news media ate it up, anyway!

That's not by accident, since it's clear that Little carefully chose which people to trot out for all the predictable questions from the sleepwalking media, many of whom seem more like aspiring spokesmodels than journalists.

And because so many of the local Miami print and TV reporters lack much backbone to speak of, much less, a nose for real news, especially the ones under the age of 35, they swallow it whole every time, never bothering to ask how someone -a culpable parent- NEVER quite learned enough English in 17 years in Miami to make themselves understood in English, even while their kid might be getting straight-A's.
(Now there's THE real story -the reality disconnect and the media's perpetual lack of curiosity.)

And almost every time Cheryl Little's name appears in print in the Herald, who's the (faux) reporter doing the stenography?
Correct, Alfonso Chardy, the most self-evidently biased reporter at the Miami Herald -or just about any newspaper I can think of, actually.

If you ever wondered about the inherent and over-weaning bias of the Miami Herald and their parent company, The McClatchy Company, on the issue of immigration policy, I think this story is the final nail in the coffin.
Game, set, match.

If Carlos Alvarez or Dwyane Wade or Don Shula were killed in a robbery or drive-by outside of a Shula's Steakhouse by an illegal alien, would the Miami Herald mention that pertinent fact, or would they intentionally keep it out?
I guess we know the answer to that question now, as this snapshot I took, above, of Saturday's Miami Herald, page 4A -with no photos, no links, no nothing...- makes abundantly clear.
Or read it yourself!

For the record, the text in blue in the article below NEVER appeared in yesterday's print edition.

-----

Chandra Levy's killer gets 60-year prison sentence

By Michael Doyle

McClatchy Newspapers

The man convicted of killing Chandra Levy was sentenced Friday to 60 years in prison.
Punctuating a law-and-order saga that's lasted nearly a decade, D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald I. Fisher rejected a defense bid for a new trial and imposed the stiff sentence on Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique.
"I think he is a dangerous person," Fisher said. "I think he is a dangerous person to women, in particular, and I think he will remain one for a long time."
Chandra's mother, Susan Levy, drove the point home, with a firmly delivered victim's impact statement that she directed, at times, right at Guandique.
"You, Mr. Guandique, you are lower than a cockroach," Levy said.
At the end of her 16-minute statement, in which she also read comments written by her son, Adam, and her husband, Robert, Levy turned to her daughter's killer and pointed at him.
"Finally, (expletive) you," Susan Levy said. "That is it."
Now 29, Guandique will be at least 80 before he becomes eligible for parole from federal prison. Fisher rejected prosecutors' request to deny any possibility of parole, raising the faint possibility that Guandique will die outside of prison.
"This might be a life sentence," Fisher acknowledged. "In all likelihood, it will be a life sentence."
Manacled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Guandique showed little emotion during most of the 90-minute sentencing hearing. When given a chance to speak, though, he appeared to rub tears from his eyes before protesting his innocence.
"I am sorry, I am very sorry for what happened to (Chandra)," Guandique said, speaking through an interpreter, "but I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent."
Following a little more than three days of deliberations, the jury of three men and nine women on Nov. 22 had found Guandique guilty on two counts of first-degree felony murder.
The jury concluded Guandique had attacked Chandra on May 1, 2001, while she was walking or jogging in a remote reach of Washington's Rock Creek Park. The felony murder charge was formally predicated on a claim that Guandique was attempting to rob Levy, although prosecutors emphasized the possibility that the attack was sexual in nature.
Citing prison disciplinary records and other crimes, including several Guandique admitted to and others that were never proven in court, prosecutors had argued he was an implacable menace to society.
"Guandique has demonstrated predatory behavior that seems incapable of rehabilitation," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Haines and Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez wrote in an 18-page sentencing memo.

Defense attorneys Santha Sonenberg and Maria Hawilo retorted with their own sentencing memo of more than 11 pages, in which they cited a violent, impoverished upbringing as well as learning and psychological problems.

"He grew up without running water or electricity ... and he suffers from a number of different afflictions," Sonenberg said.

A former defense attorney, appointed to the D.C. Superior Court bench by President Bill Clinton in 2001, Fisher had also overseen preliminary proceedings in the Levy case for more than a year before the trial began.

Levy had just turned 24 when she disappeared. She had finished her University of Southern California graduate studies and a federal Bureau of Prisons internship and was planning to take a May 5 Amtrak train back home to California's San Joaquin Valley, trial testimony revealed.

Levy was also sexually involved with then-Congressman Gary Condit, trial evidence and testimony graphically confirmed. Early speculation about her shadowy relationship with the much-older politician had helped make Levy's disappearance a news sensation in the first place.

An uncomfortable-looking Condit testified that he had nothing to do with Levy's death, but the judge also permitted him to stiff-arm questions about the exact nature of his affair with Levy.

Prosecutors lacked any DNA, fingerprint, fiber or other physical evidence connecting Guandique to Levy or the wooded Rock Creek Park hillside where her skeletal remains were found in May 2002. There were no eyewitnesses.

Prosecutors also didn't get a chance to cross-examine Guandique, who listened to the translated trial proceedings through a headset.

Of the 40 prosecution witnesses, only former Fresno Bulldogs gang member Alberto Morales directly connected Guandique to Levy. A one-time cellmate, Morales testified that Guandique confessed the killing to him.

Morales, currently scheduled to be released in 2016, is not currently in federal Bureau of Prisons custody, according to the agency's inmate locator. During the Levy trial, he was said to be "in transit." It is not yet known which federal prison Guandique will be dispatched to; previously, he was serving his sentence on other charges at U.S. Penitentiary Victorville, on the unforgivably hot margins of California's Mojave Desert.

Meanwhile this very afternoon, the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Company, has a story on their website, highlighted in blue below, titled, "Illegal immigrant held in connection with standoff in Carrollwood."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/illegal-immigrant-held-in-connection-with-standoff-in-carrollwood/1151437

Yes, even the St. Pete Times, a very liberal newspaper that employs reporters I personally know, DOESN'T engage in such ham-handed and selective use of facts -much less, in a murder case!- to the extent that McClatchy and the Miami Herald has -and does.


"Illegal immigrant held in connection with standoff in Carrollwood."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/illegal-immigrant-held-in-connection-with-standoff-in-carrollwood/1151437

Once again, sports reporters eager to avoid angering Tiger Woods and becoming 'Persona non Tiger'

My comments follow this latest update from TMZ.
-----------
TMZ.com
Tiger Woods Cornered -- Turns Cops Away

Posted Nov 28th 2009 5:09PM by TMZ Staff

http://www.tmz.com/2009/11/28/tiger-woods-elin-nordegren-florida-highway-patrol/

-----------
Well, what do you know?
Maybe ESPN's Sunday morning edition of
The Sports Reporters will actually be
interesting and relevant for the first time in
what seems like ages, as the Usual Suspects
of sports sages weigh-in, gingerly, on what's
happened the past few days on the golf icon
and guaranteed moneymaker named
Tiger Woods.

Personally, though I know it will never
happen, I'd love to hear them be
straight-shooters for a change and publicly
call-out their more spine-less and craven
colleagues in the sports and marketing
industry, esp. at the TV networks, who
walk on eggshells when speaking about
Tiger Woods, someone whom I've yet
to ever hear an original and thoughtful
comment from, just like fellow Nike
spokesperson Michael Jordan,
even though he has the benefit of a
Stanford education.

(Not that a Stanford education really did devout
Oriole fans like me any good in the '90's while
Mike Mussina was pitching for the Orioles,
despite how frequently it got brought-up during
ballgame broadcasts, much to our consternation.

A lot of my friends and I still blame Mussina for
not winning Game 3 of the 1996 ALCS against
the Yankees at Camden Yards -I was there-
blowing a 1-0 lead in the eighth inning, with a
dominating David Wells slated to pitch for the
Orioles the next day, which could've plausibly
created a 3-1 Oriole series lead.

His choking performance prevented the Orioles
from getting to the World Series and beating
the Atlanta Braves, when the O's were clearly
the best-balanced team in baseball that year
-despite being the AL Wild Card team- having
thoroughly annihilated the Braves in Atlanta
during an intra-league weekend series.)

Which is fine, of course, since Woods
doesn't have to be interesting off the course,
or even take a public stand about any issues
he privately cares about, as long as he keeps
winning.
But it would be nice if he would...

How interesting would it be if he declared
publicly in the near-future that, as a matter
of fact, he's greatly troubled by the whole
'immigration reform' racket in this country,
including the basic concepts behind the
so-called "Dream Act."

That he was particularly dismayed at the
overwhelmingly sympathetic and one-sided
way the American news media have
portrayed the debate, having been played,
hook, line and sinker, by someone like
Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigrant
Advocacy Center,
http://www.fiacfla.org/staff.php#1
who seems to promise access to her clients
in exchange for favorable media coverage.

(So where are the on-camera questions
about -or interviews with- the parents
who came here illegally or who knowingly
broke the law and have successfully
avoided deportation for YEARS?
Not on camera, that's for sure because
that'd be off -message, don't ya know.
So who's the most recent example I've
seen of a local Miami TV reporter playing
Cheryl Little's game of Show-and-Tell?
CBS4's David Sutta, who did one on
Nov. 20th after CBS4 did a story the
previous day on the same kids attending
Miami-Dade College.
"Reyes Bros. Freed After Immigration
Struggle."
http://cbs4.com/video/?id=86995@wfor.dayport.com)

If Woods actually said that he thinks this sort
of upside-down proposal penalizes hard-working
foreigners who have followed the proscribed
rules and laws we've insisted they follow, and
patiently bided their time waiting anxiously for
legal admittance, while others have come to
this country either illegally, or intentionally
overstayed their visas, and now want to create
a cause célèbre just because their kids aren't
dopes and actually paid attention in American
schools, just imagine what people would be
saying?

It'll never happen, of course, but...
Personally, I suspect this latest incident in
Orlando, whatever the true facts, will only
show once gain the full extent to which the
news media, in this case, well-known sports
reporters and columnists -like certain
well-known political reporters and
columnists last year were (and remain)
completely in the tank for Obama-
have drunk the Tiger Woods marketing
Kool-Aid, and have deluded themselves
into thinking that , a la O.J., that they
'really know him.'

They don't.
They just think they do.

What those particular reporters fear most
is losing access to him and his tightly-knit
entourage and being put permanently on
his "No comment" list.
That's the same thing as excommunication,
since it will quickly become known throughout
the industry.
And they will be labeled 'Persona non Tiger.'