How stories re Al Lamberti and Louis Granteed show the smug hypocrisy among South Florida's news media, esp. the unsatisfactory coverage of actual news in Broward from the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Below is an email I sent on Wednesday to reporter Brittany Wallman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in which I use her story about Broward Sheriff candidate Louis Granteed swinging by The Cheetah strip club in Hallandale Beach to connect it to previous  actions of the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes towards current Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti, a Republican, and a matter I've previously discussed on the blog -smug hypocrisy among South Florida's news media, and unsatisfactory coverage of actual news in this county from the NewTimes.


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re your post titled "Sheriff calls news story on his campaign website "spam''
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/12/sheriff_calls_news_story_on_hi.html


You know what would really be great?
If the Broward NewTimes actually joined the 21st-Century and posted the office email addresses of all of its top editorial staff, just like the Herald, Sun-Sentinel, local Miami TV station news operations and most reputable blogs do, even ones I criticize and find overly-sycophantic, local and nationally, of which there are plenty.


Like, perhaps, Eric Barton's official office email address.
Nope, that's top secret!
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/about/staff/


Instead, as I noted many months ago in blog posts about the NewTimes' abject failure to cover many subject areas that they ought to be right on top of, but aren't -like anything about FL-17 Rep. Frederica Wilson, and her near-invisibility in south Broward, before and after the election 13 months ago; her trip to Israel being paid for by AIPAC; her failure to ever sign-up to co-sponsor the House companion bill for Obama's Jobs Bill despite continually criticizing the GOP for not supporting it, just like DWS has done, et al- the NewTimes continues to rely on a corporate gatekeeper/walled-off email system that ensures that readers writing comments can't tell whether or not their email to NewTimes personnel was actually ever received by the individual(s) they wanted to receive it, and, of course, you CAN'T cc or bcc anyone else with the concerns you're sharing, whether over the merit of something, bias, wrong info, need for a correction...


Very basic stuff, but the NewTimes has continued to fail that "comment" test.
Eric Barton needs to look in the mirror, perhaps then he'd find out himself why so many former readers like myself have abandoned it in droves.


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Speaking of Louis Granteed, in case some of you didn't spot it in a post of mine from Wednesday December 14th titled, Dr. Judy Selz zeroes-in on wasteful city spending, angering Comm. Lewy; Keith London's take on Hallandale Beach City Comm. meeting of Dec, 7 2011
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/dr-judy-selz-zeroes-in-on-wasteful-city.html

Some free advice to 2012 Broward Sheriff candidate Louis Granteed, currently Assistant Hollywood Police Chief, per conversations he's had with friends of mine in Broward at various events:

You might want to strongly reconsider constantly praising Lewy to the hilt when you meet citizens from Hallandale Beach. If they are an informed person, chances are great that they are already more than hip to Alex Lewy and what he is all about.Your praise only serves to draw attention to how little you know about him.

Just saying...

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.