Ben Bradlee was right, of course: "There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!" Now IF ONLY the people running McClatchy Co.'s Miami Herald and Tribune Media's South Florida Sun-Sentinel actually thought THAT way and put readers first! But South Florida news consumers know they DON'T, as evidence has made clear for far-too-many years, day-after-day!

Today's Top 10 Front Pages: Remembering a Legend http://t.co/xmBmO2ChFt #BenBradlee #TFPtop10 pic.twitter.com/wwB5CsX1yc
— Newseum (@Newseum) October 22, 2014

Ben Bradlee: "There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!" http://t.co/zEmyYA6etw pic.twitter.com/QdID4m9Pd3
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 22, 2014

-Ben Bradlee: "There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!"

Noble sentiments expressed by someone who wasn't afraid to challenge the establishment and force his readers to confront unhappy facts.

"Worry? Me, worry?I don't fucking worry!" Ben Bradlee to young David Remnick - from my NPR obit for Bradlee http://t.co/c5PdH0sSBT
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) October 22, 2014

IF ONLY the people running The McClatchy Co.'s Miami Herald and Tribune Media's South Florida Sun-Sentinel actually thought this way and managed their resources accordingly!
But by almost any measure you choose to use, from circulation figures to relevancy, the mountain of evidence to date the past ten years proves conclusively that they DON'T. 
Just the opposite!

They excel at consistently squandering stories others would jump at.
Of censoring stories that are unfavorable to local politicians whom they favor: Debbie Wasserman Schultz for the Sun-Sentinel, Marco Rubio for the Herald.
And they excel at doing this in ways that are not only offensive to serious people, but doing so in particularly clumsy and ham-handed ways.

Daily, casual readers and news junkies alike wake-up in South Florida to see that yet again, those newspapers and their editorial management have consciously made the decision to ignore interesting and compelling local stories about public policy and conflicts at city and county government that 15, 20 and 25 years ago would have definitely made it into print -and been noticed by everyone. 
(And in other cities, are up on the paper's blog within minutes, NOT days.)

That is, UNLESS it's now occurring in one of a handful of favored South Florida cities, while people living elsewhere in South Florida might as well be living in Cuba for all that the newspapers' management and editors care, counter-intuitively.

Except, of course, as even the most infrequent South Florida news consumer knows with certainty -and as I've written here on the blog dozens of times over the years with one concrete example after another- it's been clear for years that the Miami Herald actually expends MORE time and resources covering Cuba than they do Broward County.
And actually cares more about Cuba and what happens there than they do about what happens in Broward County, where roughly 40% of their readers live.

Which explains why so many Miami Herald columnists write about Cuba and Cuban-related matters SO often, to the exclusion of writing about local stories happening in Miami-Dade and Broward counties that demand some attention and commentary.

To paraphrase myself, since so many people have, how and why is it that 19 DAYS after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's initial story ran online re criminal allegations against interim Hallandale Beach B City Commissioner and candidate Leo Grachow being investigated by the BSO -a story that hours later was then pulled and wiped clean from their website- not a single new fact-based bit of information has emerged in the newspaper to either support the initial allegations or discredit 
them?

With all the reporters available to work the story and the amazing technology around now to better help explain it to readers or viewers, how can it then be true that nobody at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has reported ANYTHING new in nineteen days?

And how is it that the Sun-Sentinel, typically, instead of being open and transparent about what is and has been taking place with respect to a cover-up at Hallandale Beach City Hall, where the city continually refused to provide public documents to them under Florida's Sunshine Laws, is shooting themsleves in the foot and making themselves even more irrelevant than usual by remaining mum?

Of consciously choosing NOT to explain to readers and the general public what they're doing -or why they pulled the story from their website in the first place?
Again, consider where we live.

It's nothing news for us and our concerfns to be ignored.
Consider this stone cold fact: In 18 mos since damning report by @BrowardIG abt #HallandaleBeach CRA, @SunSentinel & @MiamiHerald have written ZERO editorials abt it #SoFL

In 18 mos since damning report by @BrowardIG abt #HallandaleBeach CRA, @SunSentinel & @MiamiHerald have written ZERO editorials abt it #SoFL
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) September 24, 2014

@hbbtruth @SunSentinel It seems that @RosemaryGoudrea has a unique take on "journalism" and the role of an editorial board.
— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) October 28, 2014

If this same story weeks before an important city-wide election that would determine whether a pro-reform group would make up the new majority on the city commission had taken place in Coral Gables, Hialeah or in the City of Miami, it's likely there'd have been Miami Herald and Sun-Sentiel reporters sitting outside someone's home overnight.

Perhaps somebody from all four Miami-area English language TV stations already busy working the streets trying to ferret-out more info, while others worked the phones to try to come up with a new angle on the story and the individuals involved.
But because this story happened in Hallandale Beach, in Broward County, a place that the miami Herald considers terra incognita, there's... nothing at all.

Not even so much as an explanation from the newspaper that started the whole ball rolling in the first place and the people running it.

As Bradlee said: "It must be remembered that Nixon got Nixon. The Post didn’t get Nixon" @wjosephcampbell on the myth http://t.co/sW6UdubPiq
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) October 22, 2014

The story broke on a weekend, so #BenBradlee gave it to 2 young reporters. What they did with it was something else. https://t.co/cOgOIdIgU5
— Newseum (@Newseum) October 22, 2014

From 2006, #BenBradlee speaks on the importance of Deep Throat. #Watergate https://t.co/nt8QW9BrpM
— Newseum (@Newseum) October 22, 2014

#BenBradlee recalls an early break in the #Watergate investigation. https://t.co/BDl6WnvRUE
— Newseum (@Newseum) October 22, 2014

Corporate Whitewash! More proof of the sorry state of journalism in South Florida in 2012 -the Miami Herald as Corporate Publicist: Yet ANOTHER negative story about Arison family-owned, Miami-based Carnival Corp. being ignored by the Herald -brutal gang-rape of 15-year old passenger on trip to The Bahamas. For months the Herald has looked the other way and gone out of its way to NOT REPORT on the story or the trial in Orlando that led to federal conviction in Orlando on Friday for the heinous crime.

Corporate Whitewash! More proof of the sorry state of journalism in South Florida in 2012 -the Miami Herald as Corporate Publicist. Yet ANOTHER negative story about Miami-based Carnival Corp. was completely ignored by the Herald -gang-rape of 15-year old passenger on trip to The Bahamas. Herald looks the other way and never reports on original story nor the subsequent trial in Orlando, that led to federal conviction in Orlando on Friday.

I first heard about this particular incident over the summer when I was over at Panera Bread one afternoon, drinking some coffee and reading some newspapers I'd picked-up at Publix on the way over.

New York Daily News

Carnival Cruise takes nasty turn as 15-year-old alleges she was gang-raped on voyage to Bahamas 

Teen says another passenger supplied her and a group of underage boys with alcohol and then led sexual assault.

By Erik Ortiz, New York Daily News

August 22, 2012, 11:54 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/carnival-cruise-takes-nasty-turn-15-year-old-alleges-gang-raped-voyage-bahamas-article-1.1142533

After I first read this, and then saw the WFTV news video from Orlando, the first thing I thought was, well, predictable.

But predictable based not on my thinking, but rather based on the Herald's own behavior over many years.

As I've written here before, unfortunately, unlike what would be best for the entire community, rather than act like a reasonable-but-occasional critical observer of cruse line industry practices when appropriate, the Herald has allowed years of perpetual corporate logrolling and shilling in its own pages to warp its view of what its role is.
Rather than with the arms-length relationship that would show that the newspaper knows how to separate editorial from advertorial functions, the Herald has acted almost exclusively like a corporate pep squad for the cruise line industry and the South Florida tourism industry,.

When you know the story involves details about the alleged gang-rape of a 15-year old abord the Carnival ship Sensation, that's all you need to know in advance that the Miami Herald would not touch that story.

Below is one of the many screen grab I did the next day, on August 23rd, of the various searches I performed on the paper, trying to figure when and where the Herald could've possibly put something about the story in the paper.
Eventually, it became clear that the reason one could not find anything about the story is because the very people at the Herald who determine what appears in the paper, would NOT allow anything about it to appear in the Herald in the first place.

Since August, I've known that eventually a trial would be held and when It did, I would post the story about the result of the trial here on the blog.
I was also fully-confident in my intuition that given the very sad and almost unethical fact patterns that have emerged over the recent years about what the Miami Herald was and was NOT willing to make public in their pages, if someone was indeed found guilty of this crime, the powers-that-be at the paper would STILL consciously decide that the gang-rape of a teenage girl aboard a Carnival ship was too negative for the Miami-based cruise line, therefore they would consciously ignore the story.

Well, the last show dropped yesterday.

Orlando Sentinel

Man convicted in rape of 15-year-old on Carnival cruise

Casey Dickerson was convicted on two sex abuse charges.

By Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

2:43 PM EST, December 14, 2012

A Central Florida man accused of participating in the rape of a 15-year-old girl on a cruise ship in August was convicted by a federal jury Friday afternoon.

Casey Dickerson, 31 at the time of his arrest, was accused of having forcible sex with a girl in a cabin on the Carnival Sensation.

Court records show Dickerson was on the cruise, which left from Port Canaveral on Aug. 16, with his wife.

The victim told federal agents she and a friend went to one of the cabins with Dickerson and four teenage boys.

There, the girl said, Dickerson and the boys held her down and took turns having sex with her.

When questioned by agents, Dickerson said he was drunk and didn't know when anything got "sexual," records show. Dickerson denied having sex with the girl.

After just more than two days of testimony, jurors deliberated less than three hours before returning a guilty verdict on the two sex abuse charges Dickerson faced.

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-cruise-rape-verdict-guilty-carnival-20121214,0,7455885.story


Okay, so what does the Herald have on Casey Dickerson, the defendant convicted by a federal jury on Friday up in Orange County?

That's strange, it ought to be there, shouldn't it?
Yes, it SHOULD.
If this area was a normal part of America where basic aspects of journalism exist.
But it isn't.
Nothing about the case has EVER been there, and here's the proof below.
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Casey+Dickerson


I'm quite sure that Micky Arison and the executives of Carnival Corp  out in Doral must surely appreciate that cover-up of the news by their friends at the Herald.

Miami Herald cutting jobs, pulling plug on their International Edition -finally. But what's the strategy?

Note: Per my past comments of the last few months, Blogger.com seems to be screwing-up the formatting of these posts, as I've already spent over 90 minutes today trying to get it to stay exactly like I want, exactly like it looks in Preview. But it changes the moment I hit "Publish Post."

Until Blogger.com figures out how to solve the problem, if they ever do, for the forseeable future, the posts here will look very different from what I intend.

Screenshots of Charles Perez doing the lead-in on the Miami Herald cuts tonight on Local 10's 6 p.m. newscast, before throwing-it to Michael Putney outside the Herald Building, the wheels and gears of

a press run, the specific numbers involved in today's news, and the official statement from Herald publisher David Landsberg.

My comments follow the article.

__________________________________________

http://www.miamiherald.com/101/story/944120.html

Miami Herald

Miami Herald to cut 175 workers, reduce salaries

By John Dorschner

March 11, 2009

The Miami Herald plans to cut 19 percent of its workforce, reduce salaries of those who remain and require one week unpaid furloughs, publisher David Landsberg announced Wednesday morning.

''About 175 employees will lose their jobs as a result, and we will eliminate another 30 vacant positions, for a total reduction of 205. Reductions will occur in all areas of our operation and at every level in the organization,'' Landsberg said in an e-mail to employees.

Remaining full-time employees earning between $25,000 and $50,000 a year will have their pay reduced 5 percent. For employees earning more than $50,000, the pay cut will be 10 percent.

Employees will also lose one week of pay this year through an unpaid furlough program.

As part of the cost cutting, The Miami Herald's presses will be converted to a 44-inch web format and the International Edition will cease publication.

Many of the jobs will happen through involuntary layoffs, but some employees will be offered the chance to voluntarily take severance packages. ''If enough employees do not take the voluntary option, then the work groups will be reduced either by function or according to least tenure, depending on the work group,'' Landsberg wrote.

The cuts are part of a national move by The Herald's owner, the McClatchy Co., to reduce costs as advertising revenue and circulation continue to decline, a trend that virtually all newspapers in the country are experiencing.

''The decisions about where to reduce jobs have been extremely difficult,'' Landsberg wrote to employees. ``Please know that we have done everything possible to minimize the impact of layoffs by identifying alternative means of saving expenses. . . . While there will be tightening of news pages on various days, we have worked hard to maintain our newspapers at the quality level our readers have come to expect.''

The press conversion is expected to save $2 million a year in newsprint.

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/101/story/944120.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1#Comments_Container

----------------------------------------

Came across this particular news online this morning, having already expected as much after having read TIME magazine's interesting piece over the weekend labeled, simply enough,

The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1883785,00.html.

Naturally, the Herald actually made THAT Top Ten list, coming in at #3, right after the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, a newspaper whose D.C. Bureau I once had a good relationship with, and the Philly Daily News coming in at number one.

(Speaking of TIME magazine, did you know that TIME's Miami Bureau chief was from the capital of Hoosierland, Indianapolis? Oui!

Though he's a Wabash College grad, not an IU grad, Timothy Padgett is a damn good reporter, as almost any of his thoughtful analysis pieces, especially those on Latin America, like his recent ones on Cuba and Brazil prove in just a few sentences.

Tim really knows how to tell a story!

http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?N=0&Ntk=NoBody&Nty=1&Nr=OR(p_record_type:Article,p_record_type:blog,p_record_type:Other)&Ntt=Tim+Padgett

In the view of many people I know here in South Florida, including some veteran TV reporters and network correspondents, all of whom, like me, really want the Herald to be MUCH better than it is, i.e. assertive in ways that more closely resembled traditional notions of what a metro paper ought to be like, and what the Herald was like in the '70's and early ''80's, today marks the end of a very bad idea that lived longer than it had any right to.

That is, the Herald foolishly persisting for years in producing an international edition that you could buy in large South American cities, even after the advent of the internet.

It seemed to be a poorly thought-out, grand-fathered vanity project that might've served a legitimate purpose in the late '70's and early '80's, if you consider impressing foreign advertisers

and govt. officials legitimate, but which served none once every newspaper and public policy journal of consequence was online.

Especially when you are doing such a very poor job of covering local municipal govt. in your own area of the world, where, oh-by-the-way, 99.9% of your readers are.

To me, it only showed how truly desperate the Herald was to be STILL considered an international player of consequence, when the truth is, with the exception of someone like Tyler Bridges who I think is usually pretty good and often has unusual takes on a situation in Latin America- their international or Latin America correspondents are a shadow of what they were when I was growing-up down here, when the Herald really had a team of truly great correspondents, like Don Bohning.

(I can still remember reading his stories on the aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana at my desk, my senior year of high school at NMBHS, before my first class started at 7 a.m., Fourth-year French with Pearl Chiari, a fabulous teacher who did so much for me and so many other students at NMB .)

Since I returned to South Florida from the DC area five years ago, the Herald was still running occasional print ads showing where you could purchase it in Caracas, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, et al, even while their Letters to the Editor was printing letters from longtime Herald subscribers who were VERY upset to discover the Herald would no longer be distributed in Palm Beach County.
So, you could buy the Herald in Argentina but not in Palm Beach?

Brilliant!

That certainly explains a lot, don't you think?

Late yesterday afternoon, while I was at Hollywood City Hall, waiting to go into the City Commission Chambers and hear the much-anticipated Bernard Zyscovich vision for Downtown Hollywood -which I'll be writing about very soon- I was reading the Business section of the New York Times.

The last article I read before heading in?

This one by Richard Perez-Pena headlined, McClatchy Plans to Cut 15% of Staff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/media/10mcclatchy.html

The very last sentence said simply, "McClatchy's stock, which traded above $60 a share before its offer for Knight-Ridder, closed Monday at 41 cents."

Nine cents less than a copy of the newspaper.

-----------------------------------

For more on the situation at the Herald, see what blogger Henry Gomez has to say over at Herald Watch at http://heraldwatch.blogspot.com/, and take a peek at what's cooking over at McClatchy Watch at http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/, both of which

I've always had as blog links on Hallandale Beach Blog and South Beach Hoosier.