Showing posts with label Jay Ducassi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jay Ducassi. Show all posts

Monday, May 21, 2012

What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...


What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...


Those of you who come to this blog regularly will recall that back in December and January, I sent a very thorough letter to the top management of the Miami Herald -Publisher David Landsberg, Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch among others- and some folks at parent company McClatchy Company regarding longstanding problems that I'd been aware of and had observed both in the newspaper and on their website. 


Problems that, from my perspective, at least, they seemed to be expending precious little time, energy and resources on resolving any time in the near-future, judging by the physical product they continue to churn out and what you continue to see on their crummy static website.


Clearly, that doesn't speak well of what's going on down at One Herald Plaza, but then that's not breaking news, either.


After sending those emails, I later re-purposed them and posted those comments here on December 21, 2011.


For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-another-consistently-lousy-year-of.html

Part 2 of More lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza for another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County

I heard via email from several other concerned media watchers in South Florida -some of them with names you'd instantly recognize- who also don't like the look of things at the Herald -or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, either, for that matter.


People who, like me, feel that that given its enormous resources, even with a smaller staff, the Herald is not only short-changing the community in its geographical area, but has actually abdicated many of its basic reporting coverage responsibilities in critical ways, and yet can't even point to better and more nuanced reportorial coverage of the places it will actually deign to cover. 


While many people who wrote agreed with me just about 100%, others admitted that they hadn't personally noticed certain things I brought up to Herald management, but that once I mentioned it and they'd had some time to think about it, they found themselves largely agreeing with me that in a competitive marketplace, there was no logical reason for failing to resolve some of these longstanding problems that Herald readers have with the newspaper.


That was especially the case with the Herald's atrocious coverage of Broward County people, places and government, both local and county, where almost every night of the week, you can go to the Herald's Broward homepage, and yet consistently find that less than 40% of the listed stories have anything to do with Broward County.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/#navlink=navbar


Who deliberately runs a newspaper like that? 


In any case, besides some small initial response that first week after they were sent, which came just before the holidays, six months later, nobody from the Herald's management has since followed-up with me or gone public in the newspaper about what and when the Herald is going to do something to prevent the slippery-slope from becoming "the new normal."


A good first step, though long overdue, would actually be hiring an Ombudsman, one who actually lives in South Florida and who not only has a weekly column, but is also equipped with a daily blog.


Someone to better represent readers with deep concerns about the Herald's reporting and editorial bias, misrepresentation of facts, consistent curious choice to leave some key facts out of certain stories, and the perennial concern about Herald flackery on behalf of South Florida's business interests and the personally powerful & privileged -like the newspaper's love affair with M-D Schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho, of whom seldom is heard a discouraging word.


But it's been more than a year now since Edward Schumacher-Matos left for NPR and the Council for Foreign Relations, and nothing is happening, even though that's actually something fairly easy to fix on that laundry list of unresolved problems there...
When are we going to see some tangible signs of positive change at the Herald?


And have you seen how weak their offerings are on their YouTube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/MiamiHerald/ 


Without naming names, I know for a fact that there are twenty-something female bloggers in Scandinavia who are so popular that they produce more original video content and get more eyeballs seeing their original content on their YouTube Channel than the Herald gets for their's. (And they do it themselves, too.)


In fact, I know one such blogger in particular who has produced a number of videos within the past six months, most of which have been seen more times than ALL the Herald's videos for the past nine months combined. 


You'd think that by now, the folks locally at the Herald and in Sacramento for McClatchy, would have the good sense to be embarrassed at having all the resources they have, in a large market like this with so many interesting, bizarre and controversial things going on, yet posting such feeble content.
But, apparently, they're not.
------


Miami Herald
Looking back on 4 years of critiquing The Herald
By Edward Schumacher-Matos
May 1, 2011

Nearly four years ago, I wrote my first column as ombudsman. This is my last. I leave having learned a lot about you, the readers. I leave having failed you, too, in one promise.

I learned foremost that you care — about your community and your newspaper. You write a daily avalanche of e-mails to me and others at The Miami Herald or post comments online, often with passion, over issues in South Florida and the state.

When you don’t like how your point of view was treated in an article, you often threaten to cancel your subscription. Few of you actually do, at least for reasons of coverage. If anything, your reaction shows that you are reading the newspaper. And while most of my columns have been critical of something The Herald has done, you and I share this secret: For every article we disagree with, there are many, many more that we like. No other local news outlet keeps us as well informed.

I also learned your hottest buttons: Cuba, Israel, immigration, taxes, gay rights. And, of course, party politics. Your antennas are acute for any indication that The Herald might be tilting pro-Republican or Democrat.

But whatever your political inclination, the stories you like the most are investigations that ferret out local corruption. As The Herald has redefined itself through smaller staffs, shrinking paper size, and online expansion, you have overwhelmingly implored that it continue investing in the investigations that it does so well. After that, you most like local stories, though the Caribbean Basin and Middle East are local for you, too. You are sophisticated and cosmopolitan.

Few places in the country are so interesting. I am leaving to take up a new post as ombudsman of National Public Radio. I look forward to the political sensitivity of that role as NPR and the media nationally wrestle with how to finance responsible journalism and serve communities. But I will be sad to leave you.

So, how did I let you down? I announced in the beginning that in passing judgment on The Herald’s coverage — on whether it was one-sided, for example, or unfair or incomplete — I would tell you my position on the issue being covered in the original article. It was a revolutionary idea. Here is what I wrote in my first column:
“I’ll tell you upfront, and I’ll tell you my biases, for in the end what I write will necessarily be my own reasoned judgment. But I promise you it will be as fair as I can make it, never cynical, but sometimes irreverent. I strongly believe in good professional journalism, but I don’t think it’s Holy. You are welcome to agree, disagree or demand to kill the ump.”

That first column had to do with the coverage of the Gomez brothers, two young Colombians who were popular students but unauthorized immigrants detained for deportation. Their saga and the proposed Dream Act that might legalize them remains ongoing. Once a Colombian illegal immigrant myself, I wrote that I was sympathetic toward legalizing the unauthorized immigrants in the country.

Still, I criticized The Herald’s coverage for being slanted in favor of the boys. It largely overlooked legitimate questions held by many readers about the fairness of the Dream Act and legalizing the brothers.

But if I lived up to my promise in that first column, I found as the months went by that to state my position on the issues distracted from my critique of the coverage. I became the issue, instead of the reporting and editing by The Herald. As a mechanical matter, it also made the columns too long, especially if I wanted to explain the nuances of my views.

I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop the practice, but my promise somehow just slipped away.

I still wonder if there is a way to revive the idea, not just for ombudsmen, but for reporters.

We know that journalists are human and have opinions and political preferences. There also is no such thing as pure objectivity. We all see through the lens of our upbringing.

Most reporters stretch mightily to set aside their biases and follow basic journalistic rules. Editors further scrub stories for objectivity and fairness.

But we as a society are now in a cynical “post modern” age in which we have been taught to “deconstruct” articles in search of the writer’s supposed underlying intent. Trust in the news media is low. Would transparency about a reporter’s personal views help recover trust then? Is there a practical way to make it work? Or would it be a distraction from the news itself?

I don’t have the answers but would appreciate knowing your parting thoughts. As the news media fragments into many slivers of opinion, we risk fragmenting as a society and a nation. We need to have at least a common base of facts.

Thank you for the privilege of having been allowed into your homes and your considerations these past four years.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Oops, they did it AGAIN! 25-day old Miami Herald story still #5 Breaking News story on Herald's Broward homepage. Congrats to Jay Ducassi!

Miami Herald vending machine in front of Denny's restaurant, Hallandale Beach, FL.
July 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


October 9, 2011 screen grab at 8: 45 p.m. by South Beach Hoosier.

Examine the headline in the lower-left corner above on the Miami Herald's Broward homepage -the fifth of eight headline links: Blackout of Miami Dolphins game averted.
(I have the entire article at bottom.)

October 9, 2011 screen grab at 8: 45 p.m. by South Beach Hoosier.
Blackout of Miami Dolphins game averted
The problem?
It was news on September 15th, not so much 25 days later, and is certainly NOT Breaking News NOW.
Well, at least it wouldn't considered as such at most reputable newspapers in this country, much less, ones of the Herald's purported circulation size.

But once again, the Herald is replicating the very problem I highlighted a few months ago in three separate blog posts.

In May, they notably ran a month-old political story about Donald Trump and had that listed on their Breaking News page FOUR WEEKS later, even after he'd already announced he wouldn't be running for president.
Sometimes, the Herald listed that Trump story as among the top-three Breaking News stories in South Florida.
Really.

See my three blog posts to refresh your memory on that reality check on the Herald's continuing bad judgment in peddling old stories as new or recent ones:

a.) May 16, 2011 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

b.) May 18, 2011 Donald Trump Redux is further proof of the Miami Herald's gross incompetency and fundamentally-flawed idea of (and coverage of) Broward County in 2011.

c.) July 21, 2011 Miami Herald grave robbers at it again! Herald's threadbare Broward homepage runs 15-day old story as Breaking News to fill-up space!

How does something that stupid happen?
And then happen again? And again?

Ask Jay Ducassi, the Herald's Local & State editor.

October 9, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Ducassi's the same person who bears the lion's share of responsibility for turning that section of the Herald into a never-ending series of embarrassment for Broward readers looking for news about the world they live in.
But down at Herald HQ at One Herald Plaza, Broward County is considered terra incognita, forever getting short-shrift, even though it represents 45% of the two-county population.
They don't care.

In most newspapers in this country, no matter small, Sunday's local section is usually full of stories and columns that are supposed to capture your attention and really make you think.
Pieces they've made a concerted effort to publish on Sunday to get the highest number of eyeballs reading them on the most-read newspaper day of the week.

It will come as no surprise to those of you living here that the Herald is NOT one of them, and hasn't been for years.
Guess who's responsible?

Today, with six pages of editorial in section B comprising the Local & State section, there is one story about Broward County issues, news or personalities actually written by Herald reporters or columnists in the newspaper.
One story.

And you know in advance that it isn't columnist Myriam Marquez, because if you had a dollar for all the things that she's written since joining the Herald years ago from the Orlando Sentinel that were of particular interest to Broward readers, you STILL couldn't buy the $5 foot long sub at Subways.

As I've stated previously, Marquez's column should be re-titled "South of the Border" and drop all the pretense that she's a general interest columnist the way we've all come to understand that concept, because what she's largely interested in 99% of the time, is solely what transpires between the Herald HQ on Biscayne Bay, west over to Westchester, Calle Ocho, Doral and Sweetwater, and then south towards Havana and Latin America,
The proof is in the pudding -her own columns.

Seriously, why in the year 2011 does McClatchy Company's Miami Herald STILL NOT have even one Broward-centric columnist?
Or even one smart, locally-based conservative columnist, even if that means hiring someone from out-of-state and and moving them here to be a voice for a perspective that's currently completely lacking?
Or an Education blog that runs real stories and tidbits, not just largely press releases from the School Board...
It's simple -they don't want to.

October 9, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

And this absence of Broward-related stories is far from an infrequent occurrence on Sundays.
Give the devil his due, though, Jay Ducassi is nothing if not consistent.

----

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/15/2409135/sunday-dolphins-blackout-averted.html

Posted on Thursday, 09.15.11
MIAMI DOLPHINS
Blackout of Miami Dolphins game averted
BY CRAIG DAVIS
SUN SENTINEL

It apparently took a cooperative effort between the Miami Dolphins and several sponsors to ensure that the 13-year streak of regular-season games on local television continues Sunday. The game against the Houston Texans will be broadcast throughout South Florida at 4:15 p.m. Sunday on CBS4 in Miami, the station confirmed.

The Dolphins have not made a formal announcement, but season-ticket holders reported receiving an automated phone call from Dolphins CEO Mike Dee stating that sponsors bought up the remaining tickets to avert a blackout. There reportedly were about 10,000 tickets remaining early Thursday.

The NFL's blackout policy, established in 1973, requires games be sold out 72 hours in advance or they are blacked out on stations with signals reaching within 75 miles of the game.

Sunday will mark the 103rd consecutive regular-season game on local television since an Oct. 18, 1998 game against the St. Louis Rams failed to sell out. However, two playoff games were blacked out since then: Jan. 13, 2002 against Baltimore and Dec. 30, 2000 against Indianapolis.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Miami Herald grave robbers at it again! Herald's threadbare Broward homepage runs 15-day old story as Breaking News to fill-up space!

Miami Herald vending machine in front of Denny's restaurant, Hallandale Beach, FL.
July 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier


Miami Herald grave robbers at it again!
Herald's threadbare Broward homepage runs 15-day old story as Breaking News to fill-up space!


Shades of 'The Donald Misdirection,' wherein the Miami Herald intentionally ran a weeks-old story about Donald Trump's consideration of a presidential run as "Breaking News" on their Broward homepage, sometimes as one of Top Three stories in all of Broward County, WEEKS after the story first appeared online, and, yes, WEEKS after he formally announced he would NOT run.


It didn't matter, though, the Herald desperately wanted eyeballs, so there that story stayed, day-and-night, day-after-day, week-after-week. Who needs editors!


I wrote about this subject the first time on May 16th in a post titled, 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, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/answer-its-about-donald-trump-question.html.


I then followed-up on May 18th due to continued grave robbing of old stories with a post titled, Donald Trump Redux is further proof of the Miami Herald's gross incompetency and fundamentally-flawed idea of (and coverage of) Broward County in 2011.




That the Herald is so oblivious to both reality and public perceptions, and continue to do such a piss-poor job of covering Broward County issues, personalities and trends in an intelligent fashion, not to mention, local government, that they have to resort to running old stories to fill-up the space that ought to be more properly filled with CURRENT stories on those subjects, tells you plenty about journalism as practiced by McClatchy's Miami Herald under publisher David Landsburg and executive editor Aminda "Mindy" Marques in the year 2011.


What do you call the anti-Pulitzer Prize?




Screenshot I captured this morning of Miami Herald's Broward homepage.



Do you see the link for the last story under Breaking News in the left-hand column?

Police: Woman’s body found in Hollywood pool

It's 15 days old!



Posted on Tuesday, 07.05.11

Police: Woman’s body found in Hollywood pool


Monday, May 16, 2011

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!

-----

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."

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The last time the Miami Herald mentioned Hallandale Beach City Hall's incompetency and antics was...

Despite all the self-evident cronyism, public corruption and intentional deceit emanating from the City Hall of this ocean-side city for years, the Miami Herald has sent a reporter to a City Commission meeting here just once since June of 2008.

For that dearth of coverage, while everything was going to hell, we can thank current Broward editor Jay Ducassi and his predecessor, Patricia Andrews.

What follows is an excerpt from the last item the Herald ran that dealt with actual governance in Hallandale Beach.
You remember August of last year, don't you?

Tiger Woods
and Sandra Bullock were, separately, happily married to their spouses, Tom Brady was poised to take the Patriots back to the Super Bowl after an injury, and the Florida Marlins were still fighting for a National League Wild-card spot.
And
Marco Rubio, whom I'd seen wow a crowd two months earlier, was trailing badly in state polls that South Florida's know-it-all reporters said proved Rubio simply didn't have the requisite experience and resources to beat a popular incumbent governor like Charlie Crist.
Some reporters even darkly hinted that it might be because he was Hispanic.

Hmm-m-m...


Miami Herald

POLITICAL BEAT
Monday, August 10, 2009
By Amy Sherman
HALLANDALE BEACH MINUTES APPROVED -- A FEW YEARS LATER

Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Keith London, often at odds with other city officials, cried foul at a meeting Wednesday as the commission approved meeting minutes as old as 2003.

"It seems a little bizarre to go back and approve minutes going back six years," said London, suggesting that the city is violating its own procedure about creating written minutes "as soon as practical."

London is also ticked that the city decided to publish brief minutes rather than a verbatim transcript. "They don't want people to know what's going on," he said in an interview.

At the meeting, acting City Clerk Shari Canada said her audit found some minutes that had yet to be officially approved. They included meetings where the commission sat as other city boards.

"The fact that they are tardy is of no legal consequence," city attorney David Jove said.


Mayor
Joy Cooper said if the public wants to review debate from meetings, anyone can come to City Hall and review the video.