Showing posts with label Kevin Gale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Gale. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

When Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper says "setting the record straight" in her "column" at the taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, grab your wallet or purse, and be prepared to endure self-serving, nonsensical rationalizations that fail both the logic and reality test

Above, the perpetually-ridiculed and taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, South Florida Sun-Times, with one of the most egregious and laughable front pages of the past few years -and that's saying something! August 30, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier(c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
With only 16 weeks to go until Election Day, what's the over-and-under on the number of times that the faux newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times, will place mayor and "columnist" Joy Cooper, Comm. Anthony A. Sanders or former Commissioner and occasional "columnist" William "Bill" Julian on the front page, knowing that if they aren't on the City Commission after November, there will be no more taxpayer dollars going to crony capitalist and propaganda sheet owner Craig Farquahar?


The whole enterprise is like one massive con job, designed to portray Cooper and her Runner Stamp Crew, as well as her clique of friends and hangers-on around town seem robust and civic-minded, instead of the combative, thin-skinned, not-so-bright and despotic autocrats they have repeatedly shown themselves to be. 


It's the most crass and craven sort of propaganda you can imagine, made worse by the fact that it's financed in part with Hallandale Beach taxpayers' dollars, a sytem of information control that Cooper, Ross, Julian, Sanders and Lewy all want to see continue as long as they can manage it, because the very last thing they want is a real community newspaper that is dedicated to factual reporting of what is -and isn't- going on here.
They positively hate THAT idea!


With this particular gang of nit-wits and overly-ambitious egos based on nothing but sandcastles, there's them and then there's everyone else.
There's their point-of-view and then there's, well, that's it.


October 1, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier(c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved 


It's one of the reasons that the faux paper doesn't post letters to the editor, online or in-print. 
They don't want to antagonize their bankers and partners in crime like Cooper, who, along with her husband, have threatened the fake newspaper's owner before for once having dared to print something by another Commissioner that was 100% true, but unflattering to Cooper and her thin-skinned ego.
Well, obviously, she couldn't let THAT slide!


So rather than simply take a deep breath and recognize that if you're a politician, no matter where, there will always be people who disagree with you or who genuinely dislike you, a fact that you have to accept, and one self-evident to people around the world -but not to the Coopers- their first reaction was to strike back and show everyone who was boss -them!


They actually forced the people running the fake newspaper to actually go out into the community and drive around at night to retrieve as many of the distributed copies of the issue as possible.
And to destroy them.
And to agree to never make reference to it again.
Or else!


Needless to say, the bully's threats worked.
That's Joy Cooper in a nutshell.


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In case you're new to this particular story, go back to these prior pieces that connect-the-dots:



February 16, 2012 Miami Herald's Fred Grimm weighs in -again- on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach and its sweetheart deal from HB City Hall to be a propaganda arm

FEBRUARY 14, 2012 More about Hallandale Beach's unscrupulo​us crony capitalism deal b/w the faux newspaper, the SFST, and Mayor Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...

FEBRUARY 14, 2012 Csaba Kulin on Hallandale Beach's crony capitalism deal with a fake newspaper that stands ethics on its head and takes CRA money in exchange for being a City Hall propaganda machine
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/above-september-12-2010-issue-of.html

South Florida Business Journal
Why fight City Hall when you get a handout?
by Kevin Gale, Editor in Chief
Friday, February 10, 2012, 12:10pm 
EST
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2012/02/why-fight-city-hall-when-you-get-a.html

Sweet deal for owners of Hallandale newspaper that features mayor as columnist
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
February 9, 2012 at 6:11 AM

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

More about Hallandale Beach's unscrupulo​us crony capitalism deal b/w the faux newspaper, the SFST, and Mayor Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...

 Above, a photo I took back on October 8, 2010 of the never-ending embarrassment...  for us as Hallandale Beach taxpayers and the world of journalism.
Below, a copy of the email that I wrote and sent out last Friday to the Usual Suspects thoughout South Florida and journalism watering holes in the U.S. and elsewhere.


Sixteen months ago, I wrote the following on my blog, just one of many over the years on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach. My biggest problem wasn't writing it, of course, but rather trying to decide which was THE most outlandish and absurd front page of the dozens they've run that I've kept...

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010
Csaba Kulin's common sense take on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach that gobbles up taxpayer funds, the South Florida Sun Times



It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous, self-serving and un-true headline than this one from August 13, 2009 in the faux community newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times: AHEAD OF THE GAME: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper continues to do the job residents elected her to do -once again!

Read the rest of my post above at:http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/csaba-kulins-common-sense-take-on-faux.html

That followed by five months the effort to create...
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2009

Hallandale Beach insiders to offer goodies/new propaganda TV channel to HB City Hall for $200k CRA loan Wed. morning.

As you'll recall above, despite NOT meeting most of the very-low standards the city usually required for a loan, the loan was made... more money down the drain!
That eye-opening post of mine from almsot three years ago is at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/hallandale-beach-insiders-to-offer.html

I'm planning on posting some more incriminating info about the SFST in a few days on my blog, possibly including some eye-opening video I still have from 2010 that makes clear how steadfast and stuuborn HB City Hall remains in trying to funnel money to people who, as I'll show, couldn't even do the one thing they needed to consistently do -reliably inform the people of this community.

That info will be news to most of you in Southeast broward and elsewhere I think, since what was in the Broward Bulldog and then the Miami Herald last Thursday is, as some of you already know, just the tip of the iceberg on this story about the mayor's ambition and desire to always get her way being subsidized by taxpayers dollars -yours.

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/02/sweet-deal-for-owners-of-hallandale-newspaper-that-features-mayor-as-columnist/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633582/hallandale-beach-newspaper-gets.html Make sure you read the comments!

Below, more on Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...
I was going to say Nancy Drew, but of course Nancy Drew in her stint as a reporter in the 1940's film series tried to bring facts to light, not to bury them; she cleared a girl of murder, after all.

http://www.archive.org/details/nancy_drew_reporter

Also, Nancy Drew never threatened a "publisher" before like the mayor and her husband did a few years ago when, out-of-the-blue, something true-but-unflattering about her somehow wound-up in the faux newspaper.

Again, I remind you, that something was true-but-unflattering, but as we all know, the mayor really hates hearing Inconvenient Facts, whether from me or any other citizen paying close attention to what's going on -or isn't- right in front of us, so, as you'd expect, she and her husband went to the "newspaper's" office and went ballistic.
They demanded that... well, that's the part of the story still to come.

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I also commend to you the following piece as well on the blatant disregard for fairness and journalism ethics.

South Florida Business Journal
Why fight City Hall when you get a h andout?
by Kevin Gale, Editor in Chief
Friday, February 10, 2012, 12:10pm
EST
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2012/02/why-fight-city-hall-when-you-get-a.html

If you have a Facebook account, you can leave a comment... I don't, so can't.

See this mention of our mayor from last month...http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2012/01/occupy-protest-leads-arrest-assault-officer/165117

And in case you forgot one of the previous Joy Cooper crony capitalism deals with the faux
newspaper... I still have a copy of the letter and envelope that was sent out on HB City Hall
stationary to try to drum up business for a fake newspaper that nobody trusts or believes.


http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/850227.html
Miami Herald
Mayor, paper are very cozy in Hallandale
By Fred Grimm
January 13, 2009

It pays to be nice.
If only The Miami Herald had been a little nicer, a little more accommodating, a little less critical, some grateful mayor might be sending out swell letters to our potential advertisers.
Consider the South Florida Sun-Times in Hallandale Beach. A nice weekly paper. Very nice. Self-consciously nice. ''We do mostly positive stories. We don't do a lot of negative,'' Sun-Times President Craig Farquhar said.
No nasty (or otherwise) letters to the editor. (Too bad, given that Hallandale Beach residents are both literate and famously contentious. Their letters would liven up any newspaper.)
The Sun-Times (circulation about 55,000) especially eschews articles critical of the mayor of Hallandale Beach. Not exactly what you'd call a media watchdog when it comes to local government. More like a lapdog.
But niceness pays off. Last month, a surprising letter was mailed out to city businesses on official Hallandale Beach city stationery: ''Just about everyone is feeling the effects of the economy and doing what we can to get through tough times. In an effort to promote and support local businesses, the city encourages all businesses to advertise in the city's only local newspaper.'' The letter was signed by both Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Goode.



LETTER STARTLING
For an old newspaper guy, who harbors an almost religious reverence for the contentious relationship between journalism and government, it was a startling read.
For Jeanne Roonoe, a businesswoman who has owned Dixie Top Shop down on Dixie Highway for 28 years, it was startling for other reasons. ''For one thing, the city mailed out these letters using first-class mail instead of bulk mail.'' But mostly she wondered why, when so many businesses are hurting, ``the city singled out just one to help.''
Because it pays to be accommodating. The Sun-Times runs a weekly column by Mayor Cooper. City Commissioner Keith London, often at odds with the mayor, claims that the paper refuses to print contrary opinions from him.
In particular, last fall after the mayor ran a column critical of a lawsuit London had filed against the city, the newspaper refused to publish the city commissioner's response. ''We chose not to run his article. We choose not to run lots of stories from people,'' Farquhar said.



SWEET DEAL
London, using Freedom of Information requests to pry the information out of City Hall, found that Hallandale Beach city government spent $18,500 buying ads in the Sun-Times over the past two years. The commissioner suggests that the newspaper, at city expense, has become a kind of unfiltered house organ for the mayor's office.
(However, to be fair, Mayor Cooper's latest column is not exactly a scintillating read. Not a whiff of controversy. No political attacks. No mention of her blood enemy Keith London.)
Mayor Cooper told the Sun-Sentinel that in exchange for the letters to potential advertisers, she expected stories in the Sun-Times that would ``promote the city.''
That happened to be the same term employed by the very nice president of the Sun-Times. ''We all have to work together to promote the city and business,'' Farquhar told me Monday.
Not that I have anything against being nice, even to mayors. It's just a peculiar ethos for a newspaper.


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I only wish the South Florida news media had taken this whole embarrassing situation more seriously when I knew about it and was writing about it before they were.
I constantly contacted all four English-speaking TV stations and both the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel with the pertinent facts, delivering it on a silver platter with all dots already connected, but as you know if you read my posts at the time, the local news media just didn't care.
Not a whit.

All of which makes this sudden media interest in a longstanding situation that HB taxpayers have had to live with for years, now seem rather curious to lots of well-informed people I know and interact with regularly.
Adminstrators and elected officials from other cities and up at Broward County Govt. HQ and regular taxpayer citizens.
They all wonder why the concerns of HB residents didn't matter to the news media when it might've done some good.
It's a little after-the-fact, now.