Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly

Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! 
They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly

CNN asks 'what should be main focus of US govt in dealing with immigration policy?' 62% say security, 36% say path to citizenship.
— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 18, 2013

Each one is a complicit member of the Hear No Evil/See No Evil/Speak No Evil reporting crew at the Miami Herald's feeble third-tier political blog, Naked Politics, that has completely ignored anything and everything over the past week about the furor erupting from Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill, S.744, i.e. Rubio's Folly, 

.@marcorubio: I'm for the fence & visa tracking but I voted against req'ing them. http://t.co/XGTIks1qYX #immigration
— FAIR (@FAIRImmigration) June 18, 2013

.@MarkSKrikorian @NRO What about name of the aide who falsely denied quote was accurate? Oh right, we know his name= @alexconant
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) June 18, 2013

The influential piece which featured Rubio aide Alex Conant saying something controversial that won't win him any friends in Northwest Miami, and which has been discussed and analyzed in hundreds of national websites and blogs, but NOT in the main newspaper or political blog of the city where Rubio is from and the state that he represents in Washington. 
Not sure how I can make that any simpler for those of you who are late arrivals to the blog on this story.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/


Conant doesn't mention that he's in the center of the storm:
https://twitter.com/AlexConant
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/politics/stealth-campaign-from-the-white-house-for-an-immigration-bill.html

As of 4 p.m. today, as these links prove, there NADA for the sixth day in a row in the Herald.
How do you simply ignore the story and pretend that nobody is noticing what you're doing?
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Ryan+Lizza

And as for Rubio's new penchant for continually talking but never actually explaining, nothing has changed at his Twitter account since I mentioned this matter on Wednesday

@marcorubio https://twitter.com/marcorubio/with_replies

There's still nothing new there since June 7th about anything, and nothing in over a month on immigration.

Hmm-m...

How does Marco Rubio fire his brain? Seems an almost philosophical conundrum.
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) June 18, 2013

Not a good move 4 Rubio camp 2 trash @ryanlizza (4 what was basically a positive piece). @AlexConant pays the price http://t.co/NRG0qaYaqc
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) June 17, 2013

There's a very good reason why I've hardly ever mentioned that blog on these pages, and it has everything to do with them ignoring so much news everyday that would be news in others cities, that Naked Politics is perhaps the least important media political blog on the entire East Coast of the United States.
Really.

Even in Miami, with its traditionally low standards for performance and competency, they don't give awards to professional reporters who go out of their way to ignore timely and relevant news about important public policy issues. 
But that's exactly what has taken place the past six days.

In fact, the Tampa Bay Times broke their own news blackout on the Lizza & Rubio story on Tuesday by running something by Alex Leary on their far-superior but-still very liberal political blog, The Buzz, which I mentioned her the other day and linked to.

But despite the fact that most of the best blog pieces on the Herald's site are from the West Coast, the Herald editors have consciously chosen NOT to post that story even though it's the most-important one of the week.
The same way they buried the Jeb Bush appearance that fell flat earlier in the week

The next time that you are somewhere in Florida and spot one one these reporters or Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marques or Managing Editor Rick Hirsch, walk right up to them and ask them why they were so afraid of printing the truth, and were content being seen as stooges.

With all the amazing technology in the world that makes it easier than ever before for a reporter to do their job well, these particular Herald reporters are ostriches who put their heads firmly in the sand and wait for it all the uproar to be over.

And then, MAYBE, just maybe, Marc Caputo will write another one of his famous after-the-fact pieces that are painfully defensive in nature, and totally unpersuasive on the facts, which here, could not be more clear that the herald has shirked their responsibilities.
Yes, if they gave a Pulitzer Prize for THAT, Caputo and the Herald would be standing pretty every year..

.@TGowdySC on why enforcing immigration laws is so important in reform. #ITL
http://t.co/R7FyNQNUZ5
— Betty Liu (@BettyInTheLoop) June 19, 2013

The Schumer-Rubio merit-based immigration farce

http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-schumer-rubio-merit-based-immigration-farce/article/2532223

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Ryan+Lizza

@marcorubio https://twitter.com/marcorubio/with_replies

@RyanLizza https://twitter.com/RyanLizza

More tangible proof of how reluctant the news media in South Florida is to directly challenge Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and report negative news stories about her, even when there's lots of facts to back it up, including court documents. And, how desperate DWS was to have a new FL-23 that was loaded with as many Jewish voters as possible, regardless of what Broward voters actually wanted: Fair Districts

More tangible proof of how reluctant the news media in South Florida is to directly challenge Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and report negative news stories about her, even when there's lots of facts to back it up, including court documents.

Romo v. Scott court documents prove that my friends and I live in one of “the most gerrymandered congressional districts” in the U.S., FL-23, in large part because Rep.  Debbie Wasserman-Schultz laughs privately at the high-minded rhetoric of and expressed angst of Fair Districts proponents, as well as the Florida League of Women Voters, Common Cause Florida and La Raza.

She's just smart enough not to laugh at them publicly where she can be caught on camera engaging in her hypocrisy.

Despite all the proof in the world that the South Florida news media is ignoring this court case up in Tallahassee, the actual facts of this case prove rather conclusively, as I have argued and previously written here over the past few years, that regardless of the sentiment of voters, DWS wanted an un-competitive and unfair Congressional District drawn up that was loaded with as many Jewish voters as possible.

For more on that, see my November 22, 2011 blog post titled, No Fair Districts here: Surprise! NAACP's proposed 2012 map keeps HB & Hollywood divided: Blacks given to Frederica Wilson, Jews to DWS; told ya!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-fair-districts-here-surprise-naacps.html

She wanted that even if that meant intentionally dividing counties, towns or precincts rather than keeping them intact, as FairDistrictsFlorida.org and Good Govt. types publicly argued for in their public redistricting campaigns of 2011-2012 for Amendment 6, which passed overwhelmingly.

But DWS didn't care a whit about what the voters of Florida and Broward wanted, she wanted a congressional district that required little personal presence or high-maintenance.

A CD which would allow her to continue to remain a prominent National Democrat figure who could fly around the country giving speeches and raising money -and appearing on TV!- NOT be burdened by old-fashioned notions of public service or or even parochial concerns like re-election.

DWS wanted what she wanted and she wanted it badly, regardless of the fact that the overwhelming majority of voters in Florida, Broward County and her own district wanted Fair Districts with reasonable standards. 
Period.

Now we know how badly she wanted it.

To configure a fanciful map to her personal liking, one that ignored the interests of citizens wanting to NOT be divided by race or ethnicity or see their community's historical integrity
sub-divided, required her & consultants and allies "to scoop as many Jews out of Tamarac and Sunrise as they can” to quote emails of Democratic Party consultants that have been released

So that's exactly what DWS did, with the stealthy cooperation of other powerful Broward Democratic pols. 

So why is the South Florida news media ignoring this? 

And, the Florida League of Women Voters, its Broward chapter and Common Cause Florida? 

Why are they so quiet about having been played for suckers by DWS and her pals?

Washington Free Beacon
Gerrymanders Gone Wild
Dem congressmen oversaw Florida gerrymander, emails reveal 
By C.J. Ciaramella
April 5, 2013 3:29 pm

Florida Democrats coordinated with national party organizations and consultants in early 2012 to gerrymander congressional districts despite a state ban on such activities, emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The top state and national party leaders, including Florida congressmen Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ted Deutsch, and Alecee Hastings, signed off on the gerrymandered maps, according to the emails released during court discovery in Romo v. Scott, a legal challenge to redistricting maps that the GOP-controlled state legislature approved in 2012.

Read the rest of the article, complete with the damning emails at:

http://freebeacon.com/gerrymanders-gone-wild/

This bit of news closely followed three weeks later with something we'd first read at Sunshine State News on March 19th, below, which we found interesting enough to send its link it along to some friends around the state as a sign that there was much more here than first meets the eye.

Unfortunately and yet typically, the South Florida news media was doing their best to avoid reporting on, you know, like real facts from real emails that get to the heart of the matter.

But then you already know from what I've written here so many times previously, with specific examples, how the South Florida new media is cowed by DWS and will literally jump on a thrown hand-grenade for her, in order to stay on her good side, especially the reporters and management at the Sun-Sentinel.

Wasserman Schultz, Nan Rich, Rod Smith Tried to Gerrymander; Blamed GOP for Doing Same
By Eric Giunta
Posted: March 19, 2013 3:55 AM

Court documents obtained by Sunshine State News show that top Florida Democrats were involved in just the sort of activity they are accusing Republicans of: gerrymandering districts to increase their candidates' electoral prospects.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/debbie-wasserman-schultz-nan-rich-rod-smith-tried-gerrymander-blamed-gop-doing-same

Curiously, at least to me, Mary Ellen Klas of the Times/Herald, subject of this post
wrote on February 4th about the facts that had emerged thus far with the GOP's efforts to ensure more GOP districts within the Sunshine State,

Emails show legislative staff and RPOF talked about redistricting despite ban

Mary Ellen Klas, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau

Monday, February 4, 2013 7:12pm

Florida’s legislative leaders appear to have authorized their staff to use private email accounts, secret “dropboxes” and to engage in “brainstorming meetings” with Republican Party of Florida consultants in attempting to draw favorable political districts, despite a constitutional ban on such coordination. 

The allegations arise from a lawsuit challenging the Senate and congressional redistricting that include emails showing how top deputies of Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and several of Gaetz’s consultants were in frequent contact with consultants who drafted and analyzed maps. Redistricting is done every 10 years to redraw boundaries of legislative and congresssional districts to ensure equal representation.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/emails-show-legislative-staff-and-rpof-talked-about-redistricting-despite-ban/2105386

But Klas has written nothing at all in the two intervening months about the more recent documents released that have proven so revealing about the facts and intentions of Democrats Nan Rich, Alcee Hastings, Ted Deutsch and DWS, even while the Miami Herald's Marc Caputo has.


Naked Politics blog
Miami Herald
Insider emails show FL Democrats wanted to gerrymander redistricting just like GOP
By Marc A. Caputo
March 5, 2013

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/03/insider-emails-show-fl-democrats-tried-to-gerrymander-redistricting-just-like-gop.html##storylink=cpy

Florida Democrats plotted with top leaders and consultants to redraw congressional districts to benefit their party, according to new court records that show they were just as interested in gerrymandering as Republicans.

Democratic-leaning groups are challenging the new congressional maps in court, saying Republicans broke a state constitutional amendment by drawing districts that favored or disfavored political parties and incumbents.

Read the rest of the post at: 
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/03/insider-emails-show-fl-democrats-tried-to-gerrymander-redistricting-just-like-gop.html#more

Why the disparity in coverage by Klaas?

Just so you know, I've spend some time researching and now can tell you how many original news stories on the facts involved in the Romo v. Scott court case have actually appeared in the news media of her Congressional District, and specifically what DWS did.

And by original, I mean something created or produced by the actual staff of those media organizations, not the Associated Press dispatches they throw on their websites that few readers or viewers ever see:

CBS-4, NBC6, Channel 7(Fox) and Channel 10 (ABC) or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: ZERO.
Not just ZERO each, ZERO collectively.

Welcome to the not-so-curious world of the South Florida news media of 2013! 

Not so much watchdogs as lapdogs, esp. when it comes to DWS.

Since they aren't inclined towards doing any old-fashioned reporting on this subject, here's a good place to start:
http://redistricting.lls.edu/cases-FL.php#FL

As for FairDistrictsFlorida.org, whom I became very publicly disillusioned with last year after they completely failed to prepare to hold or co-host any sort of public forum in Broward County prior to visits by the traveling Florida Senate Redistricting Committee, you can see their comments here: http://www.fairdistrictsnow.org/home/
I no longer trust what they say -just like I don't trust anything said by DWS.