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!

-----

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/13/2165204/donald-trump-to-push-gop-2012.html

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."

Wash. Post story highlights fallacy of open-mindedness among some MSM and their websites: Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected by TheRoots.com

A simple headline in the Washington Post -"Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected"- highlights the fallacy of free-flowing, open-minded political and philosophical debate on public policy matters among some MSM and their niche websites, in this particular case, TheRoots.com.
Free-flowing, open-minded political and philosophical debate is great until someone or something they like is gored, then, the principles -and principals- are tossed overboard.

Strangely enough, that's the Miami Herald's longstanding M.O., too, as I've regularly opined from this perch.

-------

The Washington Post
Negative review of Malcolm X bio is rejected
By David Montgomery,
Thursday, April 14, 8:19 PM

A blistering review of historian Manning Marable’s best-selling new biography of Malcolm X was rejected this week by ­TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine devoted to African American perspectives whose editor in chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., is an admirer of Marable’s work.

" 'Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention’ is an abomination,” wrote reviewer Karl Evanzz. “It is a cavalcade of innuendo and logical fallacy, and is largely reinvented from previous works on the subject.”

Evanzz, a former Washington Post news researcher and author of a book on Malcolm X’s assassination, continued in that vein for more than 2,000 words.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/negative-review-of-malcolm-x-bio-is-rejected/2010/11/18/AFM9zUfD_story.html

As of 1 a.m. Saturday morning, a little more than 27 hours after it was first put on the the WaPo's website, guess how many other media outlets have deigned to even mention the controversy over a book review of a book on Malcolm X?

Well, there's the Washington Post and there's mediabistro.com and...
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/malcolm-x-biography-review-generates-controversy_b27912

Two if you count mediabistro's précis of the WaPo story.
That's the whole list!

Of course, in some ways, if you want to take the long view, it's weird to even talk about book reviews in a place like South Florida, given that for so long, the Miami Herald has been a shadow of what it once was in the 1970's with regard to serious literary criticism.

Back when I was a teenager attending JFK Jr. High and then North Miami Beach Senior High, I was a big fan of Jonathan Yardley's work, before he fled to the comfy confines of The Beltway, Baltimore and the WaPo.

There, he continued to write so many memorable things about culture, sports, Charm City, and the interplay of ideas, media and pop culture that he earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 while I was up at IU, where I read the WaPo down in the basement floor of the IU Library, where it and all the interesting out-of-town and foreign newspapers and magazines were kept, and where the A/C was always 'just right.'

Once I moved to the D.C. area myself, he was, of course, among the handful of reporters, columnists and critics that my friends and I routinely discussed at some point when we got together, since many of us cut his essays from the newspaper and discussed the ideas in them amongst ourselves, whether out in the bleachers at Camden Yards or while walking around Georgetown or Old Town Alexandria, doing something on The Mall, or eating somewhere between Baltimore and Charlottesville.

Those high-minded and often lengthy talks amongst my smart, clever and well-informed friends, back when the newspapers were forever writing about 'salons,' are one of the things that I miss most about being in South Florida, which is perhaps why I over-do things a bit in my lengthy emails hereabouts.

Though almost everyone I know down here is much less busy than my friends up there, the ones down here all think they have less time to get together, which I suspect is why it's harder to make friends for some people once they move down here -people here are just more easily distracted, but not actually busier doing something.

Plus, well, everything percolating in the rest of the country, whether good or bad, always seemed so much more tangible when I lived in Washington.
"A" because it was, but "B," because I knew so many people from elsewhere who had reason to fly around a lot more than is the case here, and share what they saw with us upon their return.

Here, now, I'm constantly reminded of the parallels between how far away from reality and the honest discussion of ideas I sensed South Florida was when I was growing-up down here before cable TV, and my new reality.

Before there was an Internet, or should I say, before I first had my first email account, Hotmail, about 15 years ago, once my best friend Shannon left D.C. for Japan, I routinely made multiple copies of the columnists that I liked most over at the Kinko's in Georgetown or Capitol Hill, and then walked over to the nearby Post Office and sent them out in my frequent letters to friends around the country.
My initial Distribution List!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/25/LI2005032502370.html



C-SPAN: 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C.
Francis Fukuyama challenges his former professor, Samuel P. Huntington, about Fundamentals of The Clash of Civilizations.
http://youtu.be/zS-tSbZh6eQ


(Seriously, does anyone even STILL read that Herald section they call Tropical Life anymore? The very place where serious discussion of big ideas about South Florida's future should be taking place, with plenty of give and take, given the feeble Herald Op-Ed page. It's terrible!!!)

Not that the Herald's output then was ever great, but it was at least pretty good, most of the time, and was both well-intentioned and aiming for something higher than merely placating the locals who rubbed shoulders with the Knight-Ridder execs downtown.

More recently, though, it has been the sort of place where serious books that run counter to the upside-down world of the Miami Herald's past and present Editorial Board, seem NOT to get reviewed, even when they are national best-sellers and the subject of multiple TV chat shows and news magazine profiles.

The best example of this since I returned to South Florida would have to be Samuel P. Huntington and his The Clash of Civilizations, a book of sufficient importance and original thought as to be discussed regularly among serious public policy players, and referenced over-and-over again in myriad essays appearing in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and the New York Review of Books, to name but three
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/samuel-p-huntington

But not one review or unbiased article about that book ever appeared in the Miami Herald that could explain why the book struck a chord and was so popular with so many Americans.

I know this with certainty because I not only was constantly on the search for such an article or essay, but at various times when I noticed this intentional avoidance taking place, checked and then double-checked the Herald's own archives.
Then after having gained that recon, I had Herald reporters I knew triple-check, using internal Herald search methods I couldn't employ.

In each case, to their credit, these Herald reporters grudgingly confirmed what I already knew:
that it appeared that the Herald's management seemed to be going out of its way to make sure the Huntington book -and their like- was never mentioned in a neutral or positive way in print.

(I recounted this story to great effect as a guest at a forum on U.S. immigration policy and demographics in Coral Gables at the University of Miami's Bank United Center a few years ago.
Recalling it now makes me think that in the near future, I need to share some of the thoughts of the invited panelists here, as well as my pointed retorts attacking many of the very naive and self-serving comments expressed by some of the pro-amnesty panelists, inc. a prominent 'Usual Suspect' of the Herald, Cheryl Little of FIAC. http://www.fiacfla.org/

Those comments delighted many in the crowd, who came up to me after the event and told me how pleased they were that someone had thrown cold-water on those absurd falsehoods being spread as if they were true, and some even admitted that they had wondered about some of the same things for years, too.
I told 'em that they should start a blog, too, and add their own voice to the rule of reason and logic.)

Locally, the findings of those books (and their authors) are/were continually publicly vilified by the Herald's Latin America-centric columnists, who didn't like them because they directly challenged -head-on- their self-evident rose-colored views of Latin America.

Turns out that most Americans, but esp. those NOT living near large centers of Hispanics, DIDN'T agree with the Herald's apologists for any and all things Latin American, a perspective that still exists at the newspaper and which is just as intellectually dishonest as it ever was, resting as it does on a house of cards.

---
Upcoming HBB posts

Due to some time constraints caused by some family health matters I've had to deal with for a while, some posts in draft on some of these matters, the Herald's invisible coverage of Broward County and fixation on all things Latin America, esp. illegal immigration and efforts in Washington Tallahassee to enact policies and laws that are more in line with what the vast majority of Americans and Floridians want -NOT amnesty- have not yet been posted.

There's one post in particular about what the Herald completely ignored about Obama's trip to Brazil that will both surprise you, and yet, surprise you not at all, since the articles in the paper that appeared on that trip read like they were written by Obama staffers.

That'll also include pieces on the Herald's longstanding Patricia Mazzei problem, a problem for the paper's readers which shows absolutely no sign of ending, even while she's writing up in Tallahassee. With Mazzei, there's simply so much evidence that proves my point, my problem has been selecting which of several dozen articles she's written to choose from that highlight her unsatisfactory and one-sided reporting of "news."

Many of you readers in South Florida have even written me back that you have remembered these examples of hers as well, after I brought them to your attention again via emails.

There will also be a piece on the recent completely unsatisfactory performance of the paper's sports section on one of the most important sports weekends of the year, something which I discussed already with many of you out there in the blogosphere via email.

Yes, the photos will tell the story, and what pathetic stories they will tell.
Likely, this week.

Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!

Per Miami Herald Losing Chief Political Reporter Beth Reinhard To National Journal
Miami NewTimes By Tim Elfrink,
Thursday, September 2 2010 @ 1:39PM
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/09/herald_losing_chief_political.php

It's only my opinion, but from my own perspective and experience, the Miami Herald's Beth Reinhard can't leave South Florida soon enough.

I know that makes some of you laugh because you know I thought THAT was the case years ago, too. Know that I'd have been only too happy to drive her to the train station to split town if people down here actually took trains.
You're right -it's a long time coming.

But long-frustrated Miami Herald readers finally have a reason to cheer.

Reinhard's oh-so predictable and often deadly-dull Conventional Wisdom take on the passing political scene may've been fine for the Quad Cities in 1966, but among other fatal flaws, she seem handcuffed to the "Usual Suspects," forever quoting the same handful of people with motives she never bothered to reveal.

(And yes, I've been to the Quad Cities area in Iowa, too, spending a week there in Davenport, driving over from Chicago for business in 1987. One night, when I couldn't fall asleep in my hotel room, I went for a walk around midnight, eventually crossing the Rock Island Centennial Bridge (U.S.-67) over the Mississippi River from Davenport to Rock Island.

I was NOT expecting that the bridge sidewalk would be mesh-like metal, since that meant I couldn't look down, otherwise it would have caused me to get dizzy over the water.
It was a VERY weird sensation to walk across the bridge at that hour and just stand there in the middle for 15-20 minutes and think of all the history that has gone past you and below you.

I eventually ate at an IHOP or diner in Rock Island and got back to my hotel room in Davenport around 3:30 a.m. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Island_Centennial_Bridge

I also visited the great minor league ballpark there on the River, then called John O'Donnell Stadium when Quad Cities was a Cubs affiliate. It's now called Modern Woodmen Park and home of the Cardinals' farm team, the River Bandits.
Look at the photos! The Marlins would be lucky to have a view like the one over first base.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/team1/page.jsp?ymd=20080606&content_id=410802&vkey=team1_t565&fext=.jsp&sid=t565)

It's no wonder that seasoned political reporters and columnists from outside of Florida, including some I know, were always mystified when they came down here and got a chance to read more than one example of the Reinhard Method, or to hear her talk on TV or radio.

It's not like they expected a patrician David Broder clone or an intellectual David Frum-type would be the leading political reporter at the Herald, since this is Miami, after all, the anti-wonk capital, but they were in no way prepared to see that things were just -as bad- as I had described in phone calls or emails about how little respect or column inches Broward County rated.
They thought I'd always been exaggerating.
Nope.

Earlier this year, after one such reporter friend had visited South Florida and had absorbed some sun and digested some bon mots de Reinhard, and returned home, she emailed me that she's sure that Reinhard probably has some special talent that we're just not privy to.

I replied that could be true but that her writing speaks for itself -mediocre and uninspiring.

Try hard to think of a column or article of her's that questioned the South Florida version of CW, or tried to get to the heart of a matter thru an unconventional approach.
Or even the last time you cut one of her article/columns out of the paper?

You can't, and like 99% of all Herald readers, once you saw the headline of one of her stories, and even more so, of one of her columns, you knew exactly what to expect.

The whole thing was telegraphed because you know she has such a small bag of tricks in her arsenal.
Plus, she never ever surprises you.

Thus, Reinhard never ever veered from her connect-the-dots script, including her failed attempts to seem like a self-effacing Tina Fey at times when it wasn't called for and only served to distract.

Reinhard was too easily pacified and seduced by CW and too often seemed pleased with herself for peddling the mundane.
She was like a slightly less-mean-spirited Tracy Flick, but failed to see the truly compelling stories all around us down here because then she'd have had to leave her comfort zone.
She didn't want to.

That so many people wouldn't return her phone calls, as she recently wrote about Marco Rubio, whom I like and will vote for but who clearly is not without his flaws, may, in fact, not be a result of their not liking what she wrote and actually be something simpler: people feeling that far too often, Reinhard had burned them.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/13/1775520/reinhard-rich-political-novices.html

That she called with the article already written in her head, and wasn't open to actually listening to their side or perspective and perhaps re-questioning her original aim with a story.
Facts should matter at least once in a while, shouldn't they?

Seriously, why would you call someone back, much less a reporter, if they won't listen to what you say, and just want to steamroll you about some topic, regardless of what it is?
You doubtless do it all the time with friends and relatives -I know I do.
Why should others be any different?

Reinhard's worst sins in my book was her low-hanging fruit sense of journalism and consistent lack of curiosity, as she failed over-and-over to give readers the sort of insight into some pol or official's motives and outlook that would be helpful to readers in understanding them, and what was going on policy-wise in anti-wonk South Florida.

It was sometimes like she was the daughter of the Beacon Council, the Chamber of Commerce and the Knight Foundation, and only wanted to please already-powerful people.
She'd tut-tut them, perhaps, but always like a loving daughter reproaching her father for something he's wearing that embarrasses her.

I didn't need every article of her's to be like a fascinating Vanity Fair profile from the early-to-mid 1990's under Clinton, but one every few YEARS might've been nice!

(Or maybe I was just spoiled by 15 years of daily reading the WaPo's Style section from 1988-2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/style/)

Seriously, after all this time, do Herald readers now have any added insight from her into why Meek, Crist or Rubio are the way they are and do what they do?

No, which is why out-of-town/national reporters so consistently seem to get to the heart of a local matter, general sense of mood or pierce a local/state political personality's facade when they drop in, yet she's always... what exactly?

(Compare anything of hers to Tim Padgett's fabulous TIME article exactly one year ago on the State of Florida, Behind Florida's Exodus: Rising Taxes, Political Ineptitude

There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.

And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919916,00.html Though Hoosier-born Tim lives in Miami as Bureau Chief, it's the same principle.)

Rubio and Meek are both from South Florida, but despite all this proximity, Reinhard has added zero to the mix in our understanding of them or what they might do.

As I've written numerous on my blog about the media coverage of the FL-17 congressional race,
her writing about it was perhaps the best example of her lack of curiosity and imagination: dreadful writing of the sort that you'd expect from a mediocre Junior College newspaper you pick up out of boredom while waiting around for your pick-up order at a Kinko's.

The one congressional seat in South Florida that we knew last year would result in sending a 'new face' to Washington would seem like a great opportunity to re-examine some longstanding ideas about this area, and the CD that stretches from Liberty City to Hollywood, including where I live in Hallandale Beach, not far from Gulfstream Park Race Track.

Instead, there was hardly any reasonable coverage of it to speak of until a week before the election, and by then, it was written not by Reinhard but Patricia Mazzei, who's what, five years out of college?
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/17/1778997/9-seek-rare-house-seat-replacing.html

Why is the least-experienced reporter writing about THE most important local congressional race in greater Miami?

That's why it's the Herald.

Galling Geller Gambit II: Gary Plancher of Davie running against Ann Murray for Broward School Board seat -HERE

My comments follow these two blog posts on prospective
candidates for the Broward School Board, though for
a change, Lauren Book is not mentioned in either one.

Because the Herald doesn't have an Education
blog, the first one ran last Wednesday in their political
blog instead, a constant criticism of mine, while Buddy
Nevins advances the curious case of Gary Planchar
in Wednesday's Broward Beat.
---------
Miami Herald
Naked Politics blog
By Patricia Mazzei
April 7, 2010

Until this week, only one of the four Broward School Board members seeking reelection had drawn an opponent: Laurie Rich Levinson had filed to run against Phyllis Hope.

Then Bob Parks drew a challenger for the first time in 12 years in Nora Rupert, a teacher at Piper High School. And now Ann Murray is being challenged by Gary Plancher of Davie. Murray, who was elected in 2008, represents the Southeast Broward district that includes Hollywood and Hallandale.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/04/broward-school-board-candidates-keep-rolling-in.html


Broward Beat
Applaude Two Board Members; Boo Bob Parks
By Buddy Nevins

Two School Board incumbents are doing something unusual – raising no money for their re-election.

Meanwhile, long-time School Board member Bob Parks has the usual suspects pouring money into his campaign.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/applaude-two-board-members-boo-bob-parks/


I have never heard of Plancher, and neither, apparently,
a week after the fact, has anyone else I know in Broward
County.

But within a few minutes, I was able to discover that
Plancher, who lives in Davie, wrote the comments
at the bottom of this post about Anthony Man's
Sun-Sentinel article from last November, below,
which gives you some keen insight(!) into candidate
Plancher's views of residency rules and representing
constituents.

He appears to be for whatever is best for him, rules
or no rules.

As I've been mentioning since last year, County
Commission candidate Steve Geller lives in
Cooper City, yet is running for a District he doesn't
actually live in -ours- and now, Plancher is
mimicking this galling Geller gambit, daring news
reporters to ask him about it or mention it in print
or TV.
They don't.

He's seen over a period of many months that
there is no apparent downside to doing this,
despite Mitch Caesar's crocodile tears, but
then again, Plancher's NOT the go-to
quote-meister for all occasions for South Florida's
news media that Geller has, unfortunately, become,
especially for the Sun-Sentinel, where he is
relentlessly quoted regardless of how little he
actually knows about a particular subject.

I found this info on Plancher on a Broward
College website in seconds
http://www.broward.edu/ext/MWBE_Vendor.jsp?cat=&psid=A2

Seriously, how lucky is Ann Murray to draw an
opponent like this instead of the savvy, serious challenger
that she truly deserves -who actually lives here-
who will go right at her and her dismal track record
with some vigor?

As you all know by now, I believe that track record is
a woeful one, given what Murray herself continually
said she'd do and be if elected: a pro-reform voice,
not an echo of the status quo.

She's been well-nigh invisible in Hallandale Beach
since being appointed and then elected for the
remainder of Eleanor Sobel's unfinished term,
and has done almost nothing to justify the vote
some of us gave her, including yours truly.

Whenever I've written about her or Jennifer
Gottlieb in the past, I've received plenty of
negative email about them rather quickly,
often from people I personally know around
the county and deal with fairly regularly,
of course.

They offer up much of the same criticism as me,
albeit tinged with the hope that those two will,
eventually, do the right thing by their constituents
-some day.

Though "some day" never is a specific date on
a calendar as you and I understand it.

I take the more traditional point of view, which
is that past performance is the best predictor,
and that since neither has distinguished herself,
I don't have to pretend to like them when I don't.

What's most surprising to me is the large number
of very dis-satisfied, even angry voters/parents
in SE Broward, who've written me to say that
until they'd come across my blog comments about
these two characters, however they did, they had
thought THEY were the only ones around who felt
like they'd been had by Gottlieb and Murray in
past elections, since the education reporters down
here tend not to write negative stories about
individual School Board members, absent an
indictment or perp walk.

At first, I must admit, it was odd to hear that my
admission of voter remorse provoked pleasure in
others, but that's the case and I've learned to roll
with it.

Many of these same frustrated Broward residents
also wonder why South Florida's news media has
given the School Board members -in both Broward
and Miami-Dade- so much latitude, since they
are elected officials, too, after all.

Of late, I've even heard a criticism voiced that I often
heard expressed up in Arlington County, VA, where
I lived for 15 years, which was that the reporters
assigned to the education beat, overwhelmingly female,
were more prone to be cheerleaders for the subject
in general, perhaps because of having teachers in the
family, and thus not likely to have the temperament
to really go after a School Board member with quite
the same relish they would a member of a city, county
or state elected body.

Not that you asked, but judging from my emails,
people are still really ticked-off about School C in
Hollywood, too!

But you need a qualified opponent first before you
can vote against her, and as Buddy Nevins notes
above, at present, Jennifer Gottlieb is a solo act.

----------
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=211359235855
Updated about 4 months ago

Gary Plancher

Rubbish, moving from one to another district will be a matter of formality.
should i avoid shopping in distrcit 9? absolutely not, Al jones is a very qualify
candidate and that is all matter? should Obama be running a country where
African Americans are not the majority?
it is simply that is not the way we do it in this country. qualification is what
count?
Al jones will do an excellent job representing the district.

November 25, 2009 at 8:11am

In case you forgot:
BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Ann Murray Gets the Royal Treatment

By Bob Norman

Friday, Aug. 28 2009 @ 3:56PM

Broward County School Board Member Ann Murray was surrounded yesterday by sycophants who showered her with campaign checks.

It wasn't in her home district in the Hollywood area where she lives but in Okeechobee, the little town on the big lake up north. It was at a business called Royal Concrete Concepts, which currently has contracts worth at least $15 million to build storage facilities and other buildings for the School Board.

The company showed its appreciation for Murray's support with a shindig and plenty of campaign checks (we'll tally the number later). Make no mistake: When you're getting treated like a queen, it's hard not to succumb to the machine.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/08/ann_murray_broward_school_board.php#comments

----------

At Broward County Commission meeting of January 27, 2009:

MOTION TO REAPPOINT Mr. Gary Plancher to serve on the Health and Sanitary Control Board. (Commissioner Rodstrom)

------

New commissioner's residency a huge issue or insignificant - depending on your political party prism

By Anthony Man
November 24, 2009

Broward Democratic Chairman Mitch Ceasar said Tuesday he’s outraged that Gov. Charlie Crist’s appointment to the Broward County Commission, Al Jones, doesn’t live in the district he’ll be representing.

Jones, a Republican, was tapped on Monday by the Republican governor to fill the vacancy created by the suspension of Democratic County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion, who was arrested two months ago as part of an FBI undercover operation into corruption among Broward officials.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/11/new_commissioners_residency_a_1.html

Voters Remorse: Ann Murray on thin ice in August with constituents after latest Broward School Board debacle

My comments follow the articles.
----------
Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1192203.html

Broward schools chief keeps his job through 2014
By Patricia Mazzei
August 19, 2009


The Broward School Board unanimously extended Superintendent Jim Notter's contract by three years Tuesday following an annual evaluation that praised the schools chief.

Notter's contract was extended until June 2014, with a possibility of a further extension until 2015. It does not come with a raise unless other district staff members also get one -- something not in the plans this year.

"We're being responsible and doing what's right,'' School Board member Ann Murray said. "We have confidence in what he's doing.''

Notter, who is paid $299,000 a year, voluntarily cut $26,000 from his compensation last month. He was appointed superintendent in 2007.

Reader comments at:


----------

Going into Tuesday, of the many people in South Florida
-far too many!- whose perennial sub par performance
DIDN'T merit having their contracts renewed -while
they still had time left on them to prove their worth-
the two most obvious were U-M head football coach
Randy Shannon and Broward School Supt. James
Notter.

Both have gotten to their present post thru the insider's
route and both are examples to me of the South Florida
version of the Peter Principle, Banana Republic 2.0.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

That's the stealth version that's employed when news
reporters, TV cameras and the well-informed public
aren't around to see what's really going on, and asking
their pesky questions.

And now we read that after Ann Murray's been
largely invisible to her constituents for months,
as I wrote about just the other day, she's now
suddenly the one who singing James Notter's
praises after his contract was renewed unanimously?
What am I missing, exactly?

Murray ran on a platform last summer of changing
things dramatically at the Broward School Board,
and not becoming a compliant clone of the existing
members and the pervasive culture of corruption
and cronyism that's made the system a cesspool
and laughingstock.

After emailing this article to a well-informed Broward
friend who WAS a self-admitted 'strong' Murray
supporter, they replied simply, "Invasion of the
Body Snatchers."

Now even Murray's most-fervent supporters are
starting to realize know that her performance on her
audition does NOT bode well for her re-election
prospects next year, as well it shouldn't.

If she'd actually done what she promised, Murray's
name ought to be the one that's on the tip of Broward
taxpayer's and reporter's tongues for zealously defending
the work product of School auditors in revealing possible
School system complicity in over-billing by AshBritt,
but where has she been?
Invisible.

I might've made a mistake in voting for Murray last year,
but trust me, I won't repeat that mistake NEXT YEAR.
And I'm far from alone on that score.

And what about School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb?
What exactly has she done of late to show anyone paying
attention that her performance is one marked by either
merit or a commitment to zealously guarding the taxpayers
wallet?

Tell me, does her being referred to as "nice" by most
people I interact with at civic events or public gatherings,
somehow translate into her having a guaranteed govt. job
for life, at least in Broward County, regardless of how
poorly she actually performs those oversight and legislative
roles?

I keep wondering if my time in Washington around people
who were well-known and highly-regarded for good reason,
makes me, therefore, somehow unqualified to comprehend
what Jennifer Gottlieb's special ability or talent is, to the
extent that she's able to get elected to public office for no
discernible reason.

I say that because I've yet to see anything on South Florida
TV or read anything in any newspaper or blog, that left me
clearly thinking afterwards that I'd seen some glimpse into
some expertise, skill or insight that could reasonably explain
why Gottlieb got elected in the first place.
That has never happened.

That doesn't make Gottlieb unique in South Florida,
of course, just part of a very, very long list of people
down here who prove the ultimate validity of the
Peter Principle.
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/mar2009/ca20090331_822526.htm

This area has always been noted for having more
unqualified candidates than other parts of the country,
and that's been true for decades.

This is, after all, a part of the country where someone
who genuinely couldn't speak English, ran for Congress
not once but three times in the 1970's and '80's.
And got votes.

Gottlieb's big accomplishment over the past year has
been what, exactly, urging the School Board to cast
a meaningless ceremonial vote last Fall against the
proposed constitutional amendment that would ban
gay marriage?
Like anyone cared what they thought?

I should also mention here that a lot of the well-informed
people I've spoken to and become friendly with since
last November's election, have made a point of telling me,
almost always with a resigned sigh in their voice,
what a big disappointment Jennifer Gottlieb has been
to them.


How they are truly dismayed at the extent to which she
not only carries the water like a drone for the Broward
Teachers Union, the BTU, but also for her starring
role in what happened to Lincoln Park in Hollywood,
after the whole neighborhood made such an inspired
effort to make it more attractive and useful for everyone.

Contrast that with how it looked immediately after the
School system got hold of it and neglected it.

The latter effort is particularly galling to some folks in
Hollywood, even among those who don't live in that
immediate neighborhood, who continually bring it up
in conversations with me about other Broward County
matters -as if I'd forget.

But the truth is, what really rankles these folks to their
core is how the two of them together, Gottlieb and
Murray, have really caused them to doubt their own
ability to judge people, i.e. political candidates.

Some have told me that while they may well have
voted for long-shot candidates in the past, in other
places they've lived, since they (and their families)
moved to South Florida, they've really tried to be
diligent about finding out facts about local candidates'
background and experience, however they could.

Obviously the Internet has been a big help with that
effort, because they now could look for archival
articles and columns online and have more info to
base their decision on, and pass that info along to
friends and family

They stated that because of this effort to be well-informed,
they rarely had voted for someone for whom they
had immediate voters' remorse for.

But the practical experience of Gottlieb and Murray
in office, as opposed to them in campaign mode,
had really disabused these folks of their belief that
once in office, the two would be diligent representatives
of the public who'd be more demanding and more
assertive about the actions and policies of the Broward
Superintendent and his staff.

Instead, they elected two women who just shrug and
vote for whatever the pack wants, consequences be
damned.

To those community activists in particular, who really
pride themselves on not just keeping well-informed
about what's going on hereabouts, but even knowing
what's going to happen BEFORE it does, and why,
the combination of first Gottlieb and now Murray
BOTH being such self-evident wash-outs on reform
and accountability, and not making any tangible
difference for Broward kids and taxpayers, represents
a real big poke in the eye.
And it stings!

Like me, these folks in Hollywood and elsewhere
around the county are recalculating and recalibrating
their political antennae to make sure that those very
mistakes are not repeated in 2010.

It's my belief that Broward County simply can't
afford more wasted votes on people who fail the
basic test of being truthful before and after an election,
and faithful to their constituents' best interests at all times.

Those wasted votes on the Broward School Board
have had very real consequences, because they've
empowered an otherwise clue-less and tone-deaf
person like School Board member Stephanie Kraft
to show voters and taxpayers her true colors.

On June 16th, Kathy Bushouse of the Sun-Sentinel
captured this institutional tone-deafness perfectly in
her Broward Politics blog post,
School District may ask voters to approve higher taxes
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/06/school_district_may_ask_voters.html#comments
which concluded quite ridiculously:

Voters may be more inclined to support a tax increase if they
know what they might lose without it, said board member
Stephanie Kraft.
"Honestly, I've already gotten several e-mails from people saying,
'What about that project? What about that project? " Kraft said.
"A lot of people have indicated that they may not be opposed
to doing something to get those projects built."

That's the very creepy mentality that's gotten the county's
taxpayers into the dire situation that Bob Norman has
been writing about aggressively for months from his
Daily Pulp blog, even as local South Florida TV stations
have largely washed their hands of even trying to explain
the story or identify who the villains and heroes are.

In his blog today,
Derelict School Board Wants More of Your Money
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/08/broward_school_board_tax_increas.php
and yesterday's post titled,
Hollywood People Stand Up for School Board Auditors
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/08/hollywood_folks_stand_up_for_s.php#comments

Norman has shown just what's been going on during
the recent sleepwalking reign of Jennifer Gottlieb
and more recently, while Ann Murray slept.