A wish not a question: May the good news be yours - Ralph Renick's South Florida TV news scene 27 years later. Where's the serious local investigative news reporting anywhere that meets the expectations of today's concerned and well-informed citizen in South Florida?

A wish not a question: May the good news be yours - Ralph Renick's South Florida TV news scene 27 years later. Where's the serious local investigative news reporting anywhere that meets the expectations of today's concerned and well-informed citizen in South Florida?

Above, a Local10/WPLG-TV News van I snapped earlier this year while I was on the way to work. It was working the scene on Pembroke Road near the CSX train tracks in Hollywood following a serious train and vehicle collision that created a serious traffic bottleneck there, just two blocks west of I-95.
I got there about 25 minutes after the accident that had a very large FHP and CSX presence. Result was a few damaged vehicles that seemed to be missing entire parts of their car that were thrown 50-yards-plus away from the impact of the train. In talking to the folks on the scene, the vehicle's drivers and passengers were injured but seem to have somehow escaped death despite their egregious stupidity. Somehow, thr fact that trains always win is lost on some people.
I know from experience that northbound Tri-Rail commuter trains start slowing down there because the very next interesection less than a mile north is even-busier Hollywood Boulevard, where the Hollywood Tri-Rail and Amtrak train station is located, and hence, a place that I am at pretty familiar with.

Ths coming Thursday, July 12th, 2009, will mark 27 years since the death of South Florida TV news pioneer and journalism icon Ralph Renick.

I was already living up in Arlington County, Virginia when I received a phone call 27 years ago this week from my Mom back in Miami -if I recall correctly, probably from an area now called Cutler Bay- relaying the news that Ralph Renick had died, and she made a point of mentioning that everyone she knew seemed rather out-of-sorts after getting the news.

I could actually imagine that whole scene.

As I was quick to remind her, for lots of people my age or slightly older or younger who'd grown up in South Florida, Ralph Renick was the FDR of Miami - always there.

Always there in the background -immovable.

Just like Don Shula.

Ralph Renick Reports that Scareface will film in Miami, 1982 WTVJ https://youtu.be/fyuJGHrjbRY


WTVJ / Miami News Open - November, 1970 - Ralph Renick 

https://youtu.be/aCVUJmoBN1M

WTVJ/Miami July 12, 1991 'The Day Ralph Renick Died' 

When legendary News Anchor Ralph Renick Died in July, 1991, it was the lead story on EVERY local newscast. This clip covers about the first 10 minutes of WTVJ's 6PM News on that day, including reporter/anchor Bob Mayer's full obit on Renick and his career.

https://youtu.be/06U7uhK1YS4

Ralph Renick was always there when something big or important or, as was frequently the case in South Florida then, something that was all those things, plus something awful and completely inexplicable.

Lots and lots of things that were going on in South Florida in those days were awful and inexplicable.

Just like today, but before we were quite so numb to the release of the initial facts and context.

Ralph Renick was the pre-cable TV personality that South Florida homes and families knew and trusted who tried to make sense of things that often didn't: ethical government outrages and betrayals of public trust, genuine criminal evil running amok in South Florida and pious moralizers caught up in old fashioned hypococrisy and trying to save themselves by blaming others for their downfall.

South Florida had more than its share of that long before smart and clever people like Miami film director and Social media Pied Piper Billy Corben, whom I like and admire even when we disagree, could add the hashtag #BecauseFlorida or #BecauseMiami to his very popular Twitter feed and make people or situations famous around the world, because we'd already long since realized how many south Forida-based stories seem to amuse or outrage the rest of the nation or the world, usually with South Florida's non-Melting Pot stew of warring and divisive nationalities, cultures, religions and beliefs and vastly different economic stratas living cheek-by-jowl, at least partly to blame for whatever happened, besides good old-fashioned individual stupidity, greed, ego or evil.

And then, while I was trying my best to make a life for myself up in Washington, D.C., the place I had always wanted to work and live since I was an Elementary School age kid who knew and fully understood more American history backwards and forwards than most of the adults I ever knew or met in South Florida.

To me, one of the most unpleasant of all the many changes I've observed in South Florida over the years, both while living here and on visits of a few weeks from Chicago or Washington, has been the dramatic loosening of journalism standards from the era when I was growing up down here in the 1970's & early '80's, with local Miami TV anchors like then-WTVJ Channel Four's Renick and Ann Bishop of Channel 10, or sharp folks like Gene Miller at The Miami Herald.

Renick, while perhaps considered cool and imperious to some viewers, to me, always seemed to convey a real sense that they DID have the TV viewers on the other side of the camera's best long-term best interests at heart.

For me, that meant reporting the news straight-up and letting the facts guide the story, rather than cover stories with hidden agendas in order to appease the myriad business/ethnic/cultural interest groups in the area who, even now, are STILL hyper-sensitive to even the slightest sign of public criticism, constructive or otherwise. We all can name the groups.

I know that if Ralph Renick was around today making his nightly editorials, something unique to him in this area, compared to having Station General managers occasionally making appearnces at the end of newscasts, he would definitely have zeroed-in on about 1,001 different stories involving ethics and core competency in municipal and county government that in my opinion, since my return to the area in 2003, have never gotten all the public attention and shame they richly deserved.

Whether Frank Nero's salary at The Beacon Council or ex-Mayor Joy Cooper of Hallandale Beach taking money from wired FBI agents posing at real estate developers eager to play Let's Make A Deal with the woman that you regular readers of this blog know by now I consider to be the poster girl for all the ethical evil in South Florida government, who finally got caught doing what I and many of my well-informed friends long thought she was doing.

Confusing her self interests with the public's and putting it first, second and third in line whenever decisions had to be made. In Cooper's case, she was arrested on multiple felong counts by the FBI in December and removed from office by Governor Scott, though the broward States Attorney knew five years ago what she was doing and already had evidence of her horse-trading.

But in my opinion, Ralph Renick would have taken after her and the collective "them" with a sober mocking tone that would have been far worse than anything I could think of or adminsiter since he had the power to make his feelings felt, and knew how to get to a local politician's worst fear. Not being found out, but being found out and made to suffer public humiliation in front of their political pals and supporters.

In Renick's case, done so with a specificity, delight and deft touch that would have caused that

specific story to become much better known than it currently is, and used it as a jumping-off point to discuss other examples of so-called South Florida leaders, who so often talk-the-talk but who seem hard-pressed to point to any positive tangible results of there being in charge, instead of someone else.

Renick and Bishop's success in achieving that goal was reflected by both their enduring popularity, and, I suppose, by the simple fact that people like me who grew-up here, STILL bring their names up at the drop of a hat to suggest a sense of contrast and proportionality with the present sad state of affairs with local South Florida journalism.

Back then, savvy reporters with a nose for news and an eye for uncovering corruption and hypocrisy, especially at City Halls and County Halls, like Ike Seamans, Brian Ross, Fred Francis, Bernard Goldberg, Susan Candiotti, Richard Schlesinger, Steve Kroft, Wyatt Andrews and many other names most of you will recognize were among the consistently enterprising types -so many of whom went national- would see the amazing menu of stories they were presented with on a daily basis because of South Florida's special circumstances and geography, cultural diversity and inherent tension among its population, unique weather problems and omnipresent criminal element, and take full advantage of it, instead of merely being a robotic drone doing a LIVE stand-up for the 11 p.m. newscast for
something that was over and done with at 4 p.m., as is so often the case now.

Those awful extraneous LIVE shots, long the bane of my existence and many of my friends, who wonder why the reporters involved hadn't already gone on to the next story.

As a person who regularly attends events and functions around South Florida that are often the subject of print and electronic news coverage, certainly much more than the average newspaper reader or TV viewer, it's really quite shocking to me how many local reporters -excepting the exceptional few- who now can't seem to even be bothered to pretend to do even the most basic of
research that the pre-Internet era required.

Daily they show up woefully prepared and expect Public Information Officers or the like, as with friendly and able Raelin Storey, to brief them and brng them up to speed. 
Raelin is the Communications, Marketing & Economic Development Director for the City of Hollywood, and someone who has always been thoughtful and professional with me over many years.

It's almost as if the reporters I'm complaining about here fail to understand or appreciate that those noted reporters mentioned earlier, got to that respected status locally by developing a solid reputation for returning phone calls promptly, which is part of why they always received so many tips in the first place.

I can't begin to tell you how many times over the past few eleven years that i've had my blog that I've personally tipped-off individual reporters to a developing story that they ignored at their peril, with the logical result being that their tardiness and indifference led to someone else beating them to it.

Or nobody reporting the story at all

For whatever reason, there seems to be a much steeper learning-curve for many current TV reporters here than there used to be, reporters who, in my opinion, really ought to be in much-smaller TV markets than ours if they are going to continue to be so smug and self-important.

These are the very reporters whose email addresses I've deleted the past few years, even as other reporters I deal with somewhat regularly are smart enough to know to either email or call back promptly to see what I've got to share with them, like Channel 10's ace investigative reporter Bob Norman..

I'm also regularly shocked by the number of TV stations who routinely only send a cameraman to an event or hearing of some importance, rather than send along a reporter as well.

That was the case ten years ago when I attended the final public meeting of the Broward County Charter Review Commission at the County HQ on Andrews Avenue.
That afternoon, the most publicized issue -though by no means only important issue- was whether or not Broward County voters should be able to vote in the upcoming November election for a County mayor, rather than continue with the absurd and meaningless charade now where the County Commission votes amongst themselves and appoints a member mayor.

That's 'mayor' lower-case as far as I'm concerned, since if a citizen didn't vote for that position, it's a
completely meaningless appelation. I say that despite personally knowing and liking current mayor Beam Furr, a former City of Hollywood City Commissioner who replaced another favorite of mine on the Broward County commission when she retired, Sue Gunzburger, whom I was standing right next to in November of 2016 when we both found out Donald Trump had been elected President. 
(I had preducted it in early 2015, and was pleased, Comm. Gunzburger quite the opposite.)

Beam Furr is a model public official, and someone whom we could use a few hundred clones of down here, but I still thingk the public should be voting for someone who is called Mayor, as many blog posts in my archive can verify

As I recall it, Channel 10 sent veteran reporter and TWISF co-host Michael Putney and a cameraman, Channel 4 sent a reporter and cameraman, Channel 6 sent a lone cameraman. Channel 7 sent nobody, as did the various Spanish language TV stations, which seems to be par for the course for the latter in Broward County, since they are rarely if ever on the scene of an important govt. hearing in my personal experience, which explains a lot, if you care to think about the logical results of such civic short-sightedness.

The stories that appeared in the newspaper the next day and on local TV that night about that critical CRC meeting, the most important one in their two years of meeting, and the votes that took place there, which could've gone a long way in giving Broward voters a means of making Broward County government more accountable, in the form of a single person directly voted into power by the entire
county, not just one slice of it, all had one thing in common.
As it happens, bad things as far as I was concerned.

The news stories 

a.) didn't identify how the individual members of the Broward CRC voted on the proposal -which failed- and
b.) neglected to mention that ALL the elected city mayors appointed to the CRC voted to NOT ALLOW voters to vote on the issue and decide it themselves.

As it happens, all those mayors saying "nyet" to Broward voters were women. I mention that here just in case you think that women are inherently more democratically-inclined by nature. Maybe in other parts of the country, but certainly not here in Broward County.

In fact, it's been the exact opposite, as ex-Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper proved rather convincingly, year-after-year, by continually having the City Commission vote on items that
AREN'T on the public printed agenda, and for years that were held in a small room at City Hall different than the Commission Chambers, which just happens to have no TV cameras to record their
votes. Because that's that's the way she wants things to be.

No matter how long I had been back here, the egregious nature of it all still managed to shock me.

I was scared-straight back in 2007 when I penned an email to then-Daily Business Review reporter Julie Kay, of which this is but an excerpt:

Subject: re your 6-29-2007 DBR story; illegal disclosure/sale of arrest data by FDLE;
Thursday January 18th, 2007

Dear Ms. Kay:

My letter to you today is actually long overdue, as I had planned on congratulating you earlier, before the end of the year, on the consistently great job you did last year of covering what passes for the South Florida legal system in the Daily Business Review, and imbuing your stories with the proper amount of anger, enthusiasm and curiosity -and incredulity- for the peculiar way things have of sorting themselves out here, regardless of any actual law, statute or precedent.
Or, of course, common sense.

While much attention was paid to your recent stories on the 'missing' court records of judges/elected officials -and what passes around here for celebrities and VIPs- who surely must've preferred those records of theirs existing in some parallel universe, where the curious public couldn't discern their content, the story you wrote that most impressed me was actually your June 29th DBR story titled, "Legal Boomerang," on Broward County and the state of Florida continuing to sell expunged legal case data to private firms for their own databases, though they're not supposed to do so.

Perhaps you've already heard about it by this late date, but on the chance that you haven't, the day your story ran, CBS-4 led it's 6 p.m. Local News with that same exact story, down to the point of interviewing the very same person you interviewed for the majority of your insightful anecdotes, without reporter Mike Kirsch ever giving you or the Daily Business Review proper credit/attribution for the story.

I wrote a draft of a note to you about that slight that night on my computer, but I regret to say that I never finished it, much less mailed it, and for that I'm sorry, since I really hate seeing a reporter, esp. a TV reporter, get credit for hard journalistic leg-work they didn't actually perform.

That feeling became particularly ingrained in me during the 15 years I lived in D.C. from 1988-2003, because so many media friends of mine, esp. at the Washington bureau of the New York Times, who'd regale me at ballgames, movies or over hot dogs across the street from their office at a favorite hot dog stand of ours during breaks, with instances of having discovered, after-the-fact, clear-cut examples of out-of-town reporters using their stories as a paint-by-numbers primer for stories that small town reporters couldn't previously get a handle on.
Clearly, that's not the smartest move to make in the era of the Internet and searchable databases.

For what it's worth, Kirsch added absolutely zero to your original story, not even bothering to supplement his version of your story with additional interviews with other parties, just to cover his bases. Nope, it was strictly paint-by-numbers; your numbers.
Since that initial report back in June, I haven't taken anything Kirsch says seriously, since I now have a clear sense of what he's capable of.
Maybe he should stick to doing stories on 'hot' new celeb-filled boutiques or trendy restaurants on South Beach, that way, there's no real public harm or misrepresentation.

In the three years since I returned to South Florida from DC, I've had to reconcile myself to lots of changes to this area, many of them for the good, of course, but just as many for the bad I'm afraid.
Not that things before in local/state govt. or local legal circles were so rosy and on the level, of course, since I know that clearly wasn't the case.

Starting roughly around 1979, when I'd return to South Florida from school or work in Bloomington, Evanston, and DC, for visits during Christmas and spring break, or even Baltimore Oriole spring training trips or weekend weddings, I could still see that Miami had the kind of scrappy and innately curious reporters who make a real difference in a community.
Frankly, the sorts of reporters that so many of my friends at the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at IU and Medill at Northwestern University aspired to emulate - making a positive contribution.

Reporters who had the talent & ability to convey to the waves and waves of newcomers to the area, who were without a sense of South Florida's very mixed past, the proper amount of perspective and sense of disbelief, before dropping the hammer on whichever corrupt/incompetent/miscreant elected pol or agency hack was the target zone, for attempting to perpetrate something of a dubious nature.

Even while watching the local TV news out of Indianapolis or Washington, D.C., while clearly recognizing that there were a handful of TV reporters of the sort who'd be good no matter what city they were based in, I always had the sense that, in general, the reporter culture in those cities
lacked the kind of focused energy and zeal I'd seen in South Florida, hich was their town's loss.

I even mentioned this particular line of thought, such as it is, to CNN's Larry King once at an American Cancer Society Ball in DC, around '89, that I was involved with as a member of the Board of Directors of the DC ACS branch's Young Professional division, with Larry being honored as the guest of honor. 
While I know that many people often laugh at Larry's own unique brand of infotainment and news, and I'm quick to admit that I've heard the reels of crank calls at his expense, that night at the Hilton Towers, while his then-wife was being photographed with friends and various DC celebs like Al Haig and former FBI Director William Webster, Larry and I stood in a corner for about ten minutes, just the two of us, reminiscing about life in Miami, mostly about local radio and TV personalities we'd known and liked and wondered about every so often.

I'd grown-up as a kid watching Larry's interviews on Channel 4, and was a daily listener to his late night nationally-syndicated radio show out of D.C. on Mutual, starting while I was in school at Indiana University, making cassette audio tapes of individual shows with interesting guests or topics.
After moving to Chicago my collection of tapes, as I got to know his routine and came to recognize his little idiosyncracies, as well as the names of the people who did the news breaks, as well as got to know his substitute, Jim Bohannon.
In fact, I was driving from Chicago to Florida and first got word of the passing of the great Jackie Gleason while Larry read the news bulletin, and I stayed at a Florida Turnpike rest stop early in the morning for a bit to compose myself, while he poured out one great Jackie Gleason story after another.
I knew most of them by heart, but that didn't make them less precious or make me laugh any less. It only made me so much sadder.
Which I made a point of telling Larry in person when I finally had the chance.

Larry and I also talked back and forth about the great sense of competition that once existed among the Miami TV stations, and between the Herald and the late, great Miami News, where I spent a lot of time while in high school, and got to know and make a number of friends over the years in their news, sports and entertainment departments.
We lamented that the kind of rough but honest competition we both knew of down here, which really pushed reporters, often seemed lacking now, despite how counter-intuitive that  seemed with all the new technology that was making reporting easier. 

And that was 20 years ago.

But now?
Well, it seems that the low TV standards that I saw elsewhere and have read about and followed for years in myriad media journals, blogs and newspapers, have found a home-sweet-home right here.

And as for my my own clearly antiquated and sentimental notions of what journalism is, based on years of Renick and his successors, and being part of Walter Mondale's advance team in '76, and accompanying him to the old Channel 4 studio downtown, for an interview with Joe
Abrell, host of Montage, a place where I recognized nearly every single reporter's face I saw in the hallway -and actually knew their assigned beats?

Well, I guess I thought the news management at local stations would have done a better job of insisting on keeping higher standards for what's considered news, and what passes for journalistic ethics than what appears to be the case.
More than ever, this area seems to be on the losing side of a journalism slippery slope.
C'est la vie.

Personally, among many other things, I think this area would be much better served if there were tons more criticism in the local newspapers at what local TV news churns out, and a corresponding series of frequent jabs at the Herald and the Sun-Sentinel for what they are
-or are not- doing with their resources, which in too many cases, is appeasing elements of the local population, at the risk of only further corroding their connection to the local populace.

I mean as you all know by now by my repetition, the Miami Herald hasn't covered a meeting in Hallandale Beach in over 13 months.

There are still so many local people and organizations down here who've heretofore escaped both accountability and brickbats for their years of unsatisfactory results, despite receiving city, county or state taxpayer funds, that in other parts of the country, with the current
technology available, would've put them front-and-center, and certainly under the microscope.

But here, because of cronyism and back-scratching, or something, they aren't.
I'd call them sacred cows, of course, but we don't live in India quite yet.

In the past, an enterprising local TV reporter might've addressed these matters of concern to me, which while affecting public policy or the lives of thousands of people on a daily basis, currently go unexamined.
Nowadays, that same reporter is assigned to go to a Mall and report on either holiday shopping tips or trends/fads among the seemingly endless armies of affluent teens of our area.

Maybe it's me, but I keep thinking of Jane Fonda's character in the film, The China Syndrome, Kimberly Wells, forever banished to covering cute human interest stories before stumbling upon a great story by accident.-----------------------
(Steve Bousquet is now a political reporter with the Tampa Bay Times and a must-read for me.)

Miami Herald
STATE'S FIRST TV STATION IS NOW BROWARD'S FIRST
By STEVE BOUSQUET Herald Staff Writer
July 31, 1998

Steve Bousquet was a Broward-based news reporter for WPLG-Channel 10 from 1981-84, before joining The Herald.

For 50 years, history and geography conspired to deprive Broward of an electronic identity: a hometown TV station. But that became old news Thursday as WTVJ-Channel 6, Florida's first TV station, announced plans to relocate to Miramar.

The same station that gave South Florida its first news anchorman, Ralph Renick -- on a different channel and different network -- will be broadcasting from Broward in two years.

To appreciate the historic significance of Channel 6's decision to move to Miramar, it helps to remember when Broward TV news consisted of film cans being shuttled down Interstate 95 at rush hour or snippets of news delivered from ``the Broward bureau'' -- a small studio in the Yankee Clipper Hotel on Fort Lauderdale beach.

Stations pay more attention to Broward than ever before. But there are still some nights when Broward TV coverage is little more than a crime newsreel sandwiched between longer Dade stories, and Miami-based meteorologists still warn us about those thunderstorms ``up'' in Broward.

By moving its studios, satellite TV trucks and anchors to Miramar, NBC-owned Channel 6 is moving closer to the region's population center. But the TV station is making a public-relations commitment to Broward that no amount of promotion can buy.

Station executives described the decision as a move to the center of the region's booming population. Don Browne, WTVJ's vice president and general manager, said the ``artificial'' county line is meaningless in today's society.

``We're making a natural response to the population growth and shift,'' Browne said. ``We look at this as one community. . . . This is a decision based on an understanding of the dynamics and growth of our entire community.''

Effects on coverage 

The questions are whether a Broward location will mean better Broward coverage on Channel 6 -- and whether Channel 6's rivals will feel pressured to beef up coverage because a competitor is headquartered there.

``There will be more coverage of Broward. We're talking about two broadcast facilities,'' said Ramon Escobar, WTVJ's news director. ``Covering South Florida is more about preparation and strategy than it is about position. Having a Miramar location does help us have more Broward [coverage].''

Station executives spoke of a ``dual studio'' in Miami and South Broward, with an indoor-outdoor studio on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. It is important that in moving north, WTVJ not appear to be abandoning Miami-Dade.

The move is the second half of a positive civic 1-2 punch, coming after the Florida Panthers agreed to move to a new arena in western Sunrise.

A television station, like a newspaper or a sports team, gives an area a sense of place, an identity -- and not having a hometown station has been one reason why Broward lacks a stronger identity.

Stepchild perception

Even in an age of cable and satellite receivers, South Florida TV news reinforces a perception that Broward is Miami's suburban stepchild.

``You turn the TV stations on here, and it's mostly Miami news, so you do not have that daily confirmation of where you are,'' said Jack Latona, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who grew up watching three hometown TV stations in Buffalo.

In a modern age of media saturation, Latona said, the boundaries of communities are not municipal lines, but the circulation of a newspaper or the reach of a TV signal.

As a city commissioner in Fort Lauderdale, Broward's largest city, Latona can count on one hand the number of times a TV crew has been inside City Hall -- but that may change when WTVJ moves to its new six-acre site near Interstate 75 and Miramar Parkway.

``It stands to reason the news is going to be skewed more toward Broward, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing,'' said Joe Angotti, a Miami TV consultant and former NBC News senior vice president and former dean of the University of Miami communications school. ``I know a lot of people who think Dade is losing an important media outlet, but I'm not so sure that Broward doesn't deserve a little more on newscasts than it's been receiving up to now. It's not going to happen overnight, but there will be a gradual tendency to have more Broward news on the newscast.''

Beyond local cable 

That would be good news for people in Broward, who have to drive out of the county to get on network-affiliated television. Top politicians must settle for what exposure they can get on cable TV, or go to Miami's WPLG to appear on This Week in South Florida with Michael Putney.

BECON TV, the Broward school system's television network, airs a weekly Broward public affairs show called Countyline, but not all cable systems pick it up.

Two dueling state Senate candidates, Mandy Dawson-White and Matt Meadows, squared off Thursday in their only TV debate so far -- in the West Palm Beach studios of WPTV-Channel 5.

``Broward doesn't have its own TV station, and yet there are little towns in Montana with TV stations,'' Latona said.

It was not by accident. 

When the first VHF television licenses were issued in the late 1940s, Miami already was a big city. Broward was still largely swampland. A half million people lived in Dade in 1950, compared to 84,000 in all of Broward -- fewer people than live in Pembroke Pines today.

Smaller West Palm Beach, just out of range of the Miami TV stations' signals, also qualified for licenses. Broward got a couple of UHF station licenses instead.

Broward's current population is estimated at 1.4 million. It consistently ranks among the top 10 fastest-growing counties in the United States. It is the 16th most-populous county in America, larger than Riverside County, Calif.; Montgomery County (Philadelphia), Pa.; Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio; and Alameda County (Oakland), Calif.

Herald staff writers Jane Bussey and Neil Reisner and researcher Harriett Tupler contributed to this report.
--------
Miami Herald
RAZING OF WTVJ'S OLD HOME STIRS UP STATION'S `GHOSTS'
By ANABELLE de GALE
August 18, 2002

Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You and 2 Yanks in Trinidad, starring Pat O'Brien, were rolling on the big screen. Pocket change got you into the double feature playing at the Capitol Theater in downtown Miami.

But that night - March 21, 1949 - what was debuting on the small screen in the theater's backroom would make history. Television.

More than half a century later, it's curtains for the site of Florida's first television broadcast and home to the only station south of Atlanta in those early days. In the coming weeks, the historic but crumbling Capitol Theater and former WTVJ-NBC 6 studios will be reduced to rubble. In its place: a new $120 million U.S. courthouse, one of the largest in the Southeast, which federal officials hope will be majestic enough to bring back life to the once animated area.

Designed by Arquitectonica, the local architecture firm that designed AmericanAirlines Arena, the massive court building will house about 16 courtrooms, 16 judges' chambers, detention cells, U.S. Marshals Service offices and other facilities.

The 316 N. Miami Ave. site once lured throngs of South Floridians to the theater, then dubbed Wometco's ``first-run'' premier movie house. It was built in 1926 as the Capitol Theater and converted into WTVJ in 1949 by Miami pioneer Mitchell Wolfson as an outgrowth of his Wometco theater chain.

RUNNING LIGHTS

``I remember going to the Capitol Theater even before it was WTVJ. It had the most dramatic theater front in Miami with running lights,'' said Miami historian Arva Moore Parks. ``Everybody went downtown to see the movies.''

Among them: a young and mischievous Howard Kleinberg.

Kleinberg, a newspaperman and long-time Miami resident, was a teenager in high school when he went to see a rerun of The Four Feathers, a 1939 colonial-India epic.

As the film's thirsty hero made his way across sun-scorched land, Kleinberg jumped from his seat in the balcony, screaming ``Water! Water!''

His friends got a kick out of it. Kleinberg got a kick, too - out of the place.

In 1952, WTVJ remodeled the building. It added to the three-story structure 200 spectator seats for its 68-by-100-foot studio on the second floor. The ground floor housed the executive offices, programming and sales departments. The control and projection rooms were on the third floor.

END OF THE ROAD

The building's demolition marks the end of an era, said Parks, who remembers that Monday evening in March 1949 when she walked to a store on Northeast 97th Street and Second Avenue to watch the first broadcast on a set in the shop's front window.

``I stood in front of an appliance store with most of the rest of Miami Shores to catch it. It was only an eight- or 10-inch screen, but most of us had never seen television before and it was very exciting,'' Parks said. ``They were having a lot of technical difficulties that first night. The test pattern and signs that said `Please Stand By' were probably on more than the programming.''

Only about 1,000 homes in the Miami area had sets that night to tune into WTVJ, which was then Channel 4.

The station had but 21 employees and two cameras. The 16th television station in the country, WTVJ would be South Florida's sole station for the next seven years.

From behind an office-like wooden desk, 21-year-old Ralph Renick - ``a skinny, little kid,'' Parks said - delivered the station's first news broadcast in July 1950.

That amateurish 15-minute segment would pave the way for electronic media in South Florida. ``We were pioneering,'' Renick said in a 1991 interview. ``Pioneering is fun because nobody can tell you you're doing it wrong - because it hasn't been done before.''

Renick would go on to be one of the nation's longest-running news anchors before his retirement in 1985. He died six years later from cancer.

IN THE ARCHIVES 

Some of the footage from Renick's early newscasts has survived. The Florida Moving Image Archive has four million feet of WTVJ film, with the earliest newscast dating to circa 1951, said Steven Davidson, the archive's director.

Maps and pointers were used, cardboard backdrops were common and advertisements were displayed on the set during Renick's newscast. Commercials were not taped. Instead the camera would pan over to a spot next to Renick where pitchmen would give their spiels live.

From its small studio carved out of the Capitol Theater, WTVJ would broadcast four hours a night except Tuesdays, when the station went dark.

Before the technology to link the station to national networks was developed, the station was dependent on live, locally produced programs.

STUNT WOMAN 

There were sports trivia and Pictionary-style game shows, gardening segments and children's programming. And then there was Lee Dickens. The stunt woman who walked on the wings of planes for the show ``was my idol,'' Parks recalled.

The station, which moved to Miramar in 2000, produced many heavyweight journalists like CNN's Larry King, NBC's Katie Couric and ESPN's Hank Goldberg and former ESPN Up Close host Roy Firestone. It introduced editorials, black journalists and female sportscasters to South Florida television.

``Many great things happened there. The place is overrun with history,'' said senior correspondent Ike Seamans, who joined WTVJ in 1969.

Still, Seamans said, ``I can't think of a more dumb place to put it than an old movie theater, but as [Wolfson] said at the time he never realized the full impact of what he was starting.''

The Miami building was like ``an old pair of shoes,'' Seamans said.

``It was old and decrepit. You had people jumping on chairs to avoid the mice but it felt comfortable. There was a sense of camaraderie there that has not been duplicated. The [Miramar headquarters], as grandiose as it is, will never be the same.''
-----
Miami Herald
MIAMI DADE COLLEGE
Moving Image Archives show Miami's past

By LUISA YANEZ
March 30, 2009

South Florida's most prized film and video collection -- millions of feet of footage documenting nine decades of events that shaped Miami-Dade -- has just been been donated to Miami Dade College.

The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives are made up largely of newscasts aired by the area's first station, WTVJ -- the flagship station of Wometco Enterprises. WTVJ first went on the air in 1949, fronted by pioneer newscaster Ralph Renick. It is now NBC6.

Louis Wolfson II had presided over the television and cable division of Wometco prior to its sale in 1983 and had preserved the station's video collection.

This month, his widow, Lynn Wolfson and MDC President Eduardo Padrón signed an agreement transferring the archive to the college and establishing the new Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives Media Center to be housed in a new building to be constructed in MDC's Wolfson campus complex in downtown Miami.

Through the years, the collection has expanded to include local footage shot as early as 1910. There are also many reels dedicated to the Cuban Revolution, Miami's civil rights era, the McDuffie riots, the Mariel boatlift, Haitian refugees and the Cocaine Cowboys.

Recently, WPLG-Channel 10 donated 5,000 hours of tapes to the archives when it moved out of its longtime Biscayne Boulevard headquarters.

The historic archives are the latest cultural acquisition by the college. MDC already owns the Miami International Film Festival, Miami Book Fair International, the Freedom Tower and the Tower Theater in Little Havana.

Along with the donation of the video library comes $7 million from the Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Foundation to maintain and grow the new media center. And, Lynn Wolfson donated an additional $2 million toward its construction.

"These funds will allow the center to expand its capacity to preserve historically important film and video from around Florida and to preserve our heritage for future generations to better understand their past," Lynn Wolfson said.

Padrón thanked the Wolfson family in a prepared statement:

"On behalf of our nearly 170,000 students, who will benefit immensely from this gift, I thank Lynn Wolfson and family for this extraordinary contribution that will keep giving for years to come."

Lynn Wolfson helped found the Moving Image Archives in 1984, along with newscaster Renick and historian Arva Moore Parks, under the joint sponsorship of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, MDC and the University of Miami.

The archives are presently housed at the main public library.

To learn more about the archives go to: http://www.wolfsonarchive.org

From political cipher and unknown to possible successor to Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate in no time at all, there are a myriad of legal & political choices confronting Florida Lt. Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera, as he seeks to define himself to Floridians before rivals pounce and do it for him. @LopezCantera

Eyeing U.S. Senate bid, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera has decision to make: Stay or go? http://t.co/ypZdwePWwj via @TB_Times

— Steve Bousquet (@stevebousquet) July 4, 2015

Tampa Bay Times
Eyeing Senate bid, Lt. Gov. Lopez-Cantera must decide whether to stay or go
By Steve Bousquet, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Saturday, July 4, 2015 6:00am

TALLAHASSEE — After 18 months in Gov. Rick Scott's shadow, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera has to make his first big decision.

Before he enters Florida's wide-open race for the U.S. Senate, he'll reach a political crossroads as the state's No. 2 executive: Should he stay or go?

Lopez-Cantera won't say, and the public probably would not notice the difference

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/eyeing-senate-bid-lt-gov-lopez-canteras-must-decide-whether-to-stay-or-go/2236092

Roll Call
The Mystery of a Possible Florida Senate Candidate
By Stuart Rothenberg

Posted at 4 p.m. on April 21

A handful of Republicans are currently being mentioned as possible Senate candidates for the Florida seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination.

Former Rep. Bill McCollum, who has run repeatedly (and often unsuccessfully) for statewide office, is mentioned, as are a handful of House members, including Rep. Ron DeSantis, a tea party favorite.

Perhaps the most interesting, or at least unusual, candidate for the Republican nomination is the state’s current lieutenant governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a former Florida House member (and majority leader) and Miami-Dade County property appraiser.

What makes Lopez-Cantera, who was appointed to his current post in January 2014 by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, so unusual is that he is a Cuban-American Jew who was born in Madrid

Read the rest of the article at:

http://blogs.rollcall.com/rothenblog/carlos-lopez-cantera-florida-senate-heritage/

Nearly everyone I know and respect in South Florida who knew Carlos Lopez-Cantera when he first decided to run for the not-exactly-sexy position of Miami-Dade Appraiser -in an area of the country we know from experience is NOT exactly known for accuracy and truthfulness about tax dollars or numbers- told me that their take was that he was merely biding his time, waiting for a larger opportunity.

According to them, perhaps a run for the position of Miami-Dade County Mayor AFTER he'd been in office as Appraiser for about 6-10 years, and had actually acquired some reasonable amount of name recognition and power, to say nothing of perhaps even making some tangible improvements in his office that he could tout to what would surely be legions of skeptics.

Well, they're just as surprised as anyone that someone whom just three years ago, most South Florida political junkies and reporters had either never heard of or ever met him before in person, might now be 1 of 100 votes in Washington in just 18 months time.
I know because I'm one of those surprised people.

There's no higher-ranking politician in Florida whom I -and most people I know- actually know less about. than Carlos Lopez-Cantera.
That fact is abetted by South Florida's current lackluster crop of print/TV reporters and columnists, most of whom can be charitably described as apathetic and sleepwalking zombies in the best of times. And this is clearly NOT the best of times for serious new consumers in Florida.

Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

Validated! Contrary to MSM's contention that they DIDN'T exist, therefore common sense voter ID laws were unnecessary, State of Florida flags THOUSANDS of potential illegal voters. Perhaps illegal voters can decide swing state's election so FL can get its 15 Minutes yet again!

newsserviceflorida video: Florida Dept. of State Elections Division spokesman Chris Cate discusses the news of thousands of Illegal voters being on county voting rolls throughout Florida, many of whom have been there for decades. May 9, 2012.
http://youtu.be/uQLlY9VNRKg


Hmm-m... so if I've got this right, the very same people whom we were assured for years by numerous political parties, ethnicity-based organizations, civil rights groups and the American Mainstream Media didn't really exist -they were just hurtful figments of our collective imagination- have not only been proven to really exist, but exist in numbers far larger than we ever thought, and have, in some cases, perhaps been voting illegally for decades?
Further, that the county in Florida with the highest concentration of those very special illegal voters is, in fact, Miami-Dade County?
Yes.


So it looks like the "experts" were wrong on everything, no?


Including Herald columnists like Leonard Pitts, Jr., who in this January 10th 2012 column, 
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/10/135215/commentary-voter-id-laws-and-life.html
in order to make his absurd leap in logic, has to imagine the problem of someone with no car and no bank account and no... anything.
Yes, they're as helpless as a baby!


Honestly, does Pitts really STILL think that in the year 2012, state and county governments in this country haven't already issued millions of photo ID cards to people on govt. assistance in order to cut down on fraud against taxpayers and facilitate access to cash instead of having to wait for monthly checks sent by mail?
That's been going on for well over 20 years...
Yes, Leonard Pitts, Jr. really is that out of touch!


In his mind, it's still 1966, so he has to pretend that he doesn't know anything about these common knowledge facts regarding the advent of technology, otherwise his ridiculous ideological argument falls flatter than usual.
Kansas flat!


The usual techniques employed in a Pitts column are willful and intentional ignorance about commonly known facts and imagining the worst possible scenario and then setting that bogus reality up as both normal and everywhere. 
And that person needs the help of a caring, sharing federal government that will look after them.


That's why Pitts is the Herald's resident go-to pro-Big Government columnist, and is consistent in this mantra every month of the year from his home outside of Florida.


(The columns he writes for the Herald that intentional don't have geographical datelines unless he's out of the country, so that way, you don't think about the fact that he doesn't really live in Florida, and the newspaper can continue the illusion that he has something worth reading, a foolish facade most people are hip to.)


So, speaking of phonies, when are we going to hear the logical explanation from the folks at La Raza about where all these thousands of people magically came from, after all, and how THEY could have been so wrong? 
I wan to make sure that I don't miss THAT televised press conference!


Special Note to Mainstream Media: Please don't embarrass yourselves in the future AGAIN by using those same self-interested and condescending groups, with their smug and accusatory spokes-models as "experts" on voting rights, ethnic voting turnout and civil rights, who accused anyone and everyone opposed to any reasonable common sense use of photo IDs as racists.




Ironically, you often need to show a photo ID to get into many office buildings where newspapers or TV stations have offices or bureaus, but the same newspaper's Editorial Boards were often AGAINST voter ID laws that required you to use a photo ID to prove who you were to vote.
But you do need to show one in order to get inside the building and place a newspaper classified ad!

Oh, that's right, nobody does that anymore.


And as it happens, I also don't much want to hear excuses from govt. employees working in County Election Offices who basically gave those groups cover, either, who now say, contrary to before, that nobody expects the rolls to be entirely accurate.
Uh, actually, we do.
Those people are finito, and persona non grata. 



One more reminder: Voters facing expulsion from voter rolls can ask for a hearing to dispute the finding. 
But those requests are, themselves, public records, so those of you interested in knowing whether there are any "illegal" voters in your city can ask for the list thru a public records request of your county election board if you were so inclined.
After all, how do you think the news media knew whom to contact and use as examples in this article in order to make it more sympathetic -really, using a sickly old woman?- instead of a sign of something insidious, or just further proof of more general govt. incompetency in Florida?


-----
Miami Herald

VOTING
Florida finds nearly 2,700 non-U.S. citizens on voting rolls  
The state has found thousands of potential non-U.S. citizens on voting rolls and an analysis indicates a third could have voted in previous elections. But some of the voters say they’re lawful citizens who legally cast ballots
By Marc Caputo and Steve Bousquet
May 9, 2012


Nearly 2,700 potential non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote in Florida and some could have been unlawfully casting ballots for years, according to a Miami Herald-CBS4 analysis of elections data.


The bulk of the potential non-citizen voters are in Florida’s largest county, Miami-Dade, where the elections supervisor is combing through a list of nearly 2,000 names and contacting them.


An analysis of a partial list of 350 names in Miami-Dade showed that about 104 have cast ballots going as far back as 1996.


Even if voters are on the list, it doesn’t mean they’re not eligible to cast a ballot.


Consider the case of Miami’s Maria Ginorio, a 64-year-old from Cuba, who said she became a U.S. citizen in August 2009. She said she was angered by a letter she received asking her to go to the elections office to document her status. Ginorio, who said she typically votes by absentee ballot, is ill and homebound.


"I’m not going to do anything about this,’’ Ginorio said. "I can’t. I guess I won’t vote anymore. I say this with pain in my heart, because voting is my right as a citizen.’’


Citizens like Ginorio were flagged as potentially ineligible after the state’s Division of Elections compared its database with a database maintained by Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which records whether a newly licensed driver is a U.S. citizen.


As a result, some citizens could appear to be non citizens now because the DHSMV computer system doesn’t automatically update when someone becomes a citizen, said Chris Cate, a spokesman with the Florida Division of Elections.


“We’re not just looking at the matches from Highway Safety,” Cate said. “We’re doing a secondary assessment here before we send the names to supervisors of elections. You have to consider that a person’s last contact with highway safety can be more than four years ago. Someone could have become a citizen in that time. So you can’t presume someone’s not an eligible voter.”


Cate said it’s not surprising that the bulk of potential non-citizen voters are in Miami-Dade. With 1.2 million active registered voters, it’s Florida’s most-populous county and it has the largest immigrant population in the state. Broward County has about 260 potential non-citizen voters on the rolls.


Christina White, a deputy Miami-Dade elections supervisor, said the county is sending out letters to all potential non voters within 30 days and is asking them to prove citizenship.


The state’s effort to clean the voter rolls are unfolding in a presidential election year in which perceptions of voting problems and potential fraud break down along partisan lines — especially after the Republican-led Legislature last year cracked down on voting registration groups and early voting on the Sunday before Election Day.


Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsored the election law and said he feels “validated” by the state’s actions in keeping its voter rolls clean.


“We need to protect the integrity of the system and ensure that people who aren’t eligible to vote aren’t casting ballots,” Baxley said. “The elections supervisors are going to send any names they find suspicious to the state attorneys, but the prosecutors have bigger fish to fry than this. So the only way to deal with this problem is preventative.”


But University of Florida political science professor Dan Smith, a critics of Baxley’s law, said the state purges could block eligible voters from casting ballots, thereby making the cure worse than the problem.


Smith noted that 3,000 potential non-citizen voters is a small number compared to the state’s 12 million total voters.


“This attests to the fact that there’s very little voter-registration fraud,” Smith said. “This purging can be a real problem.”


To be eligible to cast a ballot in Florida, a voter must be a state resident and a U.S. citizen with no felony record. Those who have been convicted of felonies can cast ballots if their rights have been restored by the state. It’s a third-degree felony to commit voter fraud in Florida.


Neither the state nor the county’s election office would release all of the suspected names, in part because the list contains personal data such as Social Security and driver-license numbers that are not public record.


Of the partial Miami-Dade list given to the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times and CBS 4, less than a third of the potential non citizens had voted, going as far back as 1996. About 39 of them are Democrats, 39 Republicans and 26 are independents or third-party voters.


About 13 of the voters cast ballots in the disputed 2000 presidential election, which was decided by 537 votes.


The state began unearthing potential non-citizen voters when the highway safety agency began coordinating with the elections division.


The post-9/11 federal REAL ID Law, which took effect in Florida in 2010, requires proof of U.S. Citizenship to obtain or renew a driver’s license. At first, the state unearthed 1,251 voters. The number now stands at 2,676. The list is expected to grow.


"Someone’s ability to vote is sacrosanct," said Julie Jones, executive director of the highway safety agency. "We’re all working together to make sure the process is valid, but our information is only as good as the last time somebody visited our office."


Jones said that because a driver’s license in Florida is valid for eight years, a non-citizen could have gotten a license prior to 2010 and subsequently become a citizen, but her agency would have no way of knowing.


Others are in Florida on work visas or student visas, Jones said. They can get temporary driver’s licenses in Florida but they can’t vote.


"I don’t think we’ll ever have a completely error-proof database," said Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark. "There are just so many variables."


Pinellas got a list of 36 names a couple of weeks ago. So far, Clark said, two people have provided proof of citizenship, two more say they will provide proof and one person was removed from the rolls for confirming their status as a non-citizen. Thirty one others have not yet been reached.


Anyone whose citizenship is questioned has at least 30 days to provide proof under state law.


"We don’t just take them off the rolls," Clark said. "We send them a certified letter and ask for proof of citizenship."


Pasco County received 13 names. Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley said the first two names he checked were able to prove their citizenship. They live in Ohio and Massachusetts, but vote in Florida..


"I’m just concerned about the end result," Corley said. "I don’t want to be kicking people off the rolls who are citizens."


The whole process spooks voters like Aventura’s Maria Bustamente, 63. She sounded alarmed at having her name appear in a list of potential non-citizens — but noted that while she has an ID card, she does not have a driver’s license.


“Yes,” she said with surprise, “I’m an American citizen.”


Miami Herald reporters Patricia Mazzei and Andres Viglucci contributed to this report.

Florida's so-called controversial new election laws have a cheap and satisfactory solution in plain sight that can't be licked; aloof Florida news media STILL rankles

Barbara Jordan, one of the 2011 U.S.P.S. Black Heritage series stamps.
Speaking of the Senate Watergate Committee as I do below, and the House Judiciary Committee that considered Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon, Jordan was a strong voice for reason & logic on that Committee.  


Below for your perusal is an expanded version of the email that I sent on Tuesday to veteran Florida news reporter Steve Bousquet, a former reporter at WLPG-TV/Channel 10 here in Miami, a 17-year veteran at the Miami Herald, including head of the Tallahassee bureau, and more recently, the Capital Bureau Chief for the St. Petersburg Times. 


He's one of the most-knowledgeable and influential reporters in the Sunshine State, in large part, not just because he remembers people, places and things that others have forgotten -to their peril, as well as to that of their readers/viewers- treats people well, and is very approachable.



Since I returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. area in late 2003 after 15 years up there, I've sent Bousquet, literally, dozens of emails with pithy comments, assorted head's-ups about shenanigans I've seen and heard about, as well as notes and articles from other news sources that dealt with subjects he's written about. 
He's responded enough times to satisfy me and seem reasonable, something which can NOT be said is true of 99% of the reporters in Florida who don't know one-tenth of what Steve Bousquet knows.


They don't respond to much of anything, despite whatever their various news organizations may claim on their websites.
In Florida, my personal experience is that the news media, whether print or electronic, is usually as unresponsive if not more so than the local, county and state government they often criticize for secrecy and lack of accountability. 


I and many of my friends who are civic activists in Florida -or bloggers- know that with a degree of certainty that most readers/viewers would be shocked to know.
Especially who some of the worst offenders are.


For those readers/viewers in the dark, though, the logical consequence of that attitude and unwillingness to have a two-way street is, of course, the reason so much of what these days passes for journalism in this state is SO consistently sub-par,  thoroughly unsatisfactory and sometimes worse than doing nothing at all.


In my opinion, there is more bad reporting, biased reporting and factually-inaccurate reporting going on in South Florida than there has ever been since my family moved here in 1968. 

I've expanded the original email to include things that I edited out due to length and to make some points clear for readers.

-----

Steve: 


I think it's very odd that your article today about Dawn Quarles and the state's new voter registration laws... is so sympathetic to her, despite her past history of being either absent-minded (good case) or passive aggressive (worst case).


And seriously, that headline the newspaper's editors chose doesn't do anyone any favors!
Civic-minded teacher snared by new election law http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/civic-minded-teacher-snared-by-new-election-law/1205958


For whatever reason, you choose NOT to quote any of Ms. Quarles' students who put their trust in her -or their parents- people whom I believe she let down by refusing to follow very simple rules.
If I was either a student of her's or a parent of one, I'd be livid.
And if I was the school principal...
Why no comments or quotes from any of them?
It seems counter-intuitive.


I'm someone who registered to vote the day they turned 18 in February of 1979, when the Dade League of Women Voters had a small table near the front of the cafeteria at NMB High School during lunch period, and who had a long-haired, mustachioed FSU grad of a Social Studies teacher at JFK Junior High, Henry Siegendorf, who was the brother of a then-Dade County judge -Arden Siegendorf- and someone whom civic involvement was very important to.


Because of his friendly demeanor, quick intelligence and rather common sense belief that he needed to cultivate our interests while teaching us valuable lessons about how society worked in reality, Mr. Siegendorf was a very popular teacher, and not surprisingly, the object of occasional envious grumbling from other JFK teachers, for whom strictly teaching by rote from the lesson plan was the way to go.
Talk about old -school!


Mr. Siegendorf let us watch the Watergate hearings on TV during portions of class, but unlike teachers who use TVs as babysitters, he required all of us to pay close attention to detail and facts, and not accept either the press' Conventional Wisdom on the story or the take of the members of the Senate Watergate Committee. 
To drive this point home, he liked to ask questions to test who was and wasn't paying attention to the drama taking place before us on the small tube.


Neither cynical nor a push-over, he also strongly discouraged his students from overly romanticizing the roles of either Sen. Howard Baker, Sen. Sam Ervin, or the two-headed journalism tag-team of Woodward and Bernstein. Why?
Because people will let you down -a smart precursor to Reagan's "Trust but verified" that I took to heart then and keep in mind always.


As to AP teacher Quarles, who from your article seems to imagine that her good intentions could not possibly be criticized, the very idea that some third-party, much less, a public school teacher, could, if they chose, intentionally take advantage of others in a dependent position by NOT complying with simple rules and laws, much less, foolishly think they were above punishment, is precisely why the new laws makes sense to me.


In this case, it seems to me that you have to punish her to set an example, to drive home the point that nobody-but-nobody is above the law when it comes to someone's right to vote.
Frankly, it almost seems to me as if the teacher did this intentionally to set up a lawsuit of some sort.


A Florida version of the Scopes Monkey Trial, since as I'm sure you know, the Tennessee teacher involved in that case almost 100 years ago intentionally did what they did so as to give the ACLU a legal pretext to get involved in the case and test the law about teaching evolution.
The teacher was NOT an innocent victim, as many believe to be the case, so much as a willing sacrifice or victim for the cause.

The ACLU did a variation of forum-shopping, looking to find the perfect set of circumstances and environment where could write a narrative that would expose the law to ridicule and have a clean-cut plaintiff who was worthy of public support.

Generally speaking, I'm always in favor of eliminating the idiot-factor by dumbing the rules down to the point where anyone, even school teachers, should be able to follow it.
And yet... some choose to do otherwise.


(In the case of the new election laws, the League of Women Voters is on the wrong side, and their disconnect to other public policy issues is becoming increasingly apparent to me here in Broward County, where they did zero in the way of public education or outreach before the recent state redistricting meetings -in Davie!- as I wrote on the blog at the time.
The Fair Districts people REALLY dropped the ball even more than the LWV.


Though I publicly supported them and wrote many posts with info on the subject, the Fair Districts NEVER responded to any of several emails of mine or those of friends imploring them to host or co-host such forums.
Just like the LWV, whose top people in Broward I contacted, with nothing to show for it.
In the case of Fair Districts, they totally ignored us even while they kept sending us fundraising appeal emails.)


Why is it that so many traditional liberal groups that, for almost every other issue, always play the (latent) conspiracy card, and say that you can't trust others intent or requirement to follow the law, NOW, are so suddenly willing to let others decide whether or not THEY will comply with the law and turn in YOUR registration paperwork, so it's properly processed so YOU are not disenfranchised.


As to the Early Voting changes, it's the 21st Century, and first-class stamp solves all the problems, including the ban on Early Voting on the Sunday before the election, with marches to the polls that lots of African-American churches are reported to have done regularly, though when did you actually ever see it mentioned in the Miami Herald or on local Miami TV newscasts if it was so common?


In any case, using stamps reduces the costs of govt. personnel, too, which is not an unimportant consideration given the FACT that so few people actually used the opportunity to vote in person early that first week of the old two week period.


But it's clear that at least some of the the groups complaining about the new laws want it to be a problem so they have something to argue about, like the national Democrats have done since the early '80's with Medicare and Social Security -create an issue to scare seniors with.



Rep. Barbara Jordan of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the historical significance and meaning of Impeachment within the U.S. Constitution, and the task at hand for the committee; two weeks later, President Nixon resigned. July 25, 1974  http://youtu.be/CDcYiyF5eLc


The answer to the complaints about changing Early Voting is to go turbo and make Florida the largest state in the country to have ALL elections -primaries, general elections and special elections- done by mail.
Voting by Mail makes more sense than ever.


No more money wasted by political parties or candidates on GOTV.
If the parties or candidates want to spend that money dispensing first class stamps instead of providing free transportation to the polls, great, but otherwise, the new laws are very practical.


By the way, I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already hear dozens of times a week, but over the past few months, The Buzz blog's reader comments has quickly descended to Lowest Common Denominator territory, and become a hangout for what seem to be chronic ideologues.


As someone who has commented there maybe six times this year, I'd almost prefer that you didn't allow comments, because the sensible comments are SO overwhelmed by the armies of agit-prop/chaff.



-----
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/


http://www.tampabay.com/writers/steve-bousquet


http://twitter.com/stevebousquet


Tex Parte blog of Texas Lawyer magazine
Barbara Jordan is the 2011 Black Heritage stamp honoree
http://texaslawyer.typepad.com/texas_lawyer_blog/2011/01/barbara-jordan-is-the-2011-black-heritage-stamp-honoree.html


http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22318/html/info_008.htm