Miami Herald rediscovers FL-17 race it's largely ignored; FL-17 candidate forum at FIU's Biscayne Bay campus Thurday at 5 p.m.

Not that they bear ALL the responsibility for this, per se, but why is the Miami Herald once again doing something that's so counter-intuitive by posting this story about a congressional race that they have largely ignored the past year, FL-17, that includes info about a Thursday afternoon candidate's forum, at 11:22 p.m. Wednesday night, instead of showing some sense and doing so Tuesday night for Wednesday's print edition, so more readers and voters would have a chance to attend?

Isn't the candidate forum information time-sensitive?
Seems like it to me!

The Herald's longstanding and almost spiteful refusal over the years to run items like that early when they can actually be of practical use to readers, the final consumers of their product, is really something that gives frequent critics of the newspaper like me, even more ammunition than we need.

Frankly, it makes the reporters and editors seem EVEN MORE distant and removed from the concerns of readers.

In most major newspapers, that particular info would've run in the paper on Sunday, so that concerned readers could make plans to attend.

Yet curiously, events that the Herald or owner McClatchy or previously, Knight-Ridder, was sponsors or co-sponsors of, no matter how parochial or picayune, were/are always given lots of play in advance. We all know that to be true, so why the disparity?

By the way, I'm NOT a big fan of FIU Prof. Dario Moreno, who is quoted below in the story, as I've almost always found his appearances on local TV newscasts or public policy shows -usually Michael Putney's excellent This Week in South Florida (TWISF)- to be the worst kind of sycophantic conventional wisdom, with him offering no original take on anything.

Almost as if he was at pains to criticize anyone, which, perhaps he is.
When I see Prof. Moreno on the tube, I tune-out and change the channel.

There are a number of holes in this story but it's so damn blah, why shoot a fish in a barrel?
Well, because I can.

U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd./Federal Highway is the dividing line between Kendrick Meek's current 17th CD and the dreaded Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's 20th CD. (DWS)

It might interest the reporters -and those of you living far from here- to know that contrary to what they wrote, ALL of Aventura is in DWS territory.

Is it really too much trouble to expect news reporters to actually know what is and is NOT in the 17th CD when they write about it?
I mean there are maps of it after all, right?

Yes, I even posted one here for you to examine, and there's one anchored on the blog.
Here's the link:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL

The east side of West Dixie Highway is the dividing line for the City of Aventura, so the people who live in Miami-Dade County north of North Miami Beach -where I grew-up- and west of Aventura, are, technically in unincorporated M-D County, NOT Aventura, despite what the businesses there may call themselves or what they put on their signs or business cards.
Just ask the Post Office or any Aventura cop -they know.

See this handy map: http://skyhighhomes.com/picture/northeastdademac.pdf

And as discussed here previously, it's why the well-regarded Aventura Waterways Charter K-8 school, which I'd love to see replicated in Hallandale Beach, is NOT really in Aventura proper.

Not that the residents living on the other side of Dixie Highway don't want to be in it, but the City of Aventura powers-that-be don't want 'em because in their minds, pure and simple, the area isn't affluent enough.

I know all about this border not just from living so close to it, but because every time I see my barber in the M-D neighborhood of Ojus, which is in that no-man's land, we discuss it, just like we did yesterday for the umpteenth time.

See the Skylake-Highland Lakes Homeowners Assocation website for backstory at
http://skyhighhomes.com/outside_home.asp, in particular, here:
http://skyhighhomes.com/item_list.asp?subcat=44&subtitle=Annexation%2FIncorporation

As has been previously mentioned here in previous discussions of Meek, DWS and the South Florida CDs, the grand bargain the FL legislature made many years in carving-out the CDs, knowing that Carrie Meek was going to run, was to put as many African-Americans as possible in 17 and as many Jewish voters as possible in the 20th.

That's why the 20th CD has the strange shape it does and why Hallandale Beach, where I live, and not listed in the story, a city that's only 4.2 square miles, is actually divided in two, when its small size ought to make it even more important for the it to entirely be in the same district.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=17
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=20

The Broward County Commission districts also divide the city, albeit on a much smaller scale, since a sliver of NW HB is in District 8, formerly repped by the indicted Diana Wasserman-Rubin, and currently unrepresented at the Commission until November, while 95% of the city is currently repped by Sue Gunzburger in District 6.

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist8.pdf

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist6.pdf

And you thought that electoral districts were actually supposed to be "compact" for the benefit of residents like the law says?
Nope!

As for the dopey comments of self-serving Broward Democratic Party poobah Mitch Ceasar about possible low-turnout in the Broward part of the district, well, they're typical.

Explain how on the one hand that you'd imagine that people will turn out to vote in the Sue Gunzburger vs. Steve Geller fight for Broward County Commission District 6, but counter-intuitively, not cast a ballot in a primary for Congress?

If anything, it's very likely that the Broward part of FL-17 will have a higher voting-rate than the part located in Miami-Dade County.

I believe I wrote that many months ago in a few posts criticizing the FL-17 candidates who were refusing to come to Broward and campaign in cities like, yes, home sweet Hallandale Beach.
Now THERE'S your real story!

------

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/11/1772338/1-open-seat-10-candidates-an-unpredictable.html

Florida International University and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce will host

a candidate forum for Congressional District 17 at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Wolfe University

Center Theater, FIU Biscayne Bay Campus, 3000 NE 151st St. in North Miami.

The forum, co-sponsored by The Miami Herald and Univisión/Channel 23, will be moderated

by WPLG-ABC 10 political reporter Michael Putney.

Marleine Bastien, Phillip Brutus, Scott Galvin, Shirley Gibson, Rudy Moise, André Williams

and Frederica Wilson have confirmed their attendance.

1 open seat + 10 candidates = an unpredictable election

By Patricia Mazzei and Carrie Wells

August 12, 2010

For nearly two decades, nobody has had to figure out how to win Florida's 17th Congressional District.

Neither U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek nor his mother, Carrie -- the first person elected to the seat when it was redrawn in 1992 -- faced more than token opposition, if any.

But now Meek is running for U.S. Senate, and the nine other Democrats vying for his seat are working without a road map to model their races. Forced to devise their own strategies, the campaigns have not focused on capturing votes in the entire district, a safe Democratic seat that stretches from Overtown to Pembroke Pines.

Instead, they are carving out niches, trying to muster just enough votes to eke out a victory in the Aug. 24 primary. The winner will face attorney Roderick Vereen, running without party affiliation, in November.

With so many candidates splintering the vote, one candidate would win the primary with as little as 15 percent of the ballots cast, said Kevin A. Hill, an associate professor of political science at Florida International University.

"Anything could happen in that election,'' he said. "It's a total crapshoot.''

The race is also unpredictable because the district's more than 600,000 residents are as diverse as they come. A majority of voters are black -- mostly African American, though the district has the largest concentration of Haitian Americans in the country -- and there are pockets of whites and Hispanics.

"This election may answer whether it's an African-American seat, a Haitian seat or probably a bit of everything,'' said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Broward Democratic Party.

With Meek opting not to endorse anyone in the primary, the candidates have worked to shore up their natural bases as they crunch numbers to determine which is the district's biggest voting bloc.

Frederica Wilson has relied on an existing network in her Florida Senate district, which overlaps with much of the congressional district. The same is true for state Reps. James Bush III and Yolly Roberson and former state Rep. Phillip Brutus. To complicate allegiances further: Brutus and Roberson used to be married to each other.

None of those districts encompass all of Miami Gardens, home to two other candidates: Mayor Shirley Gibson and Councilman André Williams. As the third-largest city in Miami-Dade and the state's largest predominantly African-American city, a well-known official could amass enough votes to win with little need of support from elsewhere.

The same is not true for smaller cities like North Miami, where candidate Scott Galvin is a councilman. As the only white candidate in the race, he could collect votes in Miami Shores, North Miami Beach and Aventura.

Haitian Americans -- who depending on varying estimates make up between an eighth and a quarter of the vote in the district -- could swing the election.

Yet it is unlikely for Haitian Americans to vote as a unified bloc, with four Haitian-born candidates in the running: Brutus, Roberson, activist Marleine Bastien and entrepreneur Rudolph "Rudy'' Moise.

Looking elsewhere for support, Bastien, founder of Haitian Women of Miami, has tried to rally like-minded activists and the female vote. Moise, running with deep pockets after putting more than $1 million of his own money into the race, has gone on TV and sent campaign mailers to become better known.

His media campaign could reach some voters in Miramar, Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, which together comprise about a third of the district. Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober recently endorsed Moise, citing his "real-world experience.''

"The key for the candidates is to somehow make sure Broward does not believe itself to be a stepchild of the district,'' Ceasar said. "If that occurs, then the risk becomes greater that the turnout in the Broward portion is exceedingly low.''

Turnout is expected to be low everywhere. In 2006, the last time Meek drew a primary opponent, about 36,000 people -- or 16 percent -- of the district's 220,000 registered Democrats voted.

This time around the seat is more competitive, but some campaigns and political observers say a candidate could still win with as few as 10,000 votes.

That makes relying on one group for support particularly risky.

And, of course, whoever is elected will have to represent everyone in the diverse district. That tall order could mean a streak of competitive elections among Democrats battling for the seat in the future.

"It is difficult,'' said Dario Moreno, an associate professor of political science at FIU. "That's why the Meeks were so successful.''

Some thoughts about the Washington Post's coverage of Walter Reed Hospital; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs returns WAMU-FM reporter's equipment three days after confiscation

My comments follow the article.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041003497.html?hpid=artsliving

Washington Post

VA Returns WAMU Reporter's Equipment Three Days After Confiscation

By Ed O'Keefe, Washington Post Staff Writer
April 11, 2009

Officials at WAMU radio and the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a dispute last night over the confiscation of a reporter's recording equipment during a public forum this week at the VA hospital in the District.

Jim Asendio, news director at the station, said the sound card from the reporter's digital recorder was due to be turned over to him late last night, with no conditions. VA officials initially said they would return the card only if the reporter, David Schultz, signed a consent form that should have been signed before he conducted any interviews.

The station contended that confiscating the device violated Schultz's First Amendment right to gather news. The department claimed that Schultz did not identify himself or follow proper procedures for interviewing VA patients while at the event.

In a statement released last night, VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts said the department "regrets the incident" and "appreciates the press's interest in covering the VA" but also must "make every effort to protect the privacy of our patients."

Schultz said he attended the meeting Tuesday night in the hospital's auditorium after learning about the event from a VA press release. The VA's Advisory Committee on Minority Veterans organized the meeting to hear comments about the medical care received by minority veterans. After Army veteran Tommie Canady told the committee that he had received poor treatment at Washington's VA hospital, Schultz invited him into the hallway for a recorded interview.

Moments later, according to Schultz, hospital public affairs officer Gloria Hairston approached them, telling Schultz that he could not interview Canady until they both signed consent forms. She summoned hospital security guards and demanded that Schultz hand over all his equipment. After consulting with Asendio by phone, Schultz gave Hairston the recorder's flash card and left the hospital.

Roberts said yesterday that Schultz did not properly identify himself or obtain consent forms before speaking with Canady.

"We have procedures and policies in place so that our patients can make informed decisions about what information they feel comfortable releasing or discussing with the public. That is why, before we permit one-on-one interviews to be filmed or videotaped on our premises, we request written consent."

A reporter with American Urban Radio and a photographer with Vaughn Enterprises also attended the forum, signed consent forms and were able to interview patients, Roberts said.

Anyone entering the hospital was required to show personal identification and sign in with their name and phone number, Schultz said. He said he did not have a formal press badge or business cards because he is a part-time employee of the public radio station, which is owned and operated by American University. But he said the WAMU logo on his bag, his headphones and his recording equipment should have made his intent clear.

In a letter sent to the VA on Friday afternoon, WAMU General Manager Caryn G. Mathes called the VA's actions "clearly unconstitutional," stating that "Mr. Schultz's newsgathering activities and the product of his work not only are protected by the First Amendment, but he was attending a public meeting at which the VA had encouraged public discussion on the treatment it gives to minority veterans."

Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, agreed with Mathes. "The seizure by the government of news gathering equipment is the kind of thing we sometimes see in dictatorships, not in the United States," she wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. "For a government official to take a reporter's equipment away while he is conducting an interview amounts to the kind of prior restraint that has been repeatedly found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The VA had said Schultz could get the flash card back if he signed the consent forms. But Asendio, on the advice of American University lawyers, refused to do so and did not authorize Schultz to sign. Asendio wanted to focus on the story Schultz was reporting: medical treatment for minority veterans. Schultz has filed three reports on the incident and Canady's experiences with the VA.

"The story really is about [Canady] and about why the VA doesn't want him to talk and why the VA is trying to suppress his story," Schultz said.

Reader comments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041003497_Comments.html

------

In my opinion, despite perhaps being less diplomatic than was probably warranted, this doesn't excuse the fact that for years and years, the Washington Post positively snoozed while the VA/Walter Reed Hospital story was taking place just a few miles away from their HQ, and then, acted like they were the first ones to know what was going on. Sorry, they weren't Paul Revere.

The difference is that they are the WaPo, and according to the way things usually work in DC, everyone has to pretend that what the dozens of patients and their constituents families were individually telling their individual Senators and Representatives about the quality of care they were receiving, as well as the dismal physical conditions they encountered there, and what those same people then told their hometown or small-town reporters when they got home, really didn't happen.

Under this sort of premise, i.e. that it's not really an important story in the Beltway until the 
Post says it is, one that has long held sway, as the local D.C. TV stations aped whatever the

Post was writing about, it wasn't until reporters Dana Priest, Ann Hull and Michel du Cille rode-in on their 'white horse' that the problems were known.

Walter Reed and Beyond

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/walter-reed/index.html

See also: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inteldump/2008/04/post_team_nets_pulitzer_for_wa.html

and http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4296

The most telling paragraph from above is this one by

Donna Shaw at AJR:

One of the places that seemed strangely subdued, though, was the New York Times. Between February 18 and March 1, the day that Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman was fired as commander of Walter Reed, the Times published only one editorial (February 23) and one staff-written news story (February 24, page A10), both citing the Post. To some people, it seemed odd that a major national newspaper would not weigh in more forcefully, particularly when the Post stories triggered an immediate outcry from high-ranking politicians demanding answers and action.

Frankly, things being what they are down here, judgment-wise, it's hard to even conceive of the local Miami TV stations even showing up for the sort of hard-core public policy event described above, especially if some well-known, dopey rapper or actor had been arrested on South Beach that same night.

You and I know exactly where the TV production trucks would've been, waiting for that ubiquitous LIVE shot to begin the 11 p.m. news, and it wouldn't have been outside a VA hospital in downtown Miami.

Well, that is except for Channel 10's Michael Putney or Glenna Milberg being there for TWISF, This Week in South Florida, or WFOR's I-Team, http://cbs4.com/iteam

who would've been at the VA meeting taking notes, filming and interviewing subjects.

But otherwise...

I think it's worth noting that nowhere in this story does it say whether or not David Schultz is an AU student who works for the station, which is my hunch thus far, since WAMU is a radio station that's licensed to AU and is right on campus, and frankly, a younger face amidst a sea of older ones at a VA event might help explain why the VA folks made a beeline towards him. (But maybe I'm wrong.).

I've actually been to WAMU dozens of times, http://wamu.org/ and listened faithfully to it

everyday for hours for over 15 years, especially Diane Rehm and Kojo Nnmadi,

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/ and http://wamu.org/programs/kn/

In fact, I used live down the street from AU from 1988-'89, when I lived on Nebraska Ave.,

N.W., right next door to the residence of the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., and saw

students walking towards campus in the morning while I was walking in the opposite direction

towards the Tenleytown Metro on Connecticut Avenue and my job downtown.

My home back then was also just a few blocks from the NBC News Washington bureau and

what was then the HQ for the real NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

http://www.ncis.navy.mil/

Unfortunately, my friends and I never saw any NCIS agents in the immediate area who looked as ridiculously cute as Chilean-born, South Florida-raised actress Cote de Pablo.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1580243/

(For more on that area, see my January 31st, 2007 South Beach Hoosier post,

When Reporters Choose Sides, Play Favorites or Chase Unfounded Rumors

http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/01/when-reporters-choose-sides-play.html )

By the way, for the record, at the Broward County Charter Review Committee meetings I attended last year, media folks had to sign-in just like Broward citizens were required to do before they were admitted into the County Chambers, for what was billed as a public meeting.

Speaking of the workings of Broward County government and the way things are done these days on Andrews Avenue -or not- I'll have much more to say on that in just a dew days, and trust me, it's far from positive.

Miami Herald cutting jobs, pulling plug on their International Edition -finally. But what's the strategy?

Note: Per my past comments of the last few months, Blogger.com seems to be screwing-up the formatting of these posts, as I've already spent over 90 minutes today trying to get it to stay exactly like I want, exactly like it looks in Preview. But it changes the moment I hit "Publish Post."

Until Blogger.com figures out how to solve the problem, if they ever do, for the forseeable future, the posts here will look very different from what I intend.

Screenshots of Charles Perez doing the lead-in on the Miami Herald cuts tonight on Local 10's 6 p.m. newscast, before throwing-it to Michael Putney outside the Herald Building, the wheels and gears of

a press run, the specific numbers involved in today's news, and the official statement from Herald publisher David Landsberg.

My comments follow the article.

__________________________________________

http://www.miamiherald.com/101/story/944120.html

Miami Herald

Miami Herald to cut 175 workers, reduce salaries

By John Dorschner

March 11, 2009

The Miami Herald plans to cut 19 percent of its workforce, reduce salaries of those who remain and require one week unpaid furloughs, publisher David Landsberg announced Wednesday morning.

''About 175 employees will lose their jobs as a result, and we will eliminate another 30 vacant positions, for a total reduction of 205. Reductions will occur in all areas of our operation and at every level in the organization,'' Landsberg said in an e-mail to employees.

Remaining full-time employees earning between $25,000 and $50,000 a year will have their pay reduced 5 percent. For employees earning more than $50,000, the pay cut will be 10 percent.

Employees will also lose one week of pay this year through an unpaid furlough program.

As part of the cost cutting, The Miami Herald's presses will be converted to a 44-inch web format and the International Edition will cease publication.

Many of the jobs will happen through involuntary layoffs, but some employees will be offered the chance to voluntarily take severance packages. ''If enough employees do not take the voluntary option, then the work groups will be reduced either by function or according to least tenure, depending on the work group,'' Landsberg wrote.

The cuts are part of a national move by The Herald's owner, the McClatchy Co., to reduce costs as advertising revenue and circulation continue to decline, a trend that virtually all newspapers in the country are experiencing.

''The decisions about where to reduce jobs have been extremely difficult,'' Landsberg wrote to employees. ``Please know that we have done everything possible to minimize the impact of layoffs by identifying alternative means of saving expenses. . . . While there will be tightening of news pages on various days, we have worked hard to maintain our newspapers at the quality level our readers have come to expect.''

The press conversion is expected to save $2 million a year in newsprint.

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/101/story/944120.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1#Comments_Container

----------------------------------------

Came across this particular news online this morning, having already expected as much after having read TIME magazine's interesting piece over the weekend labeled, simply enough,

The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1883785,00.html.

Naturally, the Herald actually made THAT Top Ten list, coming in at #3, right after the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, a newspaper whose D.C. Bureau I once had a good relationship with, and the Philly Daily News coming in at number one.

(Speaking of TIME magazine, did you know that TIME's Miami Bureau chief was from the capital of Hoosierland, Indianapolis? Oui!

Though he's a Wabash College grad, not an IU grad, Timothy Padgett is a damn good reporter, as almost any of his thoughtful analysis pieces, especially those on Latin America, like his recent ones on Cuba and Brazil prove in just a few sentences.

Tim really knows how to tell a story!

http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?N=0&Ntk=NoBody&Nty=1&Nr=OR(p_record_type:Article,p_record_type:blog,p_record_type:Other)&Ntt=Tim+Padgett

In the view of many people I know here in South Florida, including some veteran TV reporters and network correspondents, all of whom, like me, really want the Herald to be MUCH better than it is, i.e. assertive in ways that more closely resembled traditional notions of what a metro paper ought to be like, and what the Herald was like in the '70's and early ''80's, today marks the end of a very bad idea that lived longer than it had any right to.

That is, the Herald foolishly persisting for years in producing an international edition that you could buy in large South American cities, even after the advent of the internet.

It seemed to be a poorly thought-out, grand-fathered vanity project that might've served a legitimate purpose in the late '70's and early '80's, if you consider impressing foreign advertisers

and govt. officials legitimate, but which served none once every newspaper and public policy journal of consequence was online.

Especially when you are doing such a very poor job of covering local municipal govt. in your own area of the world, where, oh-by-the-way, 99.9% of your readers are.

To me, it only showed how truly desperate the Herald was to be STILL considered an international player of consequence, when the truth is, with the exception of someone like Tyler Bridges who I think is usually pretty good and often has unusual takes on a situation in Latin America- their international or Latin America correspondents are a shadow of what they were when I was growing-up down here, when the Herald really had a team of truly great correspondents, like Don Bohning.

(I can still remember reading his stories on the aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana at my desk, my senior year of high school at NMBHS, before my first class started at 7 a.m., Fourth-year French with Pearl Chiari, a fabulous teacher who did so much for me and so many other students at NMB .)

Since I returned to South Florida from the DC area five years ago, the Herald was still running occasional print ads showing where you could purchase it in Caracas, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, et al, even while their Letters to the Editor was printing letters from longtime Herald subscribers who were VERY upset to discover the Herald would no longer be distributed in Palm Beach County.
So, you could buy the Herald in Argentina but not in Palm Beach?

Brilliant!

That certainly explains a lot, don't you think?

Late yesterday afternoon, while I was at Hollywood City Hall, waiting to go into the City Commission Chambers and hear the much-anticipated Bernard Zyscovich vision for Downtown Hollywood -which I'll be writing about very soon- I was reading the Business section of the New York Times.

The last article I read before heading in?

This one by Richard Perez-Pena headlined, McClatchy Plans to Cut 15% of Staff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/media/10mcclatchy.html

The very last sentence said simply, "McClatchy's stock, which traded above $60 a share before its offer for Knight-Ridder, closed Monday at 41 cents."

Nine cents less than a copy of the newspaper.

-----------------------------------

For more on the situation at the Herald, see what blogger Henry Gomez has to say over at Herald Watch at http://heraldwatch.blogspot.com/, and take a peek at what's cooking over at McClatchy Watch at http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/, both of which

I've always had as blog links on Hallandale Beach Blog and South Beach Hoosier.