A very curious-but-pleasant surprise for some South Florida bloggers from the Miami Herald, but there's still so much more blogger knowledge & synergy that ought to be publicly displayed on a regular basis. South Florida needs a weekly Broward/Miami-Dade Politics Hour on radio!

Above, my screenshot of today's Miami Herald website showing where the link to their South Florida Blogs are shown on the page by the orange circle, at the bottom of the default, with no icons of any sort to identify it.

Could it be more hidden?

Wow! Very curious but pleasant surprise from Miami Herald! 

Just noticed this NEW change from last week at Miami Herald -they're linking my (our) blog posts under their extant "city" pages, i.e. http://www.miamiherald.com/hallandale-beach/

Example: 

http://www.miamiherald.com/community/v-blog/index.html?goto=http://www.miamiherald.com/cgi-bin/bnn/miamiherald/go.php?http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/broward-judge-patti-englander-henning.html

It's not as easy to navigate as my actual blog page, esp. moving from right-to-left because they seem to have shrunken the blog's page it to fit within their own "window," but while you have to know to navigate to your right to see the important fact-filled right-hand column of the blog, which doesn't show up immediately on their "window," my three Google Adsense ads are included, so that's very good. 

(This'll make more sense when you see the URL above.)

After I watch the Duke-North Carolina ACC Lacrosse title game that starts on ESPNU at 3 p.m., I need to spend some time checking whether they're doing this for every city in Broward and Miami-Dade that has a blog I'm aware of, or whether they're now including bloggers on those "city" pages who are not currently on their own "South Florida Blogs" list, which I know might include some of you reading this.

http://www.miamiherald.com/cgi-bin/bnn/miamiherald/index.php

If the Herald really wanted to play this smart, they'd greatly expand that list of blogs -after asking them first- and then link to the "city" page in their online version of their articles via a link at the end of the article, not unlike a label or tag at the end of a blog post.

That would make it a lot easier for news junkies like me to see if anyone else has already written on the subject at hand, perhaps -likely- even better and with more knowledge of the actual facts and context, the lack of which is one of the biggest and most-constant criticisms of the current group of Herald reporters in either county.

As it happens, about ten days ago, partly out of curiosity as much as boredom, I actually checked their "South Florida Blogs" homepage on the Herald's blah website for the first time in about 6-8 months, and it seemed the way it always was -neglected and with zero colorful icons to catch a reader's attention as they scrolled almost all the way down the page, compared to it being located near the top when they first initiated it, when hopes were high I suppose.

Frankly, as I'm sure is NOT a surprise to many of you reading this given how often I've taken the Herald's website to task, that link is very easy to miss and to my thinking, has represented a terrible blunder by the Herald 

Unlike has been the case in cities like Seattle and Chicago, where lots of creativity, energy and outside-the-box thinking took place as how to best utilize the bloggers to help them and get more information out to the public via a media platform, the Herald seemed largely satisfied with just having a link and nothing else.

Now sometimes that outside-the-box thinking doesn't live up to anyone's expectations, most especially the bloggers, as happened with the experiment that was the Tribune's Chicago Now Radio Show that first aired in 2009 on WGN radio from 9 am-Noon on Saturdays

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/chicagonow/wgnam-chicago-now-about-show,0,4398318.story but which was killed after about a year, despite this sort of attention:

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicagonow-staff-blog/2010/08/chicagonow-celebrates-its-first-birthday/

Still, the axe fell on the radio show -see 6th paragraph of 

http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/news/1169-wgn-am-revamps-weekends-axes-agar-wasson-a-chicagonow

The whole dysfunctional episode in Chicago between the legacy media's Tribune Company, ChicagoNOW and the bloggers makes even more sense when you read what was really going on behind-the-scenes as Mike Doyle recounts in his blog post, The Past Imperfect of ChicagoNow, or, as I prefer to remember it using one of his funnier lines, "You can’t run a 21st-century blog network at the speed of a 19th-century newspaper" which ran a few months before the radio show was killed.

http://www.chicagocarless.com/2010/03/01/the-past-imperfect-of-chicagonow/

This seems to be yet another instance where bloggers were the bait for a legacy media company that wanted to be more relevant, but where the management and bureaucracy of the media powers-that-be and the media platform company weren't too terribly interested in making the product not only more useful for readers, but work for the bloggers, too.

When you consider how many smart and creative people there are in South Florida who have some experience of a sort to add something interesting and new to the news and conversation mix, and yet see how poorly the Herald has reacted to New Media and technology, as I've mentioned here previously in my November 27, 2010 blog post titled
How a video of Paramore in Stockholm & Razorlight in London proves the Miami Herald is too damn slow. Iceberg dead ahead!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-video-of-paramore-in-stockholm.html 
it's amazing to me that McClatchy's Herald or one of the local Miami TV stations -or even these bewildering sycophantic TV production outfits like Plum TV, which seem so focused on very shallow topics and celebs for their affluent or wannabe affluent viewers that they fail to appreciate how silly they appear- haven't yet figured out a way to regularly get knowledgeable and articulate people in South Florida who are bloggers on the air to share a story in an interesting and original way, getting much-deserved attention to news stories or issues that people do care about but which the local news media is largely ignoring, for whatever reason.

But then South Florida is the year 2012 is an area without an All-News radio station and
despite all its pretensions, still hasn't figured out a way to have a weekly one-hour radio show on Miami-Dade politics, govt. and local current events one hour, and then Broward the next -or vice-versa.
Say on Friday morning or at Noon, or Saturday mornings from 10-Noon.

The template for this sort of weekly format already exists on Washington, D.C.'s NPR 
affiliate WAMU, which has had this hugely-popular show on Friday afternoon's from Noon-2 p.m. for over 25 years, with D.C. and Maryland/Virginia.

http://thekojonnamdishow.org/topic/the-politics-hour

It also features the two governors and the DC mayor, separately, regularly taking questions from their well-informed callers, flanked by savvy area reporters to ask questions as well, and not just folks from the WaPo, either.

I listened to it every week for 15 years and so did almost everyone I know, as well as nearly every serious civic activist and news junkie in the area.

There's nothing even remotely like that currently on South Florida radio/TV.

I'm curious what's happened to the Herald to at least in a small way, shake them out of their longstanding doldrums, since they should've been integrating knowledgeable bloggers into their own coverage over two-and-a-half years ago, when they first introduced the South Florida blog directory and I was included under "Communities" 

http://www.miamiherald.com/cgi-bin/bnn/miamiherald/feed.php?vfolder=16

and didn't even know about it because they never contacted me.

As I've mentioned here previously, I only found out about it in the first place because a friend saw it and asked me why I hadn't told her about it.

Could it be that some of my recent (better!) posts re the Broward IG investigation into Hallandale Beach and some other areas to check into, which I'd sent originally as a bcc email to Rick Hirsch, the Herald's Executive Editor -he's Anders Gyllenhaal's successor- the number-two person, directly under the publisher David Landsberg, caused Hirsch or someone else to re-think about some of those accurate verbal darts I threw last December -and some good ideas I suggested to him and others at Herald HQ- which I then posted online here? I highly doubt it but still...

I'm kind of dismayed, since I'd not usually have even checked that HB city page, since given the way the Herald has largely ignored the city for many years, due in part to the fact that Hollywood also holds their City Commission meetings on the same days, that city page of theirs has usually served as nothing but the dusty attic of an archive of recent stories, all of which I'd already read. 
And nothing else the least bit useful to readers here.

Hmm-m... it figures that given how things over there have been managed the past few years, even when the Herald does something good, like this probably will turn out to be, they do so in such an odd and confusing way.

And again, with me knowing nothing about it beforehand.

Yes, a very curious-but-pleasant surprise, indeed!
But is it just the first step or the one-and-only change?
Wish I knew.

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

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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.