These screen captures are from shortly after Midnight this morning and they paint quite a picture of how truly low bad journalism has gotten in South Florida in the year 2013.
This is what an intentional news blackout looks like when the management and the editors of an American newspaper doesn't want its readers to know about a certain bit of news that reflects poorly on one their central editorial tenets.
In this case, reflects poorly on their pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants position and the role of Florida senator Marco Rubio, whom I voted for in 2010.
News blackout at Miami Herald re Marco Rubio & Rubio's Folly is no accident! Still nothing new about immigration @MarcoRubio. Ryan Lizza's great New Yorker piece on immigration reform and the roles of Marco Rubio, #gangofeight and their staffs, continues to be part of news blackout at Herald and their second-rate politics blog; Tampa Bay Times and their Buzz politics blog finally gave up on their blackout re Lizza story on Tuesday afternoon; I thought there were was supposed to be a wall between editorial and content? What happened to the wall between editorial and content? Where is it at the Herald? But then they never replaced their Ombudsman over 2 years ago -and let Marc Caputo do articles & columns; #rubiosfolly
@Miamiherald, @NakedPoliticsFL, @rickhirsch, @MarcCaputo scared silly about the prospect of having to report fairly about Rubio and Co.'s terrible PR problem -the truth actually came out!
Their whole attempt to go without honestly telling both sides of the immigration reform story has been exposed. How can they possibly spin the words of Ryan Lizza and dozens of other people who were witnesses to what happened?
So far the Herald's management has done that by completely ignoring it and treating the story like a non-story.
But even as the Herald's management and editors dawdle and put their heads in the sand, influential people in the country are taking names and lighting sticks of long-fused dynamite.
And boom goes the dynamite!
Yes, nothing about Ryan Lizza, his penetrating New Yorker piece, Marco Rubio's chameleon-like maneuvers on matters of principle and the uncouth comments of Rubio aide Alex Conant tossing poor Floridians under the bus.
But then that's the sort of condescending and patronizing view of too many Miami Cubans towards poor Blacks and Whites that we've seen over the past forty years.
Nothing particularly new there.
Of course after the Mariel boatlift, as we all recall, these were the same people who were forever telling us that their nephew -who was then in the M-D jail- was a political dissident back in Cuba, which is why they were in jail over there.
Sure, not because they were a criminal or a rapist or...
Always with the Cuban exceptionalism, which does NOT naturally flow to others in their minds, especially native-born Blacks.
That's especially true for poor African-American in Miami of whom there are plenty who don't speak Spanish, but the Miami news media, just like the woman who supports the immigration bill who represents those constituents in Miami, Rep. Frederica Wilson, FL-24, who is completely ignoring that angle and is no doubt despertaely hoping no reporters ask her any hard questions, just like always.
Not that they ever do.
Most Miami-area reporters are lapdogs, not watchdogs.
Dear South Florida press corps:
Do you believe the poor African-Americans in Rep. Frederica Wilson's congressional district are going to love the new immigration bill? I don't.Thanks for completely ignoring that issue like so many others you have ignored since I returned to the area from D.C. over nine years ago.
Obvious issues involving public policy that would be raised publicly in other media markets but which is beyond the ken of the local Miami press corps.
Hmm-m... maybe that attitude of yours is part of why Blacks in Miami feel so alienated.
YOU completely ignore them unless something bad happens in their neighborhood or you have some cheesy story about a community park to show how much you -cough- "care." They're just props, not real people.
Too bad they don't speak Spanish, eh Alex?
But that non-story from two weeks ago about David Beckham being interested in having an MLS team in Miami -something that literally nobody was ever interested in, even me, a huge soccer fan- well, they were all over his appearance at a Heat-Pacers playoff game, where their coverage like all Miami press corps coverage of him being in town -the hysterical 14-year old girl.
It sure wasn't journalism and the fact that so much of it was from female reporters, esp. on TV, only made it more cringeworthy.
In case you forgot or never knew, within the recent past, it was not unusual for the Herald's constipated political blog to go 2-3 days without anything, until they started posting Tampa Bay Times Buzz posts there to fill up the space.
It's the same reason they'd shove little nothings about education there as well rather than running them on an Education blog they've never started.
I wanted you to see the evidence for yourself.
A propos of the Tampa Bay Times Buzz politics blog, they finally broke their many days of silence this afternoon on the Ryan Lizza story.
Tampa Bay Times
Buzz politics blog
Rubio distances self from unnamed aide's perceived slam on American workers
By Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 1:28pm
It was so obvious what was going on, and people besides myself were asking questions publicly about whether they were ignoring the news just like Herald, whose editorial p.o.v. is stridently pro-amnesty.
Never is heard a discouraging word.
Not even about Rubio himself:
The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson
But eventually, they'll have to reconcile their obvious attempt to hide news from readers that deal with such an important issue, especially one where they have such a strong public point-of-view for amnesty, which has been their policy for years.
Alfonso Chardy has churned out dozens and dozens of biased and one-sided pieces on immigration, year-after-year, as has been detailed on this blog with great specificity.
Always very sympathetic to the illegal immigrant no matter how contrived thei story.
And almost all of the so-called "news articles" seemed like they were written and edited by Cheryl Little, the woman who arranged the dog-and-pony shows for Miami-area print and TV reporters to meet the brainy Illegal teens.
Those carefully-arranged meetings where the parents who deliberately snuck in illegally or deliberately over-stayed their tourist visas 15-20 years ago are never asked reasonable questions by reporters about why they intentionally broke the law and refused for years to show up for Customs or ICE or DOJ meetings?
And be asked why they never learned even a modicum of English in over 15 years?
Those inconvenient facts and useful context that never appeared because it was likely a condition of the interviews as set-up by Little.
Yes, Alfonso Chardy as corporate publicist not reporter, the Herald as PR agency whose job is to sell the merits of no border fences, no meaningful security measures, only unlimited cheap workers to be exploited by Florida businesses, esp. its powerful agribusiness industry.
I have a manilla folder somewhere full of those articles as well as the one-sided Guest Op-Eds that were supposed to be contrary to the Herald's Editorial Board's pro-amnesty, look-the-other-way point-of-view, but which, amazingly, always seemed to agree with them.
What sort of crazy, free community newspaper "journalism" is that?
If there was such a thing as an anti-Pulitzer Prize, in my opinion, the Miami Herald would be the leader of the pack among the second-tier newspapers in this country after their management's conscious decision over the past week to completely ignore important news that was already starting to come out at the end of the week.
This, even while the Herald was busy trying to lionize one of the pro-amnesty folks last Thursday in some particularly amazing logrolling by one the McClatchy's D.C. drones
"Miami’s Leon Fresco: The immigration mover and shaker you don’t know"(Pictured sitting with Schumer to show he's important! LOL!)
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/13/3450219/miamis-leon-fresco-the-immigration.html
As for the Naked Politics blog run by The Miami Herald: "The raw truth about power and ambition in Florida.'
No, not really.
More like the late-arriving smug Conventional Wisdom that passes for intelligence in Miami but which has been off their game for many years, and which has a pro-amnesty bias so obvious that even liberals don't bother to pretend that it isn't obvious.
Look for yourself and see how right I have been about the blackout!
https://twitter.com/NakedPoliticsFL
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And a follow-up to what I wrote here a few days...
@marcorubio -No activity there since June 7th and nothing about immigration in over a month; Hmm-m.. who's really tweeting for Marco? Hallandale Beach Blog plays detective -and gets results!
Hmm-m... interesting.
Out of curiosity, lasts Thursday night, June 13th, during halftime of Game 4 between the Heat and the Spurs, I checked @marcorubio.
It turns out that Florida's junior senator and member of the pro-amnesty Gang of Eight behind S.744, the amnesty first immigration bill, hasn't tweeted ANYTHING about immigration in well over a month. No tell-tale sign of his flip-flopping!
But tons of tweets about the Heat!
I checked again this morning after the Heat won Game 6 against the Spurs.
No change -nothing about immigration, #gangofeight, S.744
@marcorubio -No activity there since June 7th and nothing about immigration in over a month; Hmm-m.. who's really tweeting for Marco Rubio these days?
