Why is the McClatchy Company'sMiami Herald continuing to ignore media reports that the FBI has copies of emails in its possession detailing unflattering and illegal globe-trotting activities of Herald favorite, "Cuban American" Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey? The allegation is that Menendez has repeatedly flown-down to the Dominican Republic and had sex with underage prostitutes, and that one of the persons who facilitated these activities was his pal, a Miami surgeon and resort owner named Salomon Melgen. This unwillingness to report seems especially curious given that there is the requisite South Florida angle, since no scandal in this country seems complete without some connection to this area. And once you know that the behavior is alleged to have taken place at a resort owned by Melgen, and yet as you can see for yourself above, the Herald has published nothing about him or Menendez related to this story, it becomes especially obvious. The newspaper has ignored this story for quite some time, even before the election three months ago, when people at ABC News were investigating it, an election which made incumbent Menedez one of three Hispanics in the U.S. Senate, and the presumptive choice for Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if John Kerry becomes Secretary of State, which is a scary-enough prospect on its own, given how consistently unsound his judgment has proven to be over the years. So ask yourself, is this an example of a an old-fashioned media cover-up by a Miami newspaper that has come to be well-known across the country for ignoring negative news about specific "pets" of its management and Editorial Board, or just the latest example of the arrogant laziness that's been going on for years at the Herald, which has so many predicates over the past few years? Among those predicates is one that this part of Broward County is especially familiar with , that of the Herald iignoring for well over a year the facts surrounding an affair conducted by former Broward School Chair Jennifer Gottlieb with an individual with business before Broward Schools, a story that investigative reporter Bob Norman deconstructed so well.
Here's my post of July 26, 2010 on the subject of Gottlieb that remains one of the most-read posts I've had in over five years:
Weeks later, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel & Miami TV newscasts STILL consciously ignoring Bob Norman's spot-on story re School Board's Jennifer Gottlieb
and http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-perfect-end-to-perfect-wednesday.html So as you can see, this behavior of putting their head in the sand like an ostrich is nothing new by the current news crew at the Herald. It's just more of the same that nobody likes. I sent a version of the above and what's below to Herald publisher David Landsberg,
Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch asking just that very
question.
Menendez has been a favorite of Herald management and the Editorial Board because of his
political views towards Cuba, not because of any great original policy ideas of his, or even
anything of particular note that he's said or done. -----
And as indicated above from my screen grab of a few minutes ago, you have posted nothing at all on Menendez'sMiami surgeon pal and connection?
The Daily Caller Emails show FBI investigating Sen. Bob Menendez for sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes By David Martosko, Executive Editor 1:52 AM 01/25/2013
Thinking that this story will eventually go away on its own if you don't report it, isNOTreally much of a 21st Century strategy for managing news, and is exactly the sort of thing that causes reasonable people like me to seriously question the future of your newspaper if it continues to show that it can't be relied upon by readers to honestly report the news without personal or political favor.
More fact checking of the Miami Herald for signs of commitment to real journalism reveals self-evident bias: It's almost as if Miami's Downtown Business Establishment ordered Herald to print swooning love letter to Miami-Dade Schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho on front page, 2 days before public votes on bond issue Carvalho and Herald champion -Herald enthusiastically salutes idea and only shows readers more proof of why it can't be trusted to objectively report local news in South Florida Like 99% of all the stories the Miami Herald has run about Miami-Dade Schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho the past few years, today the Miami Herald's reporters and editors have once again refused to put away their pom pons and bias while pretending to be real ink-stained wretches -and perform some real acts of random journalism- by refusing to make a serious effort to perform basic journalism tasks like finding anyone critical of this poorly thought-out bond effort and why it should be any better managed than the last one.
And who's doing the polling for these smug characters who think nothing of using tax dollars to lobby for a yes vote?
Hmm-m...yes, it's such an obvious question given that all of the stories on this issue inevitably involve quoting one of the handful of Miami pollsters who work for everyone in town, but the Herald's guileless reporter seems to have never considered the possibility that one pollster might sandbag another in an article like this and is laughing their ass off at the fact that they got away with it.
Taxpayers with a yen to save money rather than get their news straight might well feel "Who needs PR spin doctors at the School Board when the Herald will it do for free?"
I last wrote about education policy, the M-D School Board and this reporter in particular on September 10, 2012 in a blog post titled, Fact checking the Miami Herald's dubious claims on Education: Over the weekend, I unexpectedly found myself forced to 'school' the Herald's Executive Editor after she bragged about the Herald's coverage of Education. I had to bring up some inconvenient facts rebutting that claim
Miami-Dade Superintendent Carvalho not on ballot, but stands to win big
Miami-Dade superintendent Alberto Carvalho staked his prestige on voters approving a $1.2 billion bond issue to fix schools. The bet looks like it’s about to pay off.
By Laura Isensee
November 4, 2012
One of Miami-Dade’s smoothest politicians just might persuade tax-weary voters to OK a $1.2 billion bond issue to finance school and technology upgrades, repaid with property taxes.
And he’s not even elected.
(If you can believe it, the article actually gets MUCH worse from here on in. The only thing that isn't done in this sycophantic story is a long description of the sort of suits Carvalho wears, and maybe something faux insider about how he keeps his physique, with more details on both than anyone could possibly care about.)
Read the rest of the article, if you can call it that, at:
For more on what's going on these sorts of issues at the School Board, go to the Miami-based Audacious Lady blog, by Natasha Alvarez, at http://www.audaciouslady.com/
Most news articles that appear in the MiamiHerald disappear within 10-14 days of their first appearance on the website and proceed to their Paid Archives where most will never be seen again. It's a sign of how much the Herald and its top management support this particular bond issue that they seem to have changed their own extant corporate procedures by keeping ALL of the links to stories on this subject LIVE. What does that tell you?
Correct, the newspaper is NOT an objective source of news on this subject.
Campaign for school bonds starting in Miami-Dade
One pollster believes the bond referendum has a good chance of passing. Voters will be asked if they want to borrow $1.2 billion to upgrade school buildings and technology By Laura Isensee August 31, 2012
Jefferson Starship - "Jane" One of the defining songs of not only my Freshman year at IU in 1979, but that era in rock. http://youtu.be/0PwG69620WA Like a cat and a mouse (cat and a mouse) From door to door and house to house Don't you pretend you don't know what I'm talkin' about
Their lack of Journalism ethics is hiding in plain sight: In their head-scratching endorsement of do-nothing Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders over civic activist Csaba Kulin, the Tribune Co's Sun-Sentinel said he has "experience." Yes, but it's of the completely ineffective and unethical variety we don't want more of!; Vote Kulin!; @SandersHB
That's why Sanders is, so far, the Broward Inspector General's poster boy! Sanders is all the things you aren't supposed to be if you're a public official. The Tribune Company'sSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel has a big problem -it's own internal liberal bias and world view of how the world ought to be if they could only re-write it, as opposed to the way the world and the people in it actually are and really behave. The newspaper, literally, can't help itself, like a well-to-do and very good-looking teenage girl I knew in North Miami Beach in the 1970's, the younger sister of a friend at North Miami Beach High School, always claimed Yes, Little Sister was a habitual shoplifter. Thought she came from a nice family and certainly knew the difference between right-and-wrong, like the same self-serving nonsense the Sun-Sentinel spouts about it trying its best to practice journalistic principles, when push came to shove, despite the fact that she could well afford to buy the stuff, Little Sister habitually shoplifted for kicks and cheap thrills to kill both the ennui and what she said was pressure to conform and live-up to her older sister, my friend, who was very smart, friendly and good-looking, but sans the ethically-convenient angst. Similarly, like her, the Sun-Sentinel acts like they could put a stop to their political bias and very curious and increasingly-obvious editing choices whenever it wanted to. But the Sun-Sentinel, like Little Sister, doesn't really want to. It's fun to act like the rules don't apply to you. It's sort of like the Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew on the city commission the past nine years, no? It's part of how it sees itself in the world at large. Almost as if not letting bias slip in when it's convenient would be to deny its basic nature, almost a self-betrayal, so it keeps doing what it's been doing and acting like nobody like me notices. So the Sun-Sentinel, like my friend's Little Sister, keeps kidding itself that it really doesn't have a problem. But the truth is that regardless of the times that you live in, ethical hedging all the time, whether by an individual or a family or company, eventually takes it toll, and it has certainly taken its toll on the Sun-Sentinel's readers as the paper continues to become ever more irrelevant to any discussion of what's going on in the larger community with every passing month. That's especially the case for the discerning news reader who, whatever their politics, wants their facts straight-up, without any shaking or misdirection, so they can draw their own conclusions. Today, after sitting on some facts for a few days, I'm ready to reveal my own version of what radio broadcaster Paul Harvey famously called "the rest of the story" on his hugely popular radio newscasts for decades that were full of Middle America folksiness and manners. And, I'll show you how that directly affects Hallandale Beach. And here, "the rest of the story" are the facts and context that you do not routinely get from the Sun-Sentinel if their management team and Editorial Board have anything to do with it. And more recently, in the Sun-Sentinel's perplexingendorsement of do-nothing, know-nothing incumbent Anthony A. Sanders Stand by for news!
CBS News Charles Osgood's 2009 appreciation for radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, following his death at age 90. http://youtu.be/S5_OIoMBjSk
A week before the Sun-Sentinel's vetting meeting at their HQ in downtown Ft. Lauderdale to decide its endorsement selections in this city, I told my friend and Hallandale Beach City Commission candidate Csaba Kulin to be sure to bring a small tape-recorder with him.
I specifically told him not to call them in advance of the meeting and ask if he could, just bring to it and put it on the conference table when he sat down with the other five Commission candidates and the three reps from the Sun-Sentinel.
After all, the latter had recording equipment available to them.
Now for Csaba's purposes, it certainly wasn't to use for purposes of a campaign commercial, since that would be impractical for him because of the costs, but rather for the more practical purpose of him having a contemporaneous recording of all the ridiculous and flat-out lies that would likely be coming from incumbent Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. William "Bill" Julian as they sought to rationalize and defend their indefensible voting records and unethical behavior to the Sun-Sentinel three reps, who did NOT even know some basic facts
they should've known days before.
I had told Csaba in advance that I was about 100% certain that regardless of what Comm. Sanders said or did in their meeting room, the Sun-Sentinel, which like the Miami Herald, endorsed Sanders in 2008 despite his lack of qualifications and inability to speak intelligently or in detail on important facts of public policy in Hallandale Beach compared to other candidates, would again get the paper's recommendation.
Even if Sanders didn't show-up, since he is not the most reliable of people.
When Csaba asked why I thought that, and wouldn't they, you know, make their decisions based on what they already knew about the candidates and heard from them in that room, I told him that there was a LOT MORE here than meets the eye in the matter of endorsements.
That is, it was an opportunity for the Sun-Sentinel to once again show its Editorial Board's liberal political philosophy, including its most pernicious one of treating people not as individuals, but rather as chess pieces on a chess board, to be moved and manipulated.
In short, I told him that there were political statements to be made and that one of them would likely be that we'd eventually see the handiwork of Sun-Sentinel Editorial writer and Board member Doug Lyons, a fervent believer in diversity on government bodies, regardless of whether the individual is unqualified or unethical, which is one of the things you don't consider when you're treating people like chess pieces.
(It's the same reason that Lyons never makes any reference to Florida state Rep. Joe Gibbons representing Broward County in the legislature even though he is NOT a full-time resident here, preferring to live in Jacksonville with his wife and kids.
But isn't that unethical and illegal?
Yes, but that doesn't matter as long as it's Gibbons, because Gibbons supports the Sun-Sentinel's world-view, so he gets a pass from everyone.)
Yes, unqualified or unethical people will get the nod from Lyons and the Editorial Board even if that amounts to keeping a town like ours in turmoil even longer than is necessary.
And in the Editorial Board's selection of Sanders, have they not accomplished all three?
He's still unqualified after four years in office, he's STILL an unethical Pastor, and he promises to keep this town in turmoil as long as he and his wife work their handiwork with the city's budget, continuing to act like they are above having to answer questions from the public, which is why he has refused to debate this year.
Sanders is afraid of what people will say because he knows that he has NOT been at all what he claimed to be and he knows they will call him out. So he hides.
Before the vetting meeting officially started, Csaba asked if he could record what was said so that he's have a true account of it.
The Sun-Sentinel said NO, and when Csaba asked if the candidates were being recorded, videotaped or having their comments streamed online, they replied NO.
But the truth of the matter is that a very reliable person has confided to me that back in August, the newspaper's Editorial Board actually streamed some candidates comments LIVE, and among those listening in elsewhere were some representatives of their opponents and other interested parties.
Someone, I can't say who just now, happened to listen in and actually wrote down what was asked and said and commented on what was being said in that Ft. Lauderdale building from many miles away, even before the candidates left the building.
How do you suppose that happened?
After the meeting, while everyone was getting up from their seats and heading for the door, the folks from the Sun-Sentinel told them that they had been recorded.
But if I got the story right, they didn't mention anything about having streamed it.
But wouldn't that be illegal?
Again, consider where it happened.
THAT seems to be how the Sun-Sentinel rolls these days.
Nowhere in their endorsement of last Tuesday do they mention that Comm. Sanders and former Comm. Julian were strong supporters of the very egregiously anti-democratic move that columnist Michael Mayo -who was present that day as one of the three S-S reps, but who says that he is not part of the Editorial Board- decried in his column and blog soon after the interviews.
That is, that Hallandale Beach is having an election in one week that will elect three people to the City Commission, but that the city's voters can only vote for two.
Excerpt from Sun-Sentinel editorial of October 23:
Anthony Sanders and Michele Lazarow for Hallandale Beach City Commission
The race to fill two at-large two seats on Hallandale Beach City Commission is a little bit deceptive as it's the top three vote getters who will actually serve on the next commission thanks to the need to replace Commissioner Keith London who resigned to run for mayor.
Still, voters "technically" have only two seats to fill, and the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board recommends voters re-elect Anthony A. Sanders and elect Michele Lazarow. The two bring a mix of energy and experience and both are in the best position to help the city's western neighborhoods.
Sanders, a 52-year-old pastor, is the commission's lone black member. A four-year veteran on the dais, He's has been a staunch advocate for the city's predominantly black west side neighborhoods, and although his tenure has been marred by questionable business dealings with the city, Sanders' experience and knowledge of the city's needs give him the edge.
Lazarow, 45, has her own history that qualifies her for the commission. She is a longtime resident of the city and a former owner of a popular women's boutique. Her business experience and past dealings with the city should help her as a new commissioner incorporate more city business-friendly procedures, especially small businesses struggling in the city's west side.
The other candidates are Gerald E. Dean, 58, a small business owner; Ann Pearl Henigson, 66, a former secretary; William "Bill" Julian, 59, a licensed thoroughbred racing steward and former city commissioner; and Csaba G. Kulin, 73, a retired director of technology with the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.
Also completely missing in the endorsement or the Mayo blog post is any reference at all that they would have continued in their ignorance had not Csaba brought it up during the meeting. Somehow, they were completely in the dark about one of the most vexing issues in the city that they supposedly were making educated comments about.
Guess they weren't quite so educated after all, huh?
And all this happened despite the fact that I had personally sent Mayo and Lyons several bcc's about this when it actually happened weeks ago and how it came about due to the desire of Comm. Alexander Lewy to change the complexion of the election halfway thru in order to thwart Keith London.
So instead of endorsing Csaba Kulin, the person most-responsible for bringing forth factual information -the city's own documents- that makes public how three former Hallandale Beach City Managers have pulled the wool over the City Commission and taxpayers for years to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars that they will receive in pension payments over the coming years, and did NOT earn all of it, the Sun-Sentinel, the news outlet that DIDN'T even know what was going on here, has endorsed Anthony A. Sanders.
Sure, the man with "experience" who is also the HB city commissioner who is the least-prepared member to discuss anything that is going on in the city, and the one who for well over three years has, literally, been in fear of being alone in a room with smart and well-informed HB taxpayers and answer their sharp questions about his behavior and votes.
No, like the Cooper Rubber Stamp that he is, the poorly-informed puppet that he is, in order for Sanders to appear in public, there must always be city employees close at hand to run interference and even feed him answers.
As far as Hallandale Beach's voters are concerned, the truth and the transparency -and mea culpas- that they regularly preach to others in their editorials and columns are STILL missing in action at The Tribune Co.'sSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Don't hold your breath that they will ever come... the Sun-Sentinel doesn't think they have a problem.
What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...
Those of you who come to this blog regularly will recall that back in December and January, I sent a very thorough letter to the top management of the Miami Herald -Publisher David Landsberg, Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch among others- and some folks at parent company McClatchy Company regarding longstanding problems that I'd been aware of and had observed both in the newspaper and on their website.
Problems that, from my perspective, at least, they seemed to be expending precious little time, energy and resources on resolving any time in the near-future, judging by the physical product they continue to churn out and what you continue to see on their crummy static website.
Clearly, that doesn't speak well of what's going on down at One Herald Plaza, but then that's not breaking news, either.
After sending those emails, I later re-purposed them and posted those comments here on December 21, 2011.
Part 2 of More lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza for another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County
I heard via email from several other concerned media watchers in South Florida -some of them with names you'd instantly recognize- who also don't like the look of things at the Herald -or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, either, for that matter.
People who, like me, feel that that given its enormous resources, even with a smaller staff, the Herald is not only short-changing the community in its geographical area, but has actually abdicated many of its basic reporting coverage responsibilities in critical ways, and yet can't even point to better and more nuanced reportorial coverage of the places it will actually deign to cover.
While many people who wrote agreed with me just about 100%, others admitted that they hadn't personally noticed certain things I brought up to Herald management, but that once I mentioned it and they'd had some time to think about it, they found themselves largely agreeing with me that in a competitive marketplace, there was no logical reason for failing to resolve some of these longstanding problems that Herald readers have with the newspaper.
That was especially the case with the Herald's atrocious coverage of Broward County people, places and government, both local and county, where almost every night of the week, you can go to the Herald's Broward homepage, and yet consistently find that less than 40% of the listed stories have anything to do with Broward County. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/#navlink=navbar
Who deliberately runs a newspaper like that?
In any case, besides some small initial response that first week after they were sent, which came just before the holidays, six months later, nobody from the Herald's management has since followed-up with me or gone public in the newspaper about what and when the Herald is going to do something to prevent the slippery-slope from becoming "the new normal."
A good first step, though long overdue, would actually be hiring an Ombudsman, one who actually lives in South Florida and who not only has a weekly column, but is also equipped with a daily blog.
Someone to better represent readers with deep concerns about the Herald's reporting and editorial bias, misrepresentation of facts, consistent curious choice to leave some key facts out of certain stories, and the perennial concern about Herald flackery on behalf of South Florida's business interests and the personally powerful & privileged -like the newspaper's love affair with M-D Schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho, of whom seldom is heard a discouraging word.
But it's been more than a year now since Edward Schumacher-Matos left for NPR and the Council for Foreign Relations, and nothing is happening, even though that's actually something fairly easy to fix on that laundry list of unresolved problems there... When are we going to see some tangible signs of positive change at the Herald?
Without naming names, I know for a fact that there are twenty-something female bloggers in Scandinavia who are so popular that they produce more original video content and get more eyeballs seeing their original content on their YouTube Channel than the Herald gets for their's. (And they do it themselves, too.)
In fact, I know one such blogger in particular who has produced a number of videos within the past six months, most of which have been seen more times than ALL the Herald's videos for the past nine months combined.
You'd think that by now, the folks locally at the Herald and in Sacramento for McClatchy,would have the good sense to be embarrassed at having all the resources they have, in a large market like this with so many interesting, bizarre and controversial things going on, yet posting such feeble content. But, apparently, they're not. ------
Nearly four years ago, I wrote my first column as ombudsman. This is my last. I leave having learned a lot about you, the readers. I leave having failed you, too, in one promise.
I learned foremost that you care — about your community and your newspaper. You write a daily avalanche of e-mails to me and others at The Miami Herald or post comments online, often with passion, over issues in South Florida and the state.
When you don’t like how your point of view was treated in an article, you often threaten to cancel your subscription. Few of you actually do, at least for reasons of coverage. If anything, your reaction shows that you are reading the newspaper. And while most of my columns have been critical of something The Herald has done, you and I share this secret: For every article we disagree with, there are many, many more that we like. No other local news outlet keeps us as well informed.
I also learned your hottest buttons: Cuba, Israel, immigration, taxes, gay rights. And, of course, party politics. Your antennas are acute for any indication that The Herald might be tilting pro-Republican or Democrat.
But whatever your political inclination, the stories you like the most are investigations that ferret out local corruption. As The Herald has redefined itself through smaller staffs, shrinking paper size, and online expansion, you have overwhelmingly implored that it continue investing in the investigations that it does so well. After that, you most like local stories, though the Caribbean Basin and Middle East are local for you, too. You are sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
Few places in the country are so interesting. I am leaving to take up a new post as ombudsman of National Public Radio. I look forward to the political sensitivity of that role as NPR and the media nationally wrestle with how to finance responsible journalism and serve communities. But I will be sad to leave you.
So, how did I let you down? I announced in the beginning that in passing judgment on The Herald’s coverage — on whether it was one-sided, for example, or unfair or incomplete — I would tell you my position on the issue being covered in the original article. It was a revolutionary idea. Here is what I wrote in my first column:
“I’ll tell you upfront, and I’ll tell you my biases, for in the end what I write will necessarily be my own reasoned judgment. But I promise you it will be as fair as I can make it, never cynical, but sometimes irreverent. I strongly believe in good professional journalism, but I don’t think it’s Holy. You are welcome to agree, disagree or demand to kill the ump.”
That first column had to do with the coverage of the Gomez brothers, two young Colombians who were popular students but unauthorized immigrants detained for deportation. Their saga and the proposed Dream Act that might legalize them remains ongoing. Once a Colombian illegal immigrant myself, I wrote that I was sympathetic toward legalizing the unauthorized immigrants in the country.
Still, I criticized The Herald’s coverage for being slanted in favor of the boys. It largely overlooked legitimate questions held by many readers about the fairness of the Dream Act and legalizing the brothers.
But if I lived up to my promise in that first column, I found as the months went by that to state my position on the issues distracted from my critique of the coverage. I became the issue, instead of the reporting and editing by The Herald. As a mechanical matter, it also made the columns too long, especially if I wanted to explain the nuances of my views.
I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop the practice, but my promise somehow just slipped away.
I still wonder if there is a way to revive the idea, not just for ombudsmen, but for reporters.
We know that journalists are human and have opinions and political preferences. There also is no such thing as pure objectivity. We all see through the lens of our upbringing.
Most reporters stretch mightily to set aside their biases and follow basic journalistic rules. Editors further scrub stories for objectivity and fairness.
But we as a society are now in a cynical “post modern” age in which we have been taught to “deconstruct” articles in search of the writer’s supposed underlying intent. Trust in the news media is low. Would transparency about a reporter’s personal views help recover trust then? Is there a practical way to make it work? Or would it be a distraction from the news itself?
I don’t have the answers but would appreciate knowing your parting thoughts. As the news media fragments into many slivers of opinion, we risk fragmenting as a society and a nation. We need to have at least a common base of facts.
Thank you for the privilege of having been allowed into your homes and your considerations these past four years.
Above, the entrance to The Washington Post, at left, 1150 15th Street, N.W., looking south towards L Street, K Street and McPherson Square in the distance. Google Maps
Factual Implosion at 1150 N.W. 15th Street, NW: Ben Shapiro & Dana Loesch adroitly zero-in on the 47-year old Mitt Romney anecdote The Washington Post felt was too good to let the facts get in the way of printing. Oh, those inconvenient facts!
Breitbart.com
WASHINGTON POST ROMNEY HIT PIECE IMPLODES
by Ben Shapiro
May 11, 2012
Today’s unconscionable Washington Post story, which implied without evidence that Mitt Romney was a homophobic bully to one John Lauber back in his high school days five decades ago, has totally imploded.
WASHINGTON POST CHANGES STORY, DOESN'T ADMIT ERROR
by Dana Loesch
May 11, 2012
On Thursday, Breitbart's Retracto, the Correction Alpaca asked the Washington Post to correct its anti-Mitt Romney hit piece wherein it included an inaccurate and misleading statement about his past. The error was exposed when Stu White contradicted WaPo's reporting in an interview with ABC.
journalsentinel video: A Few Minutes with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bill Glauber. Guest: Conservative blogger Dana Loesch. April 14, 2012. http://youtu.be/gMoBETTiIhc
Above, the September 12, 2010 issue of the Stongsville Post, a genuine "community newspaper" that reports both sides on issues and controversies in its part of suburban Cleveland, Ohio
Today I'd like to share with you a copy of the email my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach/Broward County activist Csaba Kulin sent out on Monday concerning the continuing controversy surrounding what Csaba and I and many other concerned HB residents have long believed is the city's completely unethical and financially unsound arrangement with a faux newspaper located here in the city.
The problem is simple to understand: in exchange for operating as a propaganda arm of Hallandale Beach City Hall and its mayor of the past ten years, Joy Cooper, the owners receive funds from the city's CRA, which is generally supposed to be used to eliminate blight within the CRA zone of the city.
Since Csaba brings up his former full-time home of Strongsville, OH in his email from yesterday, I thought it was important to preface his new email with another instance where Csaba used Strongsville as a means for comparison to what passes for normal here in Hallandale Beach, so you could judge for yourself.
That instance comes from a Bob Norman blog post from last year, before he left the NewTimes for WPLG-TV, Channel 10, the ABC-TV affiliate here in South Florida, which concerned an email Csaba had writtento Mayor Cooper and the other four members of the City Commission contrasting municipal spending habits and patterns of Strongsville to those in Hallandale Beach.
BrowardPalm Beach NewTimes
Bob Norman's Pulp
Hallandale Beach Mayor Defends City in Sloppy, Error-Filled Email
By Bob Norman
April 27, 2011 at 8:54 AM Comments (55)
Ever heard of Strongsville, Ohio?
Neither had I, but it's apparently a suburb of Cleveland and a place where Hallandale condo president and activist Csaba Kulin used to live.
Kulin is amazed at the bloated cost of Hallandale Beach's budget compared to that of Strongville and recently wrote a letter about it to the City Commission.
I am sure by now you read or heard about the "sweet deal" the South Florida Sun Times receives from the City of Hallandale Beach. In case you are not aware of it, I included the link to the Miami Herald and the Broward Bulldog articles. My name was mentioned in both articles, so I decided to make a comment to both publications to state my position.
I hope you will find the stories informative. At the bottom you can see my comments.
From personal experience, I'm a great believer in the importance of an "independent community newspaper" that covers issues that larger mass circulations newspaper can't or won't cover. I know something about that because when I'm in Ohio for part of the summer every year, the town I lived in full-time before moving to Hallandale Beach has one of the best "community papers" in the country, the Strongsville Post. There was no community issue or policy that thePost won't send reporters to examine or report upon, and because of that, the newspaper remains trusted, popular, a good place to advertise a product or service, and accepted as an important part of the community there.
Conversely, that same experience informs my opinion that the South Florida Sun Times (SFST) failed the “independence” test the moment it asked for and accepted money from the City of Hallandale Beach for services NOT provided. The SFST, having accepted funds that could have been better spent elsewhere within the CRA zone to eliminate blight, has for years adhered to a policy that's ever mindful of biting the hand that feeds it.
As opposed to the Post in Strongsville, OH, the SFST has become a one-sided house organ in its "reporting," and has thus become both irrelevant and a subject of open ridicule throughout the community, practically a punch line. In my own condo complex, we routinely discard large bundle of unread copies that were placed in the condo lobby into the recycling bins every week.
A legitimate newspaper that aspires to consider itself a "community newspaper" should, without even having to think about it, write about both sides of an issue or policy, and must encourage and publish opposing points of view. So in our case here in Hallandale Beach, routinely publishing something against the “party line” given by Mayor Joy Cooper in her so-called "columns," rather than NOT publishing anything that challenges what she says, as is currently the case. And the same goes for publishing Letters to the Editor without censorship with respect to topic and content. They ought to publish updated police blotter and proceedings of the City Commission Meetings. The SFST currently does NONE of these things.
If the SFST continues to operate in its current fashion, they might as well change their name to PRAVDA.
The Hallandale Beach CRA, with policy set by the elected City Commission and the mayor, has had more than its share of problems in the recent past. One episode in particular is worth mentioning here as it's indicative of the sort of favoritism and cronyism it has practiced in the past, a story never mentioned in the SFST. A loan in the amount of $125,000 loan was given for what was called at the time, THE CITY CHANEL, and was promoted and developed by Steve Fecske of California, and his local partner, a person very well-connected to HB City Hall. Mr. Fecske’s previous expertise includes, among other things according to Google's search engine, developing pornography web sites. Like Seinfeld said, “not that anything is wrong with that”.
The night of the city commission meeting, Hallandale Beach taxpayers showed up in force to vehemently oppose the proposed loan on its merits, as well as the transparent way the commission waived its own meager requirements that the business group did NOT meet. Commissioner Keith London took the lead in objecting to it from the dais, but because the mayor supported it, it passed. Where was the SFST?
Well, forward to today, the local partner has since passed away, the money expended from the CRA is lost, and nobody in charge is asking any questions about it. And the South Florida Sun Times remains silent.
In November, voters of Hallandale Beach will have a chance to make major changes in the way this city is governed and the public policies that guide it. Concerned voters who want a better-managed and more transparent City Hall that is proactively accountable to taxpayers, and NOT in love with crony capitalism excesses like the loan to the SFST, should heed the recent lessons that have cost them and their neighbors both money and lost opportunities to make this a better community, and should vote for reform candidates.
Csaba Kulin, candidate for Hallandale Beach City Commission
