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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Ben Bradlee was right, of course: "There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!" Now IF ONLY the people running McClatchy Co.'s Miami Herald and Tribune Media's South Florida Sun-Sentinel actually thought THAT way and put readers first! But South Florida news consumers know they DON'T, as evidence has made clear for far-too-many years, day-after-day!







-Ben Bradlee: "There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!"

 Noble sentiments expressed by someone who wasn't afraid to challenge the establishment and force his readers to confront unhappy facts.
IF ONLY the people running The McClatchy Co.'s Miami Herald and Tribune Media's South Florida Sun-Sentinel actually thought this way and managed their resources accordingly!
But by almost any measure you choose to use, from circulation figures to relevancy, the mountain of evidence to date the past ten years proves conclusively that they DON'T. 
Just the opposite!

 They excel at consistently squandering stories others would jump at.
Of censoring stories that are unfavorable to local politicians whom they favor: Debbie Wasserman Schultz for the Sun-Sentinel, Marco Rubio for the Herald.
And they excel at doing this in ways that are not only offensive to serious people, but doing so in particularly clumsy and ham-handed ways.

Daily, casual readers and news junkies alike wake-up in South Florida to see that yet again, those newspapers and their editorial management have consciously made the decision to ignore interesting and compelling local stories about public policy and conflicts at city and county government that 15, 20 and 25 years ago would have definitely made it into print -and been noticed by everyone. 
(And in other cities, are up on the paper's blog within minutes, NOT days.)

 That is, UNLESS it's now occurring in one of a handful of favored South Florida cities, while people living elsewhere in South Florida might as well be living in Cuba for all that the newspapers' management and editors care, counter-intuitively.

 Except, of course, as even the most infrequent South Florida news consumer knows with certainty -and as I've written here on the blog dozens of times over the years with one concrete example after another- it's been clear for years that the Miami Herald actually expends MORE time and resources covering Cuba than they do Broward County.
And actually cares more about Cuba and what happens there than they do about what happens in Broward County, where roughly 40% of their readers live.

 Which explains why so many Miami Herald columnists write about Cuba and Cuban-related matters SO often, to the exclusion of writing about local stories happening in Miami-Dade and Broward counties that demand some attention and commentary.

 To paraphrase myself, since so many people have, how and why is it that 19 DAYS after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's initial story ran online re criminal allegations against interim Hallandale Beach B City Commissioner and candidate Leo Grachow being investigated by the BSO -a story that hours later was then pulled and wiped clean from their website- not a single new fact-based bit of information has emerged in the newspaper to either support the initial allegations or discredit 
them?

With all the reporters available to work the story and the amazing technology around now to better help explain it to readers or viewers, how can it then be true that nobody at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has reported ANYTHING new in nineteen days?
And how is it that the Sun-Sentinel, typically, instead of being open and transparent about what is and has been taking place with respect to a cover-up at Hallandale Beach City Hall, where the city continually refused to provide public documents to them under Florida's Sunshine Laws, is shooting themsleves in the foot and making themselves even more irrelevant than usual by remaining mum?
Of consciously choosing NOT to explain to readers and the general public what they're doing -or why they pulled the story from their website in the first place?
Again, consider where we live.

It's nothing news for us and our concerfns to be ignored.
Consider this stone cold fact: In 18 mos since damning report by @BrowardIG abt CRA, @SunSentinel & @MiamiHerald have written ZERO editorials abt it




If this same story weeks before an important city-wide election that would determine whether a pro-reform group would make up the new majority on the city commission had taken place in Coral Gables, Hialeah or in the City of Miami, it's likely there'd have been Miami Herald and Sun-Sentiel reporters sitting outside someone's home overnight.
Perhaps somebody from all four Miami-area English language TV stations already busy working the streets trying to ferret-out more info, while others worked the phones to try to come up with a new angle on the story and the individuals involved.
But because this story happened in Hallandale Beach, in Broward County, a place that the miami Herald considers terra incognita, there's... nothing at all.

Not even so much as an explanation from the newspaper that started the whole ball rolling in the first place and the people running it.






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