Déjà vu opinions from a new perch: National Journal's Beth Reinhard may've left the Miami Herald behind, but she STILL makes the same tired and unpersuasive arguments as before. You'll never guess who she writes will be the key to 2012 vote. Surprise -Hispanics! She's wrong -it's actually Catholics in the Midwest and PA

Déjà vu opinions from a new perch: National Journal's Beth Reinhard may've left the Miami Herald behind, but she STILL makes the same tired and unpersuasive arguments as before. You'll never guess who she writes will be the key to 2012 vote. Surprise -Hispanics! 

She's wrong -it's actually Catholics in the Midwest and PA

If you think that former Miami Herald political reporter and columnist Beth Reinhard can go even three sentences in this story WITHOUT mentioning the I-4 Puerto Rican voters that we've all been reading about for at least 18 months, you LOSE.

Lose, just like Herald readers did for so many years when they opened the paper and thought that if only out of randomness, perhaps that would be one of the few times in the year when they might see something original under her byline, and yet inevitably, what would follow was almost always the same banal and predictable words and "observations" about subjects that we'd all already seen.
Already seen and better-described and analyzed by other reporters and columnists MANY MONTHS before.

Yes, she even comes up with some of the predictable italicized names (for Hispanic food) to show that she's in touch.

Que Dios!

The National Journal

The Story of the Hispanic Vote Is the Story of the 2012 Campaign

Cuban-Americans aren’t the only Latinos candidates need to woo in Florida. Puerto Ricans also command attention.

By Beth Reinhard

Updated: November 1, 2012 | 9:39 p.m. 

November 1, 2012 | 2:00 p.m.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-story-of-the-hispanic-vote-is-the-story-of-the-2012-campaign-20121101?page=1

My favorite part?

Where after NOT explaining why Spanish-surnamed voters in the near-future will politically be more like Puerto Ricans than Cubans or Mexicans or Central Americans, and thereby curtail Cubans' relative power and favored role in Florida and the U.S., at the beginning of the fifth pargraph. 

Just saying it doesn't make it so.

There, she lays this gem on the table:

"Regardless of the outcome, the Hispanic vote will be one of the most important markers of the parties’ futures...'"

Sounds like backsliding and equivocating to me.

  

It's not for nothing that I once justifiably titled a blog post here -on September 3rd, 2010-
Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/addition-by-subtraction-beth-reinhard.html

What time zone is she in? And year?

More past posts that mentioned Reinhard are here:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search?q=reinhard

The only saving grace -and I do mean ONLY- is that Reinhard doesn't make the obligatory butt-kissing reference to some Univision TV personality flacking a book like Jorge Ramos, did in 2004, complete with grandiose and self-serving reference to the power of people with tildes in their last name, something that Reinhard surely would have seen fit to do if she were still at the Herald.

What's that?
You say that you don't you recall the name of the Ramos book from 2004?
It was "The Latino Wave: How Hispanics Will Choose the Next President"
Hmm... not so much.

But because he's one of their favorites, America's Mainstream Media just pretends that boast and the book behind it never existed, and it's like Ramos never got an at-bat and struck-out.

At One Herald Plaza, right on Biscayne Bay, there still seem to be far too many people, even in the year 2012, who haven't caught on to the fact that their constant sycophantic need to make Hispanic media or Hispanic-oriented advertising executives -especially the ones in Miami whom the Herald wants to sell advertising space to or partner with, with all its attendant log-rolling- the ones quoted so extensively and so over-the-top in articles about Spanish-language media the past few years, sound like young Jones Salks, instead of car salesmen or Hi-Fi salesmen of the mid-1970's that they are, reeks of desperation.

Would you like that new stereo with "Quad" sound, sir?

The people they've quoted so promiscuously were nothing more than salesmen trying to sell something -a product or service.

That's fine, but there's nothing lofty or high-minded about selling toilet paper and air freshener and cookie and beer, so stop acting like there is.

It's sales!
That's all it is.

Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!

Per Miami Herald Losing Chief Political Reporter Beth Reinhard To National Journal
Miami NewTimes By Tim Elfrink,
Thursday, September 2 2010 @ 1:39PM
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/09/herald_losing_chief_political.php

It's only my opinion, but from my own perspective and experience, the Miami Herald's Beth Reinhard can't leave South Florida soon enough.

I know that makes some of you laugh because you know I thought THAT was the case years ago, too. Know that I'd have been only too happy to drive her to the train station to split town if people down here actually took trains.
You're right -it's a long time coming.

But long-frustrated Miami Herald readers finally have a reason to cheer.

Reinhard's oh-so predictable and often deadly-dull Conventional Wisdom take on the passing political scene may've been fine for the Quad Cities in 1966, but among other fatal flaws, she seem handcuffed to the "Usual Suspects," forever quoting the same handful of people with motives she never bothered to reveal.

(And yes, I've been to the Quad Cities area in Iowa, too, spending a week there in Davenport, driving over from Chicago for business in 1987. One night, when I couldn't fall asleep in my hotel room, I went for a walk around midnight, eventually crossing the Rock Island Centennial Bridge (U.S.-67) over the Mississippi River from Davenport to Rock Island.

I was NOT expecting that the bridge sidewalk would be mesh-like metal, since that meant I couldn't look down, otherwise it would have caused me to get dizzy over the water.
It was a VERY weird sensation to walk across the bridge at that hour and just stand there in the middle for 15-20 minutes and think of all the history that has gone past you and below you.

I eventually ate at an IHOP or diner in Rock Island and got back to my hotel room in Davenport around 3:30 a.m. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Island_Centennial_Bridge

I also visited the great minor league ballpark there on the River, then called John O'Donnell Stadium when Quad Cities was a Cubs affiliate. It's now called Modern Woodmen Park and home of the Cardinals' farm team, the River Bandits.
Look at the photos! The Marlins would be lucky to have a view like the one over first base.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/team1/page.jsp?ymd=20080606&content_id=410802&vkey=team1_t565&fext=.jsp&sid=t565)

It's no wonder that seasoned political reporters and columnists from outside of Florida, including some I know, were always mystified when they came down here and got a chance to read more than one example of the Reinhard Method, or to hear her talk on TV or radio.

It's not like they expected a patrician David Broder clone or an intellectual David Frum-type would be the leading political reporter at the Herald, since this is Miami, after all, the anti-wonk capital, but they were in no way prepared to see that things were just -as bad- as I had described in phone calls or emails about how little respect or column inches Broward County rated.
They thought I'd always been exaggerating.
Nope.

Earlier this year, after one such reporter friend had visited South Florida and had absorbed some sun and digested some bon mots de Reinhard, and returned home, she emailed me that she's sure that Reinhard probably has some special talent that we're just not privy to.

I replied that could be true but that her writing speaks for itself -mediocre and uninspiring.

Try hard to think of a column or article of her's that questioned the South Florida version of CW, or tried to get to the heart of a matter thru an unconventional approach.
Or even the last time you cut one of her article/columns out of the paper?

You can't, and like 99% of all Herald readers, once you saw the headline of one of her stories, and even more so, of one of her columns, you knew exactly what to expect.

The whole thing was telegraphed because you know she has such a small bag of tricks in her arsenal.
Plus, she never ever surprises you.

Thus, Reinhard never ever veered from her connect-the-dots script, including her failed attempts to seem like a self-effacing Tina Fey at times when it wasn't called for and only served to distract.

Reinhard was too easily pacified and seduced by CW and too often seemed pleased with herself for peddling the mundane.
She was like a slightly less-mean-spirited Tracy Flick, but failed to see the truly compelling stories all around us down here because then she'd have had to leave her comfort zone.
She didn't want to.

That so many people wouldn't return her phone calls, as she recently wrote about Marco Rubio, whom I like and will vote for but who clearly is not without his flaws, may, in fact, not be a result of their not liking what she wrote and actually be something simpler: people feeling that far too often, Reinhard had burned them.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/13/1775520/reinhard-rich-political-novices.html

That she called with the article already written in her head, and wasn't open to actually listening to their side or perspective and perhaps re-questioning her original aim with a story.
Facts should matter at least once in a while, shouldn't they?

Seriously, why would you call someone back, much less a reporter, if they won't listen to what you say, and just want to steamroll you about some topic, regardless of what it is?
You doubtless do it all the time with friends and relatives -I know I do.
Why should others be any different?

Reinhard's worst sins in my book was her low-hanging fruit sense of journalism and consistent lack of curiosity, as she failed over-and-over to give readers the sort of insight into some pol or official's motives and outlook that would be helpful to readers in understanding them, and what was going on policy-wise in anti-wonk South Florida.

It was sometimes like she was the daughter of the Beacon Council, the Chamber of Commerce and the Knight Foundation, and only wanted to please already-powerful people.
She'd tut-tut them, perhaps, but always like a loving daughter reproaching her father for something he's wearing that embarrasses her.

I didn't need every article of her's to be like a fascinating Vanity Fair profile from the early-to-mid 1990's under Clinton, but one every few YEARS might've been nice!

(Or maybe I was just spoiled by 15 years of daily reading the WaPo's Style section from 1988-2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/style/)

Seriously, after all this time, do Herald readers now have any added insight from her into why Meek, Crist or Rubio are the way they are and do what they do?

No, which is why out-of-town/national reporters so consistently seem to get to the heart of a local matter, general sense of mood or pierce a local/state political personality's facade when they drop in, yet she's always... what exactly?

(Compare anything of hers to Tim Padgett's fabulous TIME article exactly one year ago on the State of Florida, Behind Florida's Exodus: Rising Taxes, Political Ineptitude

There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.

And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919916,00.html Though Hoosier-born Tim lives in Miami as Bureau Chief, it's the same principle.)

Rubio and Meek are both from South Florida, but despite all this proximity, Reinhard has added zero to the mix in our understanding of them or what they might do.

As I've written numerous on my blog about the media coverage of the FL-17 congressional race,
her writing about it was perhaps the best example of her lack of curiosity and imagination: dreadful writing of the sort that you'd expect from a mediocre Junior College newspaper you pick up out of boredom while waiting around for your pick-up order at a Kinko's.

The one congressional seat in South Florida that we knew last year would result in sending a 'new face' to Washington would seem like a great opportunity to re-examine some longstanding ideas about this area, and the CD that stretches from Liberty City to Hollywood, including where I live in Hallandale Beach, not far from Gulfstream Park Race Track.

Instead, there was hardly any reasonable coverage of it to speak of until a week before the election, and by then, it was written not by Reinhard but Patricia Mazzei, who's what, five years out of college?
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/17/1778997/9-seek-rare-house-seat-replacing.html

Why is the least-experienced reporter writing about THE most important local congressional race in greater Miami?

That's why it's the Herald.

re Marco Rubio: Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals. I'll bet I can guess what Reinhard will say about him before reading it. Yes, and so can you! That's the whole problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote; Where's the plan for positive changes at McClatchy's Miami Herald -still missing!

U.S. Senate longshot candidate Marco Rubio in Hallandale Beach, FL at Southeast Broward Republican Club. June 23, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The National Journal

POLITICS

Can Marco Rubio Live Up to the Hype?

He's the GOP's Barack Obama, a fresh-faced politician with an immigrant name, a playlist full of rap, and a collection of fawning press clips. The challenge: He's selling the same old party message.

By Beth Reinhard

Updated: February 14, 2013 | 8:50 p.m. 

February 14, 2013 | 8:20 p.m.

The freshman senator from Florida had joined four veteran colleagues to unveil a proposal for the first major overhaul of immigration law in a quarter-century. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced “my friend, Senator [Marco] Rubio, who obviously is a new but incredibly important voice in this whole issue of immigration reform.”

Two weeks earlier, Rubio had laid out a similar set of principles in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Marco Rubio: Riding to the Immigration Rescue.” The article came as a surprise to McCain and other members of the bipartisan group of senators who had been sketching out an immigration plan with and without Rubio for weeks. The blueprint was inspired by legislation that McCain first spearheaded in 2005.

The dig was subtle, but Rubio didn’t let it go.

Read the rest of this at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/can-marco-rubio-live-up-to-the-hype-20130214

Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Marco Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals.

Bet I can guess what Beth Reinhard will say about Marco Rubio. 

Yes, and so can you! 

That's the problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote.

Just like her last piece on him.

Even the new anecdotes she drops throughout the column sound just like the old ones she used, since they are almost always cobbled together to create the same old product: Marco the Magnificent.

It would be far better if she spoke to veteran analysts like Charlie Cook, also of the National Journal and someone whose every word I read religiously for meaning and portent, as mentioned many times here in the past, which is why I've linked to so many of his columns here over the years.

Specifically, speak to Cook about the dangers of over-exposure, which he is getting closer to everyday, and the graveyard of presidential candidates that peaked early and never made it to Election Day because they prematurely annoyed or bored America silly, or flat out didn't have the sort of practical experience needed or the ability to articulate a cogent, distinct message that resonated with the public and which could grow even larger with hard work.

Bill Bradley for instance.

Even though I was an early and very confident Senate supporter of Rubio's in 2009, when the entire Florida GOP and business establishment, along with Florida's sycophantic Mainstream Media, plus the East Coast drive-by MSM, practically handed the 2010 Republican Senate nomination to then-Governor Charlie Crist, in my opinion, Rubio needs to actually accomplish a lot more of substance sooner -and be seen LESS in a pop-culture prism- otherwise, everyone in America may be bored silly by the sight of him within two years as the new car smell wears off, just as he's campaigning for House and Senate candidates throughout the country, and actually getting most of the questions, not the candidates he's with.

Yes, just like a once interesting new TV commercial that you have now grown to cringe at within a milli-second of seeing on TV and reach for the remote.

And if and when that happens, the only thing that will be written about him will be the hit pieces by the usual suspects, especially among liberal reporters and columnists in the West, who have no secret of the fact that they resent the collective power of Cubans in the political process compared to Mexicans, who vastly outnumber them.

And Univision, of course, in their creepy stalker-like relationship with Rubio, where they are always looking to see if he's spending too much time with someone else.

Y
es, Univision, the Spanish-language channel that the Miami Herald is always kissing the butt of and overplaying the significance of, but who will, not so curiously, not mention in print that they didn't air President Obama's State of the the Union address, which is why they won Tuesday night in the TV ratings.

Nope, no mention, as you can see for yourself. 

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=univision

I thought they were the new "It"?

Qué pasa, Herald?

Yes, Univision, the politically-biased TV network that makes it very clear in their so-called news coverage that the only reasonable side of the immigration debate is pro-amnesty, otherwise, you are a racist. 

Oh yeah -and the supposed news network whose employees loves to take public whacks at 
Rubio.

That is, if they, too, aren't already bored silly by Rubio and tired of pointing-out the same deficiencies they saw/see in him, over-and-over.

On the other hand, it's good to remember that Rubio eventually got so bored/irritated with Reinhard asking him the same ol' leading questions over-and-over during his long Senate campaign, that as I wrote here at the time, towards the end, he eventually started freezing her out because he simply couldn't take the routine anymore

You might recall that was back when the Herald's then-Ombudsman took Beth Reinhard (and the Herald) to task in his once-in-a-while Sunday column for having one person perform both reporter and columnist duties, saying that it was a conflict of interest.

The Ombudsman was right, of course, and Reinhard proved why that was true by being whiny publicly in her columns about being frozen out by Rubio, which not only made her less attractive to Rubio as a person to speak with, but for voters and newspaper readers, made her 'articles' about him not at all reliable, since you already knew that she was mad at him enough to say so publicly.

But I guess I'm the only one who remembers that, huh?

Alas, the Herald's then-Ombudsman left in April of 2011 and has never been replaced, with rather predictable results from my perspective: more bias than ever in articles as well as more missing facts and context.

As many of you regular readers know, I've directly asked the Herald's top management why there's been no replacement and no mention made in the paper of what their plan is, if any, for an eventual replacement.

And, what their plan for improvement in print and online was to keep the faith of readers.

That's been met with stony silence. 

Followed by more silence.

A smart and fair-minded person representing the interests of Herald readers and ethics is not in the cards there.

Folks, it's time to face the fact that publisher David Landsberg has no actual plan for the Herald's future that positive for news consumers, because if he did, he'd have already made them public months before they went to a pay wall, and only added the pay wall AFTER getting rid of the problem step-children, adding new and curious columnists and reporters who don't take things for granted -one of the worst daily offenses there!-  and completely re-do the website from top-to-bottom, so the same stories don't appear in three separate places there, as happens now, which is acutely embarrassing for everyone, most of all, them.

That's why in my opinion, with the same people in charge, the Herald's problems are only going to get worse over time.

But if someone with some smarts and money bought the Sun-Sentinel, fired all the dead wood and made it more like some of the Swedish newspapers that I've become increasingly  used to, and read daily while I was in Stockholm last month, newspapers which are very popular, well then, you could well see will see a very interesting dynamic take place here

in South Florida.

But not right now.

Now, each newspaper and its management seem locked in a battle of lethargy to do the least amount of original enterprise reporting possible.

  

------

TheWrap

Ratings: Univision Wins Night By Skipping State of the Union

By Tim Kenneally

Published: February 13, 2013 @ 10:03 am

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/ratings-nbc-wins-key-demo-state-union-coverage-77506

November 1, 2010

Hallandale Beach Blog endorses Beth Reinhard & Charlie Crist's departure - asks they get escort to airport so they don't miss their flights out of FL

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/hallandale-beach-blog-endorses-beth.html

September 3, 2010

Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/addition-by-subtraction-beth-reinhard.html

-----

Univision staffer attacks Sen. Marco Rubio on Facebook

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/08/3224442/univision-staffer-attacks-sen.html

No doubt after the Castro Brothers finally go adios for good, many of the Univision employees will try to move to Cuba and try to suddenly reinvent themselves as real journalists, after years of being celebrity hand-holdres, political suck-ups and amateur political science professors based in LA, NYC and Miami, forever intent on lecturing us on how important Latin America is, despite the fact that we mostly don't care about it for perfectly valid reasons, no matter how much they insist it's important.

But it's not, even with changing demographics and population changes, Americans aren't going to suddenly care about Honduras or Uruguay or Brazil if they never did before, and they can't let on that the whole thing has been a journalistic con for years to fleece advertising dollars.

Someone needs to watch the politicians -it won't be the Miami Herald

My comments follow the column

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

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/beth-reinhard/story/949348.html

Miami Herald

Someone needs to watch the politicians

By Beth Reinhard

March 14, 2009

In an eerily prescient plot line in Carl Hiaasen's 2002 novel Basket Case, an intrepid reporter whose stories have sent three politicians to jail leaves the newspaper for another job and isn't replaced.

Another reporter is told to keep an eye on the local government, but he covers a city council that also meets Tuesday nights, forcing him to alternate his attendance between the two municipalities.

The politicians time their misdeeds accordingly: Property taxes and garbage fees go up, a tire dump and a warehouse park are built in residential neighborhoods, and everybody gets a pay raise.

The weary reporter quits, so the newspaper dumps his job on somebody else -who also covers city council meetings on Tuesday nights.

"For the corrupt politicians in our circulation area, it was a dream come true," writes Hiaasen, a Miami Herald columnist who says newspapers regularly inform his fiction. "The unsuspecting citizens of three communities . . . were being semi-regularly reamed and ripped off by their elected representatives, all because the newspaper could no longer afford to show up."

Imagine this scenario playing out in city after city, and you have a pretty good idea of the political fallout of a newspaper industry on the wane. This is the best thing that ever happened to crooked pols since manila envelopes.

This week, The Miami Herald announced its third round of layoffs in a year. Just another day in an industry where a number of media companies are struggling to survive.

This column is not a self-serving sob story about people losing their jobs, because that is happening to everyone except foreclosure auctioneers and bankruptcy lawyers. The public's interest is at stake here, as newspapers have long been the meanest and best government watchdogs around.

When the scrappy, Pulitzer Prize-winning Rocky Mountain News shut down on Feb. 27, it posted a poignant video on its website in which reporters and readers talk about the vital role of the Fourth Estate. Editor John Temple says readers frequently refer to the paper not as "the Rocky," but as "my Rocky," reflecting their feeling of communal ownership in the newsgathering enterprise.

This is personal.

In Florida, a robust and competitive network of daily newspapers has thrived in a sort of journalism hothouse, where strong public records laws and weak-kneed politicians laid fertile ground for muckraking. But every paper has been forced to reduce its coverage or give up entire communities in recent years. The Tallahassee press corps has shrunk dramatically, and in Washington the owners of the Tampa Tribune and the Palm Beach Post plan to shutter their bureaus.

Sure, the explosive growth of blogs and other online outlets is helping fill the void. Some of the best scoops of the 2008 campaign first appeared outside the mainstream press. Local gadflies, out-of-work reporters and other rabbler rousers are posting great stuff.

But the best journalism is frequently labor-intensive and expensive. Someone drawing a paycheck has to take the time to sit through the city council meeting, scour the annual budget or truth-squad a campaign ad.

The Herald and other papers are partnering with former competitors in an effort to fill the gaps. Big-mouthed readers have always helped us stay in the loop, and we need you more than ever to be our eyes and ears on the ground.

Somebody has got to get to that Tuesday night city council meeting.

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/beth-reinhard/story/949348.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

Abandoned Miami Herald vending machine next to FEC

Raiload tracks, Biscayne Boulevard & N.E. 187th Street,

Aventura, FL

April 21, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The Miami Herald has not had a reporter at a

Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting since early

June of 2008, when Breanne Gilpatrick attended the

joint meeting with the City of Hollywood at the Hallandale

Beach Cultural Center.

She was only there because like the situation cited above,

both cities have their meetings on Wednesdays.

But she was clearly there for Hollywood, as Hallandale

Beach was simply the side dish.

That meeting was noteworthy for two things: that there

were many Hollywood City Hall officials who confided

to me that they could not find the building because

there were -and are not now- any directional signs

on U.S.-1 indicating where it was located, and also

for the fact that HB Mayor Joy Cooper tried to

persuade the City of Hollywood -unsuccessfully-

to adopt her strategy of threatening to sue the

State of Florida so they didn't have to comply with

the state's deadlines and requirements

regarding ocean outfall pollution.

This coming Wednesday, the date of the first City

Commission meeting in May, that will mark precisely

eleven months since the Herald deigned to show up.

Woody Allen famously said that "Ninety percent

of life is just showing up"

So what lessons should we draw from never

showing-up?

Over those same eleven months, as one shocking

thing after another has transpired here, I've directly

and indirectly contacted Beth Reinhard numerous

times to make her and her colleagues aware of matters

of public interest here fully deserving a level of scrutiny,

as well as Herald Broward section editor Patricia

Andrews, Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal

and Herald Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos.

(The latter really ought to have a weekly column,

not a once-in-a-while schedule the Herald gives

him, which only serves to make anything he writes

about seem dated by the time you read it,

an arrangement he himself can not be happy with.

Seriously, why no Herald blog for him?)

Whatever my serious disagreements with them about

the quality or volume of product churned out, Messrs

Gyllenhall and Scumacher-Matos have taken the

time to write back a few times with their thoughts and

concerns after such correspondence, but Reinhard

and Andrews, nary a peep.

Welcome to the State of South Florida Journalism

2009.

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

Draw near and consider:

Much has been said, written and analyzed, and yet this

overwhelming mass of facts has heretofore furnished no

evidence to the unconscious Miami Herald and its

journalistic kindred, from which to pluck a belief that the

acts of the crowd at Hallandale Beach City Hall and

their dutiful cronies were unethical forays, and that there

really has existed and continues to exist at 400 South

Federal Highway a most unethical and malodorous stench.

A putrid stench that clearly marks behavior most foul

that serves as daily impediment to the full and faithful

discharge of public duty.

The Millenium Building, 2500 East Hallandale Beach Blvd.,

Hallandale Beach, FL

April 25, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

But comes one blogger, me, and one website writer,

Change Hallandale, unafraid of the behind-the-scenes

machinations and armed with facts to fill many a

cupboard, after the Herald long avoided taking notice

of what transpires there, and makes a statement to

the public and continually shows it online, and, presto,

the veil is rent; light succeeds to darkness,

and credit to defamation.

With such a recantation avaunt!

We do not want it; we can do best without it.

We have taken the measure of the Herald lo these

many months and found without exception that it

was lacking in seriousness of purpose and moral

clarity when such qualities were ideal prescriptions

for what has long ailed this town hard by the sea.

And so we persevere, ourselves, in the task once

commenced, for if not us and our allies, who will

carry the torch and ask reasonable questions that

make autocrats angry and seethe, demand a degree

of accountability, from people who clearly delight

in the Herald's apathy, a fact which is but common

knowledge hereabouts?

And what of the political friends and benefactors

of the very Rubber Stamp Crew that has made

this town simultaneously, a mockery, a punchline,

a laughingstock of the worst sort?

Those who are by practice but blind to what lies

directly before their immediate gaze and scurry

like the ostrich, eager to find that comfortable

hole that their empty heads hath grown so

accustomed to?

Patience dear friend, patience!

Do not despair.

The bosom friends of the powers-that-be of

this town are well known to me and others,

and their deeds and names have been entered

into a list that will one day delight and amuse

you, as you read about their offers of aid and

support, knowing that they, too, have become

ensnared in the web of their friends' daily

falsehoods and calumnies.

Trust me, friends, you will come to know these

names too, I promise.

Sooner than they know!

The idylls of summer swelter are near at hand.

When they be over, you at One Herald Plaza

will unsay your present tale, but it will be too late.

The sands of Time will have further turned your

remaining power into idle boasts that prove pitiable,

proving once again that the common curse of

South Florida journalism be not just folly and

ignorance, but vanity and apathy.

If our health is spared and a summer hurricane

passes not by our fair shores, we shall give to

the people of this town, as well as to the state

lawgivers legally assembled, who seek truth,

a brief history of our revelations, and in the

name of reform, accountability and democracy,

all so long in exile from this community,

but with the word of truth, appeal to their justice.

And rest assured, friends, there WILL BE

a public accounting, for who knew what, when,

and who did nothing but join in the mockery

at the public's expense.

That future public accounting animates my daily

travails, as it does so many others in this community,

so sure are we that each day is but one day closer

to that fateful day of public reckoning.

People who long for something better than what

they have heretofore known, and who while longing

for sheer civic normalcy, have instead found gross

deceit and self-dealing, shenanigans of every size

and shape, and false words repeatedly spoken

with no intent of follow-through and resolution.

The tape that may soon bedeck the halls of Hallandale

Beach City Hall and environs?

For those in power in South Florida who are but

dear friends of the Rubber Stamp Crew that

is currently in power, let them say no longer that

they did not know what transpired here under the

guise of governance, and who were the guilty

parties at the very heart of every embarrassing

scandal and debacle, forever plotting, scheming

and attempting to obfuscate the truth,

so that their anti-democratic plans would be

rendered invisible to the citizens they purport

to represent.

For those of us who cared to look, it was there

all the time, but some consciously chose not

to see.

The Miami Herald is but the most obvious enabler

on that long list, but they were not the only ones.

For we who have followed the facts as we found

them, and connected dots not seen by others,

know well the names of the others, too, as

surely as we know our own names.

How can we not?

And you will come to learn them here in

this place, too.

Hallandale Beach Blog

South Beach Hoosier