Showing posts with label Alfonso Chardy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alfonso Chardy. Show all posts

Monday, July 4, 2011

Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida


Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida.
That is, if they cover it at all.

If so, it'll be just like this one -website photo above,article below- that took place on Flag Day, June 14th.
Do I even need to say that it was written by Alfonso Chardy, he said laughingly?


Like most Mainstream Media operations in this country, they WON'T ask the new American citizens what their opinions are regarding current immigration issues or whether they favor the so-called DREAM Act.
(If you want to incentivize illegal immigration and encourage fraud, pass that poorly-written and completely non-rigorous legislation and watch what happens.)

Specifically, they won't ask anything along the lines of whether these newest Americans, people who consciously chose to follow the laws of this country and go thru the procedures, support the Herald's pro-amnesty editorial page position, one that essentially argues that all non-violent immigrants should be allowed to stay once they get here, and that anyone who says any differently is clearly a racist and likely an anti-Hispanic zealot in particular.

They won't ask the newest Americans if they feel like chumps, since as far as the newspaper and many of its reporters and columnists -like Alfonso Chardy- are concerned, there's no real reason for anyone to go thru all that trouble when all you have to do is say that you want to stay, since after all, you can't deport everyone, can you?
Oh yes, the intellectually dishonest 'they can't deport everyone' mantra they use as their fail-safe position.

The reason they don't dare ask these new U.S. citizen what they think is because of how very badly it would look for the patronizing newspaper and their pro-amnesty pals like Cheryl Little at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, (FAIC) -the number-one resource for the Miami Herald and the rest of South Florida's news media for completely one-sided, factually-impoverished stories on immigration, as I've stated here many times before- if the very people for whom the Herald imagines its position would most help, middle-class people who just want to fit-in and contribute and be the future backbone of any community they're in, reject that policy outright, what does that say about the people at the Herald and other pro-amnesty redoubts?

That they are fundamentally out-of-touch with their community.

The Herald's chronic failure to be able to show some basic fairness and moral integrity when they cover immigration issues grows worse by the week, as is its complete failure to ever acknowledge on its own pages that polling indicates over-and-over that its particular editorial position -and the clear-cut personal opinions of many of the Herald's reporters and columnists- is in the clear minority in this country, this state and South Florida.
It has a terrible and irreversible case of 'clientitis'.

For instance, one of the central tenets of the Herald under the present McClatchy Corp.'s leadership, with publisher David Landsburg and executive editor Aminda Marques in
charge, clearly seems to be to NOT write or print articles that would likely antagonize influential economic sectors -read real estate and hospitality industry- large traditional advertisers and their customers, or large blocs of citizens, no matter how accurate the particular article.

(Everyone paying attention here knows that's it's true, especially the TV reporters I talk to all the time. They shake their head at what they see and are glad they don't work there.
Question: Where's the Herald's recent news story or editorial on Miami heat owner Micky Arison continuing to stiff-arm M-D taxpayers and not live up to the contract he signed? Missing-in-action!)

In South Florida, and especially in Miami-Dade County, home of one of the largest Hispanic, foreign-born populations in the country, that usually means, yes, Latinos.
Imagine that!

So, everything else being equal, you'd think that a story about how Hispanic students are faring in school would be a natural for Herald to get into the paper given the area's demographics, right?
Surprise! When the news is NOT positive for them, no, that story does NOT appear in print.
Besides not seeing it in the newspaper that day, the other tip-off that it was too hot for the Herald to print was that as of Monday night at 7:30 p.m., there are ZERO public comments, which as anyone knows, is VERY, VERY UNUSUAL for any story about Latinos in the Herald.
Here is the article, read it while you can:

Hispanic, white achievement gap as wide as in 90s
By Christine Armario
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted on Thursday, 06.23.11

MIAMI -- The achievement gap between Hispanic and white students is the same as it was in the early 1990s, despite two decades of accountability reforms, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday.


"Everyone into the pool" is not a sound public policy or a winning strategy.

Miami Herald
FLAG DAY
Becoming citizens on a special day
A total of 181 people took part in a naturalization ceremony in Hialeah on Flag Day.
By Alfonso Chardy
June 15, 2011

Citizenship ceremonies are normally emotional events, particularly for the immigrants swearing allegiance to the United States — a few of whom dab at their eyes to wipe away tears.

But on Tuesday, María Betancur could not contain her joy as rivers of tears streamed down her cheeks. They came at the moment when she joined 180 other new citizens in a rendition of God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood.

Betancur, 66, born in Colombia, stepped out of her place in the auditorium and ran to an area below the stage where the officials were standing, crying loudly in front of everyone.

After the ceremony, Betancur said she couldn’t contain her pride and love for the United States.
“I have deep gratitude for this beautiful country that has given me and many other immigrants great opportunities,” Betancur said.

On Tuesday, she was among the new citizens swearing allegiance to their new country during an hour-long citizenship ceremony at the Hialeah Field Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — an event made all the more memorable because it helped mark Flag Day.

The day, officially proclaimed as National Flag Day in 1949, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14, 1777.

During the ceremony, they waved a sea of small U.S. flags as they sang.
Among the others who became citizens was Cuban-born Teresa Medina, a former resident of Mariel, whose family symbolized the immigrant odyssey of Cuban refugees.

Medina, 60, was the first of her immediate family to reach South Florida, arriving on a boat with a group of other refugees 21 years ago.
She was followed by another sister, Lupe Medina, who arrived during the Cuban rafter crisis of 1994.
Their mother, Josefa López, 80, came in 1993 on a visitor visa and stayed.

Cubans made up the largest contingent of new citizens in Tuesday’s ceremony with 99. They were followed by Colombians, 27; Venezuelans, 13, and Jamaicans, 10.
The new citizens came from a total of 20 countries.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Contrary to contention of MSM, DNC & DWS, latest Rasmussen poll shows 61% of U.S. favor state laws that shut down 'repeat offenders hiring illegals


CNS News video:Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz denounced Republicans last week for believing illegal immigration "should in fact be a crime."

Related article at:

While I'm generally not a fan of polls conducted among Likely Voters -as opposed to habitual Voters- contrary to the U.S. Mainstream Media, the Democratic National Committee's army of apparatchiks on the blogosphere and their sycophants across the country in TV news rooms and newspaper editorial boards, not to mention, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz -who represents part of Hallandale Beach, and NO, it's NOT the blue-collar neighborhoods!- the latest Rasmussen Reports poll on immigration policy comes as absolutely no surprise to those of us with at least one foot anchored in reality.

In fact, it's
precisely what your own common sense and sense of fairness would tell you about Americans even before you saw the results -61% of the U.S. favors state laws that shut down 'repeat offenders hiring illegals.
Because, simply put, most Americans believe that everyone should have to abide by the rules and laws of THIS country.


Locally, n
o amount of biased, one-sided Miami Herald editorials or fact-free 'news articles' by Alfonso Chardy and Patricia Mazzei can change that.

These Herald articles all have something in common -they almost never publicly state that the position advocated by the very people the reporters seek to paint as sympathetically as possible, is, nevertheless, overwhelmingly opposed by the majority of the people living in this this country and this state, and they never reveal just how low that level of support is.


Amnesty for illegal immigrants does not and will not ever enjoy the popular support of the American people, and no amount of public demonizing by La Raza and the professional Latino advocacy/self-interest community will make it so.

Since their argument is not supported by either logic or reason or the 'numbers,' the reporters just ignore those inconvenient facts, and instead, write paens to the foreign-born parents who broke the law, intentionally overstayed their visa, never showed-up in court for their legal hearings, and in many cases, never learned much in the way of English in their 15-20 years in the United States, even as their foreign-born kids turned out to have figured it out.

Or, alternately, the Herald reporters try to make modern Peru or Colombia seem like a veritable hell-hole that no reasonable person would want to live in, even though the Herald itself, of course LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Latin America.

So which is it?
Emerging vibrant democracy or hell-hole?
It depends on what public image the Herald's editors want to convey to readers in their "news articles," doesn't it?

As I've stated in this space before a time or two, it's very, very curious that whenever they cover U.S. Naturalization ceremonies in South Florida, craving that money shot of the cute little kid waving the American flag, South Florida TV and print reporters -but ESPECIALLY the Miami Herald- NEVER EVER ask the new Americans who came thru the system LEGALLY after following the rules and doing the things required of them over a number of YEARS, whether they believe that immigrants who came to the United States illegally should benefit from breaking the law and get the same benefits as THEY now do.

No, that is a question that is NEVER EVER EVER asked by the South Florida news media.
And everyone knows why.

It's because the answers from the new Americans would NOT conform to the pro-amnesty bias of the reporters themselves and the media organizations that employ them. PERIOD.

They're so afraid of the truth and the power of that message being uttered by immigrants who followed the law, that the question never gets asked.
-----

Rasmussen Reports
61% Favor A State Law That Would Shut Down Repeat Offenders Who Hire Illegal Immigrants
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court late last week upheld the legality of an Arizona law cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and most voters support having a similar law in their own state.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a law in their state that would shut down companies that knowingly and repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. Just 21% oppose such a law, and another 18% are undecided.

Read the rest of the story at:


-------
See also:

Washington Post

Supreme Court upholds Ariz. law punishing companies that hire illegal immigrants
By Robert Barnes
May 26, 2011

Arizona, the state at the forefront of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ undocumented workers, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the court rejected arguments that control over illegal immigration is solely a federal responsibility and endorsed narrowly drawn state efforts to regulate the employment of those in the country illegally. Eight other states — Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — have passed similar laws that would punish companies for hiring undocumented workers.Link
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ariz-law-punishing-companies-that-hire-illegal-immigrants/2011/05/26/AGhHG2BH_story.html

-
Fox News Channel video: President Obama's Border Speech Falls Short
http://youtu.be/yJcCQ5FthcM


For U.S. Government Accountability Office information on
Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests, and Costs for Criminal Alien Statistics, see http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-187


Federation for American Immigration Reform YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fairfederation

Monday, May 16, 2011

Answer: It's about Donald Trump. Question: Why is a month-old story still on Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'? Blame Jay Ducassi


As of 1:20 a.m. Monday May 16th, in the opinion of the editors of the Miami Herald, this April 13th Herald story about Donald Trump not only deserved
to STILL be on the Herald's Broward County homepage under Breaking News, but desercving of being ranked fourth.
THAT'S why it's the Miami Herald.
May 16, 2011 photo by South BeachHoosier
Answer: It's about Donald Trump.Question: Why is a month-old story about Donald Trump -from April 13th- still on the Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'?

(Due to computer problems, I was not able to post this on Saturday.)


That April 13th story has been there for WEEKS, and as of 5:30 p.m. Friday, the 13th of May, is placed as the #4 story under Breaking News.

Hmm-m... you think that nobody at the Miami Herald HQ on Biscayne Bay is paying attention?

Oh dear friends, it's SO very much worse there than simply NOT paying attention and giving readers in South Florida the solid first-rate reporting and analysis they want.
So very much worse!!!

I almost have to laugh at the idea of it being something that simple, since if it was only chronic inattention to detail, you could always change that with some personnel moves, including some long overdue firing.

It's even worse -it's the culture of second-rate, after-the-fact reporting where some story or issue you never heard of before, that's actually been going on for weeks or months, suddenly appears in the Herald's periscope and appears out-of-nowhere, lacking lots of important context, facts and even-handed reporting,

I was already seeing troubling signs of that myself when I came down here from D.C. in 2003, where important stories lacked any photos or graphs, and where once solid news reporters suddenly seemed to be appearing less-and-less in print, and having their column inches filled by people whose understanding of the particular issue consistently seemed less than mine or that of my friends.

That's one of the reasons I kick myself for not having started this blog then instead of in 2007 when the die wasn't just cast but was painting entire parts of South Florida as no-go zones for Herald reporters -municipal city halls.

As to this curious case involving Donald Trump -whose NBC-TV show I have intentionally never watched- it's much more old-fashioned: greed.

The powers-that-be at the Herald want eyeballs coming to their awful, clunky, embarrassment of a news website, even if many if not most of those eyeballs are from readers who don't live in the Sunshine State and couldn't care less what you or I think about anything, much less, about what we think of Donald Trump's aspirations.
That's how shameless the Miami Herald has become.

Otherwise, that Trump story would have gone straight into the Herald's Paid Archives, wouldn't it, like most other articles a week-old?
The awful Herald Archives that's an industry joke, and which doesn't include photos or graphs and often has spelling and syntax problems, unlike not only better newspapers, but even newspapers with lower circulation.

But that article hasn't gone into the archives, has it?
There's absolutely nothing accidental about that 'oversight.'

Below is a snapshot of the Broward County homepage at the Herald 16 days after the Trump story first appeared.

As you can see for yourself, the link for it -in the left column- is, according to the editors of the Miami Herald, the number-one Broward County Breaking News story.
Really? Sixteen days later.
Why?

As to the larger issue of the Herald's perfectly dreadful -NOT just dreadful, perfectly dreadful!- coverage of Broward County person, places or issues, plain and simple, rather than have current news about Broward there of relevance to people living or working there -like me- as I have been commenting here for years, instead they run non-Broward stories there so often that most of the time, most stories appearing there have nothing to do with Broward County and its residents and business owners.

That's how bad it is, and trust me, I have dozens and dozens of screenshots I have taken over the past few years that prove that point, regardless of what time of the day it is.

In fact, you're just as likely to find stories on the Broward homepage about flooded Miami Beach streets or something going on in Pinecrest or Doral or Kendall as you are about Fort lLuderdale or Hollywood or Pembroke Pines.
Or, need I even say it here, Hallandale Beach.

In fact, I mentioned that Miami Beach street flooding story last year in this space.

Why do you suppose that I have written here from time-to-time that the Herald's terrible local news coverage, esp. of local government, is something that incompetent people like HB mayor Joy Cooper is thankful for?

She's laughing at how much she can get away with with without anyone outside of the city ever hearing about it, esp. the people who voted her head of the Florida League of Cities.
Yes, laughing her ass off!

Who should you blame for this situation?
The correct person to apportion the largest share of the blame to is Jay Ducassi, the former Herald reporter and current editor of the Herald's State & Local section.

Under his direction, the newspaper's quality and quantity of coverage of local and state issues has steadily plummeted into sheer ludicrousness, and now it finds itself a joke within the newspaper industry.
At least, among people paying attention, which may or may NOT include you.

I hold Jay Ducassi personally responsible for the 1,001 reasons that former Miami Herald readers and subscribers have jumped overboard in droves to save their heads from exploding with anger at the sheet stupidity and witlessness of most of what appears there most days.

It's so much worse than embarrassing folks that you would be surprised at how many emails I receive from people I now know -and didn't before- who send emails about what is going on there, often sending me examples of one article or another that had the current Herald's trademark -lack of context, lack of facts and one-sided bias.

What we here at the blog refer to as the Patricia Mazzei-ification of the Miami Herald, since chances are good that almost any story that carries her name on it, esp. her's alone, lacks important context and facts the reader should know about and is full of spin and bias.

Unless something unexpected happens, the posts I promised you about her and Alfonso Chardy, her male counterpart in terrible journalism, are likely going to be here before the end of the month.

That context, facts and fair-mindedness are always missing in their stories about illegal immigration is particularly noticeable, which is why so many of the articles that I'll post here by them have that in common.

You will almost never see anything approaching a level playing-field in their stories, as they are always on the side of the illegal alines with a hard luck story that has been fed to them by their go-to source, Cheryl Little, the greatest media manipulator in South Florida.

Even when Little's name is not specifically mentioned -though that's almost every time the subject of immifration is broached in the paper- you can clearly see her fingerprints on the stories, which read like press releases from her group, rather than honest straightforward journalism. No dissenting voices are permitted to sound off and make sense.

Ironically, on the one-month anniversary of the Trump story still being Breaking News for the Herald, Little was given some space in Friday's newspaper, opposite their editorials, on a page they call, with a straight face, "Other Views."

Of course, by 'Other Views,' contrary to what is the normal practice at newspapers with a more old-fashioned view of journalism, where at least the appearance of dissent is sought, the Herald doesn't mean contrasting points-of-views, they mean voices NOT named the Miami Herald editorial board, saying things that AGREE with their particular editorial p.o.v.
(Often that is the perfectly awful Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star.)

You won't be surprised to discover that the title assigned to the essay written by the woman who is the number-one South Florida proponent of amnesty for anyone who gets to the United States, regardless of how that came to be, was "Still waiting for Congress to act" -as in immigration.

Wow, what a coincidence, last week President Obama was in El Paso pitching his ridiculous and unpopular amnesty program while once again ignoring Arizona, a position the Herald agrees with.
And now they run an essay by someone who agrees with them on a page named "Other Views."
That's why it's the Miami Herald, no?

That Mazzei has been making a mess of the news up in Tallahassee, continuing to make the same mistakes in a different area code, only tells me that this woman is clearly destined for big things at the Herald.
That's of course very bad news indeed for its rapidly diminishing number of readers.

The sheer witlessness and obliviousness of the news coverage in the paper some days makes it seem but a step above a Junior College newspaper.
A bad Junior College newspaper.

I become that many of you will be believers in what I say in the near-future when you see what kind of old-fashioned evidence is in plain sight: photos of the Miami Herald itself, and the lack of Broward stories.
It speaks for itself.

Oh, and the kicker is that the Trump story wasn't even written by a Herald reporter!

-----

Donald Trump to push GOP 2012 presidential candidacy at Fla. Tea Party rally
GEORGE BENNETT
Palm Beach Post
Posted on April 13, 2011

Politicians often claim they don't pay much attention to polls, especially ones taken several months before the first voters head to caucuses and primaries.
Then there's Donald Trump.

Less than two hours after CNN released a poll Tuesday showing Trump tied for the lead among potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, the billionaire developer and reality TV star wanted to make sure a reporter interviewing him had seen it.

Trump also directed an employee to e-mail the reporter fresh ratings numbers showing that the latest episode of his Celebrity Apprentice show on NBC had clobbered CSI: NY on Sunday night.

And Trump reminded his interviewer that a recent Wall Street Journal poll showed him as the top presidential pick among tea party voters.

"I wasn't that surprised," Trump said of the tea party poll. "Because my values are very similar. They're hard-working people. They're people that don't like to be taken advantage of by other countries."

Part-time Palm Beacher Trump will make his tea party debut Saturday in Boca Raton when he speaks at an outdoor rally organized by the South Florida Tea Party.

It's the latest indication that Trump is serious about exploring a presidential run.

Trump also considered a run in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate who favored abortion rights, universal health care and a one-time 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth greater than $10 million.

As recently as 2009, he was giving campaign contributions to Democratic senators and Republican archenemies Harry Reid and Charles Schumer.

But as he looks to 2012, Trump is courting the GOP's base of socially and economically conservative primary voters.

"I'm pro-life," Trump told a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer last week, explaining he'd changed his views on abortion years ago.

At February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Trump declared: "I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it, replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country.

"If I decide to run I will not be raising taxes. We'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us."

Trump spent much of his CPAC speech pledging to stand up to China and OPEC and other nations he says no longer respect the U.S.

Since then, Trump has made bigger waves by questioning whether President Obama was born in the U.S. and meets the constitutional requirement that the president be a "natural born citizen."

Obama has produced an official certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health attesting that he was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961. The week after he was born, two newspapers in Honolulu included Obama in birth notices using information from state health department records.

The Hawaii document is accepted by courts and the U.S. State Department -- and by the conservative National Review and many Obama critics -- as conclusive evidence the president is a U.S. citizen. But Trump has joined those in the "birther" movement who demand that Obama produce a 1961-vintage "long-form" birth certificate as proof.

Roger Stone, the legendary Republican political consultant who is a friend of Trump but not an adviser to his latest presidential exploration, says Trump's raising of the birth certificate issue has "served him extremely well It has helped him galvanize a base. I don't think you could run on that issue alone."

Stone points to surveys by Democrat-oriented Public Policy Polling that show Trump was viewed favorably by 31 percent of Republicans and unfavorably by 53 percent of GOP voters in mid-February. At the end of March, after weeks of fanning the birther controversy, a poll showed Trump with a 40/33 favorable/unfavorable score among Republicans -- a gain of 29 points in Trump's net approval rating.

Asked about the birth certificate issue in Tuesday's brief interview, Trump said, "I think there are a lot of people that have questions and I certainly do."

But Trump said he believes voters are responding more to "my stance on China, my stance on OPEC, my stance on foreign countries" who Trump says have been "taking advantage of us."

Trump said he accepted the invitation to Saturday's tea party event in Boca Raton because "Florida is very close to my heart."

Organizers are expecting a large crowd.

So is the poll- and ratings-conscious Trump, who says, "I hear it's going to be like a monster."

Sunday, February 13, 2011

As predicted here, McClatchy & Miami Herald never refer to illegal alien status of convicted killer of Chandra Levy in article. Shocker!


In this space on Friday, February 11th, in a blog post I titled, "Killer convicted! Illegal immigrant from El Salvador sentenced to 60 years in prison by D.C. jury for 2001 murder of Chandra Levy" http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/killer-convicted-illegal-immigrant-from.html 
I posited the deeply-felt personal belief that within days, when the time came for the Miami Herald to finally run their story on the verdict of this murder trial, they would completely ignore the fact that the convicted killer of Chandra Levy, Ingmar Guandique, was an El Salvadoran who was in the United States illegally.
And, in fact,
Guandique had been here illegally for YEARS.

As you can see from my snapshot of that article as it appeared in print, above, and the actual article, below, my prediction went from my brain and lips to the
Miami Herald's printing press
.

That I could predict such a thing with such utter confidence ought to give you some real insight into the extent which the traditional Chinese Wall between editorial and reporting is a non-existent one at the
Miami Herald on the issue of immigration policy.


They don't even bother trying to pretend anymore and hide their bias.


The real kicker is that the McClatchy reporter, Michael Doyle, actually used the word "immigrant" in his version of the story.
"Immigrant?"

"Immigrant," really?


Knute Rockne was an immigrant. Albert Einstein was an immigrant. Lou Gehrig and Martin Scorsese's family were immigrants.
Ingmar Guandique is an illegal alien who stone-cold murdered an innocent woman named Chandra Levy, a 24-year old young woman with an outgoing personality who continually gave to her community in her hometown, and was killed because to Guandique, she was just a loose-end to his latest crime.
Period!


Guadique is a person with a very long criminal record that this Herald article, as it actually appeared in print, hardly even begins to skim the surface of. The Washington Post reported on that criminal record in detail years ago, but but for whatever reasons, the Herald has NEVER ever mentioned it.

Tell me, why would the Miami Herald censor his long criminal background for so long?

And why was he STILL here?

Those are good questions, why don't you call illegal alien advocate Chery Little, founder and executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and ask her?

There's clearly someone up in the Washington, D.C. area doing the same thing for the illegals up there that she does in Miami, where she has serially manipulated the hell out of the pliant South Florida news media, especially the Miami Herald.

Little limits information on the carefully-chosen '
clients' she trots out for the news media
and keeps the illegal alien parents -who came here and ignored U.S. govt. notices to return home or update information- completely out of the reach of reporters.
All in order to get the most positive spin possible for herself, FIAC and the issue.


If you have paid close attention to her and her dog-and-pony shows for the local South Florida media thru the years, it's hard not to notice that her 'clients' are almost always straight out of Central Casting, and that's not by mistake.
And did you ever notice how few of the Hispanic 'clients' are dark-skinned?
I have!
And so have many of my friends throughout South Florida.



That was especially noticeable when she was trying to rally public support for the absurd and unpopular DREAM ACT that the vast majority of Americans have always opposed.
The people she trotted out were almost invariably articulate high school kids getting very good grades with lots of potential and lots of options, as if that was at all representative of what most of the kids here in South Florida illegally have.
It's completely preposterous.

But the South Florida news media ate it up, anyway!

That's not by accident, since it's clear that Little carefully chose which people to trot out for all the predictable questions from the sleepwalking media, many of whom seem more like aspiring spokesmodels than journalists.

And because so many of the local Miami print and TV reporters lack much backbone to speak of, much less, a nose for real news, especially the ones under the age of 35, they swallow it whole every time, never bothering to ask how someone -a culpable parent- NEVER quite learned enough English in 17 years in Miami to make themselves understood in English, even while their kid might be getting straight-A's.

(Now there's THE real story -the reality disconnect and the media's perpetual lack of curiosity.)

And almost every time Cheryl Little's name appears in print in the Herald, who's the (faux) reporter doing the stenography?
Correct, Alfonso Chardy, the most self-evidently biased reporter at the Miami Herald -or just about any newspaper I can think of, actually.


If you ever wondered about the inherent and over-weaning bias of the Miami Herald and their parent company, The McClatchy Company, on the issue of immigration policy, I think this story is the final nail in the coffin.
Game, set, match.

If Carlos Alvarez or Dwyane Wade or Don Shula were killed in a robbery or drive-by outside of a Shula's Steakhouse by an illegal alien, would the Miami Herald mention that pertinent fact, or would they intentionally keep it out?

I guess we know the answer to that question now, as this snapshot I took, above, of Saturday's Miami Herald, page 4A -with no photos, no links, no nothing...- makes abundantly clear.

Or read it yourself!

For the record, the text in blue in the article below NEVER appeared in yesterday's print edition.


-----

Chandra Levy's killer gets 60-year prison sentence

By Michael Doyle

The man convicted of killing Chandra Levy was sentenced Friday to 60 years in prison.
Punctuating a law-and-order saga that's lasted nearly a decade, D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald I. Fisher rejected a defense bid for a new trial and imposed the stiff sentence on Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique.
"I think he is a dangerous person," Fisher said. "I think he is a dangerous person to women, in particular, and I think he will remain one for a long time."
Chandra's mother, Susan Levy, drove the point home, with a firmly delivered victim's impact statement that she directed, at times, right at Guandique.
"You, Mr. Guandique, you are lower than a cockroach," Levy said.
At the end of her 16-minute statement, in which she also read comments written by her son, Adam, and her husband, Robert, Levy turned to her daughter's killer and pointed at him.
"Finally, (expletive) you," Susan Levy said. "That is it."
Now 29, Guandique will be at least 80 before he becomes eligible for parole from federal prison. Fisher rejected prosecutors' request to deny any possibility of parole, raising the faint possibility that Guandique will die outside of prison.
"This might be a life sentence," Fisher acknowledged. "In all likelihood, it will be a life sentence."
Manacled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Guandique showed little emotion during most of the 90-minute sentencing hearing. When given a chance to speak, though, he appeared to rub tears from his eyes before protesting his innocence.
"I am sorry, I am very sorry for what happened to (Chandra)," Guandique said, speaking through an interpreter, "but I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent."
Following a little more than three days of deliberations, the jury of three men and nine women on Nov. 22 had found Guandique guilty on two counts of first-degree felony murder.
The jury concluded Guandique had attacked Chandra on May 1, 2001, while she was walking or jogging in a remote reach of Washington's Rock Creek Park. The felony murder charge was formally predicated on a claim that Guandique was attempting to rob Levy, although prosecutors emphasized the possibility that the attack was sexual in nature.
Citing prison disciplinary records and other crimes, including several Guandique admitted to and others that were never proven in court, prosecutors had argued he was an implacable menace to society.
"Guandique has demonstrated predatory behavior that seems incapable of rehabilitation," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Haines and Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez wrote in an 18-page sentencing memo.
Defense attorneys Santha Sonenberg and Maria Hawilo retorted with their own sentencing memo of more than 11 pages, in which they cited a violent, impoverished upbringing as well as learning and psychological problems.
"He grew up without running water or electricity ... and he suffers from a number of different afflictions," Sonenberg said.
A former defense attorney, appointed to the D.C. Superior Court bench by President Bill Clinton in 2001, Fisher had also overseen preliminary proceedings in the Levy case for more than a year before the trial began.
Levy had just turned 24 when she disappeared. She had finished her University of Southern California graduate studies and a federal Bureau of Prisons internship and was planning to take a May 5 Amtrak train back home to California's San Joaquin Valley, trial testimony revealed.
Levy was also sexually involved with then-Congressman Gary Condit, trial evidence and testimony graphically confirmed. Early speculation about her shadowy relationship with the much-older politician had helped make Levy's disappearance a news sensation in the first place.
An uncomfortable-looking Condit testified that he had nothing to do with Levy's death, but the judge also permitted him to stiff-arm questions about the exact nature of his affair with Levy.
Prosecutors lacked any DNA, fingerprint, fiber or other physical evidence connecting Guandique to Levy or the wooded Rock Creek Park hillside where her skeletal remains were found in May 2002. There were no eyewitnesses.
Prosecutors also didn't get a chance to cross-examine Guandique, who listened to the translated trial proceedings through a headset.
Of the 40 prosecution witnesses, only former Fresno Bulldogs gang member Alberto Morales directly connected Guandique to Levy. A one-time cellmate, Morales testified that Guandique confessed the killing to him.
Morales, currently scheduled to be released in 2016, is not currently in federal Bureau of Prisons custody, according to the agency's inmate locator. During the Levy trial, he was said to be "in transit." It is not yet known which federal prison Guandique will be dispatched to; previously, he was serving his sentence on other charges at U.S. Penitentiary Victorville, on the unforgivably hot margins of California's Mojave Desert.

Meanwhile this very afternoon, the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Company, has a story on their website, highlighted in blue below, titled, "Illegal immigrant held in connection with standoff in Carrollwood."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/illegal-immigrant-held-in-connection-with-standoff-in-carrollwood/1151437

Yes, even the St. Pete Times, a very liberal newspaper that employs reporters I personally know, DOESN'T engage in such ham-handed and selective use of facts -much less, in a murder case!- to the extent that McClatchy and the Miami Herald has -and does.



"Illegal immigrant held in connection with standoff in Carrollwood."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/illegal-immigrant-held-in-connection-with-standoff-in-carrollwood/1151437

Friday, November 12, 2010

A day in the life of McClatchy's Miami Herald, as viewed by a reader who's largely given up on them fixing their problems, or surviving long-term

Above, November 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of a Miami Herald vending machine on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

UPDATED 11/13/10

I guess I hardly need mention to anyone living in South Florida that the prices posted on this vending machine
haven't been accurate for quite some time, but then the Miami Herald management's foolish insistence in the recent past that only charging Broward readers a quarter, while already charging fifty cents in Miami-Dade, would get them more readers and eyeballs on their ads, never made any sense either, though from a distance, it might've sounded good in theory.
Say from Sacramento, Calif., the home of McClatchy Company, which owns the Herald.

Even their own reporters and columnists knew this, as prior to their finally charging the same amount in both counties, it would've been rare for any phone conversation I had with a Herald reporter or columnist to end without them bringing the subject up, which told me in no uncertain terms that it was clearly a sore subject.


For the better part of the 14 years I lived in suburban Washington, D.C., in Arlington, VA, and caught the Metro train into downtown Washington for work during the week, whether from the Clarendon Metro station or the Ballston station, I happily paid fifty cents for the Baltimore Sun from a vending machine on my way down into the station -since the 1990's- while paying less for the Washington Post, because it was a very smart, well-written and well-edited newspaper.

The Sun, a newspaper I first read as a kid in North Miami Beach while growing-up a devout Orioles fan, is not what it once was, owing to a lot of curious moves made by parent Tribune Company, but on any given day, it's still usually much better than the Herald and the Tribune-owned Sun-Sentinel combined, and was well worth the price.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/

People in South Florida, especially serious people, will always be willing to pay more for quality, but they want to see it first.
That quality they seek is seldom if ever seen in the current version of the Miami Herald.

So what's the plan for the Herald's future, if any?


Exactly.

Back on September 18th, I emailed the following thoughts of mine, most of which were written while once again exasperated by what kind of product the Herald was producing.

I sent it to a couple of dozen or so of the usual well-informed, media-centric folks I know in Florida and around the country who get my observations before I usually share them here with you all later in the day, often after getting insightful comments, corrections or head's ups from them about related (or worse)
MSM screw-ups closer to them geographically.

In light of what I wrote here on November 3rd about the Herald's truly dreadful coverage of the recent Giants-Rangers World Series, that is, their mentioning NOTHING about Game 2 the following day, on a Friday morning, while the South Florida edition of the New York Times, printed up in Deerfield Beach, 25 miles north of me, had a page-and-a-half of stories and columns, plus nice photos and box score info.


The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/miami-heralds-dismal-pony-express-style.html

The following email is also in that vein, and all came together one particularly frustrating day about nine weeks ago, when I was checking the Herald's website for some information and noticed something quite troubling, which was not good news for either Herald readers or serious-minded people in South Florida who continue to ponder this simple question:
What's going on at One Herald Plaza?

-----

The Miami Herald's
staff finally smells the coffee.
But is it too late?

Back on Sept. 1st, I sent an email to Edward Schumacher-Matos, the Herald's
Ombudsman (the one without either a blog or a weekly column, but rather some once-in-a-while thing) because that was the day where an armed intrusion took place at the Discovery Channel HQ in suburban D.C. -a Maryland building I've been in dozens of times- yet it took the Herald hours to put something about it online.

This, even while a nice but not great photo of actress January Jones of Mad Men fame remained online just below the masthead for hours, while nothing about the story up in Silver Spring, being shown on LIVE TV for hours on the cablenets, was there.

It was just the latest in a VERY long line of jaw-dropping and galling editorial and content decisions at the Herald in the recent past that befuddle the Herald's dwindling number of readers.

In fact, I was so dismayed that I actually wrote Hallandale Beach Blog fave, Alan D. Mutter, creator of Reflections of a Newsosaur blog fame, and mentioned here often,
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/ and asked him -only half-jokingly- if there was any chance that one of his savvy Venture Capital friends in Silicon Valley might want to reinvent themselves, and play the role of a media mogul, and perhaps take the Herald off of McClatchy's hands?

I even told him, "
Trust me, the concerned and conscientious people in South Florida would've be very much indebted!"

Sadly, Alan replied that he didn't know of such a person.
But then I presumed that such a person even exists, oui?

-----
Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 4:52 PM

Subject: Surprise! Takes over THREE HOURS for Herald website to mention hostage drama at Discovery Channel HQ in Silver Spring. Sleeping on the job, Just like Herald's Broward coverage!

To: Edward Schumacher-Matos

September 1st, 2010
4 pm

Dear Mr. Schumacher-Matos:

Nothing in this email is about the Herald's spotty coverage of Broward County in general or Hallandale Beach, and to a less degree, of Hollywood, in particular.
The paper's unsatisfactory coverage of them is what is is.
Reality.


Did you know that there are media sites overseas that have had something about this hostage story for a while now, yet the Herald has nothing almost three hours later but STILL has prime space at the top for

Kardashians

New fashion collection

They're cute girls and all and I get their appeal, but why has the paper completely
OD'd on them?
Seriously..

You should have one of the Herald's interns check and see how many times in the past six months there hasn't been something about them in the Herald.

Or how many times, since she was hired two years ago, Myriam Marquez has written anything at all about something going on in Broward County or of particular interest to readers there.

Trust me, it won't be pretty.

In fact, it will be grim.

Consider that your Sunday public policy section, Issues & Ideas, did not have the word "Broward" in it anywhere.
Or any story or column about some issue, personality or idea of particular relevance in Broward
Again.
For at least the second week in a row.


Do you know how many times
THAT fact pattern has been true this year?
I did, I really did, but I stopped counting because it was so disturbing.
And pathetic.

The other day, in reference to the glacial and practically non-existent coverage
of the Broward School Board races last Tuesday, and their lack of updates online, I compared the Herald's pace to the Pony Express on my blog.
In retrospect, I might've been exaggerating, but not quite in the way you might imagine.

In a day or so, I'm going to show that a careful analysis of Herald stories since last
year's approval of the Marlins Stadium by the M-D County Commission, 5 of the 9 commissioners who approved it never had a story written about them in the ensuing 14 months that ever said anything at all about them and their vote on the stadium's financing, or any possible second-guessing or doubts from constituents.
ZERO.

That explains a lot.
Like why the paper was beaten soundly by a website on the stadium financing story due to a leak.

If someone with that info had tried to give the info to the Herald, unless they immediately got savvy reporters Matthew Haggman and Charles Rabin on the phone, unlikely, do you know what the Herald reporters and editors would've said or done?
Nothing.


The same response that Herald readers in South Florida routinely get from reporters and editors, like Beth Reinhard, Jay Ducassi and dozens of others when they contact them.

Those Herald employees first response is to call other people rather than call you back or return your emails about solid news you know or possess, even when you have photos that corroborate everything you say.

I know this first-hand and so do many other people I know who closely follow what goes on in Broward County and South Florida.

And guess what, the Herald daily shows that lack of context or understanding of the area
they purport to cover, which is why so many readers constantly complain that the Herald's local news and govt. stories have an unusually high degree of fact and context problems, and are usually more notable for what is left out, often the most important aspect of why something happened -or didn't.

But unless you are there in person, like I am so often, you wouldn't know anything about it.

Seriously,
when are we going to see the positive changes the Herald needs to make it viable and engaged?
What's the plan?

Not the silly one that got in print a few months ago, but a real
plan that actually benefits readers who want real news?

The Herald's current plan of ignoring news because it's not in Coral Gables, Doral, Miami or Miami Beach is NOT working and is repelling readers from both the physical paper and the website, for reasons like why I wrote this in the first place: sleeping on the job!

From my perspective, the ship is still listing and there are
NO ships around to rescue any survivors, if any.

I will leave to another day the confounding situation with reporter Alfonso Chardy and why his disingenuous professional behavior is allowed to continue apace, like nobody really noticed what he did a few weeks ago, blatantly lying to Herald readers in a news story.
But notice we did.

Not just me, but full-time print and TV reporters from around the state.

I know that because they contacted me to tell me they noticed, too.
And those are facts.

(About an hour later, after some website magic happened, I added.)

P.S. Congrats!
It only took over three hours and continuous coverage on the TV cablenets for someone at the Herald to finally post something online. I can only imagine how things will be in the future when some blogger scoops the Herald that Fidel Castro is dead.

------

Well, as you might imagine, despite having exchanged cordial emails with him in the past, I never heard back from the Ombudsman, whose email address I have since deleted from my computer, since really, what's the point?

If the Herald's current and recent management care so little about their own readers that Schumacher-Matos lacks the tools or frequency he needs to be taken seriously by Herald readers, the sorts of things other large newspapers provide -and the facts clearly show they do- why continue to kid myself and think my emails to him will accomplish anything other than temporarily venting some of my dismay?

Which is why many of the past emails I've penned to him over the years but never actually sent, keeping in DRAFT instead, will be now be revisited here on the blog when similar situations occur in the future at the newspaper, as they inevitably will, since the Herald keeps making the same mistakes over-and-over.
They won't stop digging the hole they're in.

To use an image that I've often used here in the past, their behavior is akin to a dog chasing-its- tail -initially amusing, but ultimately, fruitless and irritating.

Like many current network TV programs.

I forgot to mention above in my prologue that in my second email to my media-centric pals, friends and acquaintances here in Florida and around the country, I also sent them a link to Bob Norman's spot-on Daily Pulp post of Sept. 17th about the greatly rising frustration level of the Herald's own employees.


It's so good, I have it here and urge you to read the entire thing, including the reader comments, whose frustration with the newspaper and its management is clear .


BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Herald Reporters to Management: Stop Mimicking Twitter and Focus on Serious Journalism
By Bob Norman
Friday, September 17 2010 @ 5:57PM

The following letter appeared yesterday on the Miami Herald's internal memo board, Readme. Signed by numerous veteran reporters and editors, it was posted the same day 49 more layoffs were announced at the depleted newspaper.

-----------

Sept 2010
OUR HOPES FOR A BETTER HERALD:

So, it's Saturday night, and you want to hear live music. Among your choices: going to the Hard Rock Cafe to hear Shakira (or Seal or Ringo Starr or Reba McIntyre); or going to a bar with an open mike. At the Hard Rock, you'll hear a polished, professional artist.
At open mike night, you'll probably hear people with day jobs singing Sweet Caroline ... perhaps lustily, probably off key.

Nothing intrinsically wrong with that open mike bar. But we'll bet most people, with
the ability to choose, would go hear the pro.

The Miami Herald, we would argue, is becoming the newspaper equivalent of open mike night. Or a flea market.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/09/miami_herald_reporters.php

There are 177 reader comments!

See also McClatchy Watch on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/McClatchyWatch


McClatchy Watch website, while defunct since before last Christmas, is still online:
http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/