Showing posts with label McClatchy Company. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McClatchy Company. Show all posts

Saturday, July 30, 2016

The Miami Herald, under the current crew at McClatchy, continues to sink into irrelevancy.... Even when they should have Home Field Advantage on one of the biggest stories going: Zika

Here's the reality of South Florida journalism in the Summer of 2016: While the appearance of the Zika virus in Miami in four people who did not have risk factors associated with all known previous victims in Florida -and reportedly acquired in one of South Florida's most-popular tourist areas, Wynwood- was one of the top stories nationally, and this morning's headline strory in the Drudge Report, under, MOSQUITO NIGHTMARE HITS MIAMI and yet the Miami Herald's version of the story 
appears in today's Miami Herald website NOT near the top, but rather, buried towards the bottom, under dozens of other stories that are of much less consequence and importance to people who live and work in South Florida. 

I mention this because I just checked and it's clear that many of my earlier misgivings about Zika in Miami are going to be coming true this year.



In case you never received my previous emails or read my tweets about him, unlike Hoosier-by-choice me who went to IU from North Miami BeachRon Klain is a native-born Hoosier, but he chose to go to Georgetown and then Harvard Law instead of IU
Despite that choice, things have worked out pretty well for him, though, since along the way 
Ron's been a Supreme Court Law Clerk for Justice Byron White, was Vice President Al Gore's Chief of Staff and later performed the same duties more recently for Vice President Joe Biden
He's now General Counsel for one of the top tech and investment firms in the entire DC area, 
Revolution LLCa firm with some truly amazing talent and resources, and is lead by former AOL founder Steve Case.

As it concerns today's news, though, Ron was also President Obama's Ebola Czar.
I know from personal experience that Ron has been talking clearly and seriously about the Zika virus funding crisis for many, many months, appearing on many TV and cable TV shows and even written some Op-Eds in the Washington Post to try to educate people and sound the alarm about this. 
Despite his very hard work, the Miami Herald has never mentioned him since noting his Ebola appointment in October 2014.
Do you you see a pattern here?

The Miami Herald, under the current crew at McClatchy, continues to sink into irrelevancy.... 
Even when they should have Home Field Advantage on one of the biggest stories going. 

I've got more posts coming soon about Zika in Miami, including one I've been working on now for over two months.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep out over the Internet

Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep out over the Internet
The stridently pro-amnesty Miami Herald is STILL refusing to end their news blackout and mention anything at all re the Ryan Lizza column and the role of Rubio and his staff in S.744 since news about the column began. 
The Tampa Bay Times ended their news blackout Tuesday afternoon. 

As of 1 a.m. Thursday morning, absolutely nothing's changed at McClatchy's under-performing Miami Herald -nothing in print and nothing on their blogs- since my post of yesterday bringing this to everyone's attention.

But in the Miami Herald that's run by Executive Editor Aminda Marques Gonzalez, while there wasn't space for real news about Marco Rubio, there was plenty of space for faux news about imaginary polls and imaginary candidates, him and Hillary Clinton, that are the very picture of the word meaningless.

When the history of how bad this once-decent newspaper got before there were either big corporate changes that respected readers expectations, or they merely allowed the female captain of the S.S. Herald to crash into the iceberg like The Titanic, and slowly receded into insignificance, we now know the name of who will get the lion's share of the blame locally:
Aminda Marques Gonzalez.

Yes, the same woman who never responded to my two fact-filled emails in 2010 and 2011 to her, Managing Editor Rick Hirsch and others in position of power at Herald management in Miami and at McClatchy HQ in Sacramento, pointing out a whole host of tangible problems that weren't being solved or mentioned in any other forum or venue.
Despite how specific I was and even giving concrete examples, Aminda Marques never did anything to fix the problems -and here in 2013, still STILL hasn't

I know that we've all been taught that, theoretically, there's a wall between editorial and news, but if there was one there, it's crumbled under the present crew working for McClatchy..

At that newspaper now, on a matter of great public policy, especially to this area, IF you aren't supportive of the newspaper's editorial point-of-view, pro-amnesty, you don't see the light of day there, and their lopsided, one-sided "news coverage" has reflected this the entire time that Marques has been in charge.
It's not your imagination or mine, it's the truth, and the record is clear.

The Hill
Right rips Rubio as Republican immigration votes slip away
By Alexander Bolton
06/19/13 08:05 PM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306717-right-rips-rubio-as-gop-votes-slip-away

Even while Miami-area TV stations also continue to completely ignore the Ryan Lizza story, too, Rubio's short-term future within the party is being decided as people decide that he is simply too naive and untrustworthy to have the large public role he has.
once.
And the reporters and columnists around the country who know what Rubio has been up to also know what the Herald has been doing, too, which is all to the good.

































Friday, June 14, 2013

"Fertile" territory for media bias! Or, that's why it's the Miami Herald -and is shedding longtime readers! Former Florida governor Jeb Bush makes some nonsensical comments on Friday morning in hopes of passing the amnesty-first immigration bill, but while MSM and blogosphere duly write about what he said and give it due attention, the Miami Herald wouldn't post the story and leave it visible on their website for hours -like they'd do if other pols had said same thing -like Rick Scott for instance

Above, what the Miami Herald's webpage looked like shortly before 11 p.m. Friday.

On a day when an embarrassing and nonsensical comment by former Florida governor Jeb Bush was one of the top political stories of the day as judged by the country's political class and blogosphere, guess which Florida newspaper has nothing about it on the front page of their website, even while continuing to carry a story at the top of their website about Brit boy band One Direction?
Yes, the Miami Herald.
Surprise!

More than 12 hours after The National Journal has posted their story using some informed tweets, 

Jeb Bush Says Immigrants Are 'More Fertile,' Twitter Gets Mad
By Ben Terris and Matt Berman
Updated: June 14, 2013 | 10:34 a.m. 
June 14, 2013 | 10:24 a.m

you literally couldn't find the story by examining what appears on the Herald's landing page.

Another example of the Florida news media running interference for the darling of the GOP East Coast Establishment and Florida's influential low-wage agribusiness industry, and a scenario that keen-eyed observers have seen time and again at the Herald the past ten years as its era of genuine relevancy in the community recedes farther and farther back in time and memory.

But then the Herald has long treated Jeb Bush differently than it does other pols in Florida -that is, once he finally got elected governor.
Typical media suck-ups.

By the way, who, exactly, is going to be persuaded to support this bill, S.744, because some self-serving and over-rated politician says that female immigrants are fertile?
That's a very, very weird thing to say aloud and makes you wonder what would have happened if some quick-witted reporter had asked him how he knew that.

I'd like to meet those people, or rather, I'd like the Florida news media to try to seriously try to find even one person in this state who is convinced by Bush's comment to change positions.
Just one person.
You couldn't find one, which makes Bush's comments even more asinine and queer.
This guy could NOT win an argument to save his life -or our country's..

If current Florida governor Rick Scott had said something along these lines, that story would've been the lead story on Friday night's six o'clock TV newscasts in Miami and be parked at the top of the Herald webpage for days on end, full of feigned outrage by liberals and La Raza about "the hurtful comments."

But yet again with Jeb Bush, someone I'd never vote for, and someone too weird, off-putting and self-serving for my tastes -to say nothing of his being very, very over-rated as a policy personthe Miami Herald gives him another hall pass.

Here's where the Herald buried the story
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/14/3451208/jeb-bush-america-will-decline.html

And if you're paying attention, you'll see that it was an AP reporter doing the story on the former Florida governor, not even one of the Times/Herald reporters or a McClatchy reporter in D.C.
Now that's embarrassing!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Why is the McClatchy Company's Miami Herald continuing to ignore media reports the FBI has emails detailing activities of Herald fave, "Cuban-American" Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, repeatedly having sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic -at a resort owned by his Miami pal? No story's complete without a South Florida angle, so why are they acting like ostriches?; This cover-up is exactly the sort of thing that causes reasonable people like me to seriously question the future of the Herald, since their longstanding political bias and sheer laziness are both cancers in the digital era



Updated on Monday January 28th, 2013  5:15a.m.


Why is the McClatchy Company's Miami Herald continuing to ignore media reports that the FBI has copies of emails in its possession detailing unflattering and illegal globe-trotting activities of Herald favorite, "Cuban American" Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey?
The allegation is that Menendez has repeatedly flown-down to the Dominican Republic and had sex with underage prostitutes, and that one of the persons who facilitated these activities was his pal, a Miami surgeon and resort owner named Salomon Melgen.

This unwillingness to report seems especially curious given that there is the requisite South Florida angle, since no scandal in this country seems complete without some connection to this area.

And once you know that the behavior is alleged to have taken place at a resort owned by Melgen, and yet as you can see for yourself above, the Herald has published nothing about him or Menendez related to this story, it becomes especially obvious.

The newspaper has ignored this story for quite some time, even before the election three months ago, when people at ABC News were investigating it, an election which made incumbent Menedez one of three Hispanics in the U.S. Senate, and the presumptive choice for Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if John Kerry becomes Secretary of State, which is a scary-enough prospect on its own, given how consistently unsound his judgment has proven to be over the years.


So ask yourself, is this an example of a an old-fashioned media cover-up by a Miami newspaper that has come to be well-known across the country for ignoring negative news about specific "pets" of its management and Editorial Board, or just the latest example of the arrogant laziness that's been going on for years at the Herald, which has so many predicates over the past few years?


Among those predicates is one that this part of Broward County is especially familiar with , that of the Herald iignoring for well over a year the facts surrounding an affair conducted by former Broward School Chair Jennifer Gottlieb with an individual with business before Broward Schools, a story that investigative reporter Bob Norman deconstructed so well. 


Here's my post of July 26, 2010 on the subject of Gottlieb that remains one of the most-read posts I've had in over five years:
Weeks later, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel & Miami TV newscasts STILL consciously ignoring Bob Norman's spot-on story re School Board's Jennifer Gottlieb

and
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-perfect-end-to-perfect-wednesday.html

So as you can see, this behavior of putting their head in the sand like an ostrich is nothing new

by the current news crew at the Herald.
It's just more of the same that nobody likes.

I sent a version of the above and what's below to Herald publisher David Landsberg,
Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch asking just that very
question.

Menendez has been a favorite of Herald management and the Editorial Board because of his
political views towards Cuba, not because of any great original policy ideas of his, or even 
anything of particular note that he's said or done.
-----
And as indicated above from my screen grab of a few minutes ago, you have posted nothing at all on Menendez's Miami surgeon pal and connection?
How come?
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Bob+Menendez nothing
The Daily Caller                                                                                                      
Emails show FBI investigating Sen. Bob Menendez for sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes
By David Martosko, Executive Editor 
1:52 AM 01/25/2013
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/25/emails-show-fbi-investigating-sen-bob-menendez-for-sleeping-with-underage-dominican-prostitutes/
Thinking that this story will eventually go away on its own if you don't report it, is NOT really much of a 21st Century strategy for managing news, and is exactly the sort of thing that causes reasonable people like me to seriously question the future of your newspaper if it continues to show that it can't be relied upon by readers to honestly report the news without personal or political favor.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Fact-checking the Miami Herald's local coverage of the "fiscal cliff" budget issue shows their obliviousness; Charles Krauthammer ponders "Cliff-jumping with Barack"; I suggest everyone check their ropes now!


Louisthx YouTube Channel video: Countdown clock for an NBC News Special Report. Uploaded on July 27, 2007. http://youtu.be/41sQCLKpi78 
Since I don't have my own Breaking News countdown clock yet... 

Question: How many of South Florida's 8 present or future Members of Congress have been interviewed or quoted by the Miami Herald regarding the "fiscal cliff" federal budget issue since Election Day?
Answer: ZERO.

But we all know that this would hardly come as Breaking News to any well-informed person who reads the 2012 version of that newspaper, though they still might be surprised that the Herald could do such a poor job of following a big national story by not writing about the local angle, i.e. have meaningful reporting on what this area's elected representatives to Congress were inclined to do.

The Herald of the 1970's and 1980's would've not only done something, they'd have had an entire page about it in Section A or in their Sunday Op-Ed section, with each rep. having the opportunity to try to explain -in some cases, explain away- why they believed what they did.

Not the lackluster and lazy Herald of today against the worldwide talent and resources of the N.Y. Times of today, but rather than the lackluster Herald of today against the Herald of 25 and 35 years ago that had to make do without cell phones and the crutch of the Internet, but with hard-working reporters who wanted to get the story done right, NOT run away from it.
There's your compare and contrast.

To repeat what I've written here on the blog in the past, when I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area from 1988-2003, because of what I did, whom I knew and what the full array of my interests were, I spoke fairly often to some print/TV reporters and columnists based in the Beltway whom you've heard of. 
We talked about all sorts of things, of course, but among them were also the general state of journalism, trends in the industry and general industry gossip.

Sometimes that took place over the phone after some bit of Breaking News, or over an Orioles game up at Camden Yards, sometimes after movies at popular restaurants, 
Other conversations took place over a hot dog and Coke from a vendor at a nearby park at lunch time -McPherson Square- on one of those sunny Spring days in Washington that are amazing, and which pull everyone out of their offices after months of cold weather, a sure sign that the baseball season is approaching.

The fact that some of these people had earned Pulitzer Prizes for their hard work and resourcefulness and had become known "names," was not something they spoke about, per se, but because they were so recognizable, it was always something in the back of my mind, even when we pretended it wasn't.

So it's with that in mind that I can tell you this with absolute certainty.
Newspapers and reporters do NOT receive the Pulitzer Prize for making a very bad habit of habitually ignoring what's right in front of them and NOT asking hard questions of elected officials facing difficult choices.
People are elected to Washington to make tough choices, after all, and reporters are supposed to ask them how they made their choice and what it is.
That's their job.
And yet...

Which of the 80 federal entitlement programs does Frederica Wilson or Joe Garcia want to seriously reform in order to avoid the fiscal cliff?

To repeat Charles Krauthammer in his Washington Post column titled, Cliff-jumping with Barack:
Where are the spending cuts, both discretionary and entitlement: Medicare, Medicaid and now Obamacare (the health-care trio) and Social Security?

I can't tell you that now because the very people in the best position to actually find out, the South Florida news media, don't want to ask, in large part I suspect because they really don't care. But I do.

If only I could bolster my argument by linking to a single example of this. 
Oh, okay, here are eight examples of that media obliviousness, courtesy(!) of the McClatchy Company's Miami Herald.
Is that enough for you?

FL-17 Frederica Wilson

FL-18 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

FL-19 Ted Deutch

FL-20 Debbie Wasserman Schultz

FL-21 Mario Diaz-Balart

FL-22 Congressman-Elect Patrick Murphy

FL-23 Alcee Hastings


FL-25 Congressman-Elect Joe Garcia

Monday, September 10, 2012

Fact checking the Miami Herald's dubious claims on Education: Over the weekend, I unexpectedly found myself forced to 'school' the Herald's Executive Editor after she bragged about the Herald's coverage of Education. I had to bring up some inconvenient facts rebutting that claim

A Miami Herald vending machine in front of the Denny's restaurant on West Hallandale Beach Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL, right near one of the city's two infamous red-light cameras. (Now the daily price for a Herald is 75 cents, of course, not the 50 cents depicted in photo.) July 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier© 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

On Sunday morning, in going thru the Miami Herald's crummy and uninspiring website, mostly  making mental notes about all the stories that should've been present eight weeks before national, state and local elections take place -but WEREN'T-  rather than looking for something in particular that I was expecting to be there, I came up short when I clicked "Opinion" and saw something there that was as objectively false as anything I'd seen in the paper this year. http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/#navlink=navbar

You see it was there that I first came across Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marques' piece about the Herald's coverage of education policy, and in my opinion, bragging about something she had no business bragging about. That is, IF facts and reality matter.
They still do to me, what about you?

If I'd had a few minutes to really think it through, I'd have actually posted the knowing response below to my blog right away instead of placing it on the Herald's website, since more people would likely see it here sooner than in that Herald article, since depending upon how many comments the original article garnered, my experience in talking to other people is that most people won't read more than whatever comments happen to be on that particular page, depending upon whether your default setting is Most Recent or chron order of first comments to most recent. 
Me, I read all comments of articles I find of interest in chron order.


Now perhaps it was because I'd already had more Hazelnut-flavored coffee than I should've yesterday morning, while lisitening to the network TV morning chat shows on in the background while checking out my usual Sunday morning media breakfast buffet on the computer. 

The only thing that was different this time than the past few months was that I had to be sure not to get too engrossed in something I was reading once This Week in South Florida with Michael Putney ended, since I needed to swing by the store and pick up some bags of ice on the way to catch the Dolphins 2012 season-opener in Houston at my sister's place out in Pembroke Pines, and not be late for the 1 p.m. kickoff.

(As usual, the part of the drive from Hallandale Beach to Flamingo Road in Pembroke Pines via Pembroke Road that was the worst stretch, even on a Sunday afternoon, was between Washington Park in Hollywood and  University Drive in The Pines. The reason? The number of speeding drivers who ride-on-your -bumper when you're doing the speed limit out-numbers safe drivers like me by a factor of 3:1. Some day, I know I'll see a cop on that stretch giving speeding tickets, but after all these years, still nothing as of yesterday! Some day though...)



Miami Herald
Why everyone — parent or not — should care about education coverage
By Aminda Marques Gonzalez
In Print September 9, 2012

Two weeks into the school year and The Miami Herald education team has as much on its to-do list as most children returning to school.

The Miami-Dade school system is putting a $1.2 billion bond referendum before voters, money that would be used to repair aging schools and upgrade technology. The Broward school district is struggling with a troubled transportation system that has left scores of children without rides. The embattled Florida education commissioner resigned weeks before the start of a new term.

Few topics we cover have as broad an impact as education.

“Anyone who has a child in school feels so close to the news,” said Charlene Pacenti, The Miami Herald’s education editor. “Does my school have a leaky roof? Does my child’s classroom have the technology it needs? Is my child’s bus going to come on time? — these are the issues they care about.”

Beyond the parents of school-age kids, what happens in the classroom and at the school district touches the entire community, from the homeowners whose property taxes support our educational system to the business community, which has made education a touchstone of economic growth.

No one is better poised to provide substantive, unbiased schools coverage than The Miami Herald education team. Our coverage is led by Pacenti, a 20-year news veteran with school-age daughters. She also oversees MomsMiami.com, which she helped launch.

Reporter Laura Isensee covers the Miami-Dade school district and Michael Vasquez covers Broward schools and higher education. Both bring years of experience in government reporting to the education beat, as well as an ability to explain how local, state and national policies affect children, parents and teachers. For live coverage, follow Isensee on Twitter at @LauraIsensee and Vasquez at @mrmikevasquez. Pacenti tweets using @MomsMiami.

Parental engagement in education issues has risen dramatically, Pacenti said, fueled by cuts to school budgets across the state.

“Parents are getting involved like I have never seen,” she said. “They have an appetite for this news. They are sharing it and they are acting on it.”

This year’s coverage will focus on three key issues: the Miami-Dade bond referendum and the state of schools in Broward; the introduction of new federal “common core” standards as the FCAT is phased out; and the role of technology in education.

“Education is fundamental,” Isensee said. “It’s so important how well we’re educating students and preparing the next generation. I care about those things. It’s why I wanted to be a journalist in the first place, to tell stories that shape people’s lives.”

-------
My response, such as it was on the spur-of-the-moment is here:
Ms. Marques, how many emails have I sent you and Rick Hirsch and other key Herald managers and editors over the past few years, and posted on my blog, asking a simple question of you all: WHY do you all persist in using the personnel and technology you have in the strange way you do that does NOT take full advantage of either the personnel or technology, which regularly cheats readers out of useful content? Here are some facts that you seem to want regular Herald readers to ignore:

In the year 2012, the Herald STILL has no Education blog. Is there a newspaper in this country with your circulation size that DOESN'T? I doubt it. Now, if something important happens involving Education, especially up in Tallahassee, it appears on the Naked Politics blog, which while slightly better than it had been for years, is NOT the place that anyone goes to read about Education policy news. But because you lack an Education blog, you stick it there. Bad idea.
You've STILL never replaced the former Public Ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, who left well over a year ago for D.C. and NPR, someone whom you NEVER gave a blog to so he could update columns and comment on breaking stories or controversies. Because he was NOT even a regular Sunday feature, often, entire MONTHS would go by in between columns, and at that point, the stories he wrote about were either forgotten -or hidden behind the Herald's archives pay-wall. How is that any way to engage the public???
While you DO run a Gay blog on the website, it seems more like a pep squad or bulletin board for Gay interests rather than an objective news outlet that shows Gays here are like everyone else in South Florida: some good, some bad, most apathetic like everyone else down here. Unfortunately, on that blog, Gays are either heroes or victims but they're never anything else. It's unrealistic.
For reasons that nobody can figure out, you persist in posting Spanish-language blogs on the Herald's website instead of having them at El Herald.
I could go on... and have gone on with lots of specificity in those emails I've sent you and others at One Herald Plaza. And yet you do nothing...and the unsatisfactory status quo persists. 
Honestly, it's time you folks making the final decisions look in the mirror and figure out a way to make the Herald's print and website content better and more useful to readers who want to be engaged before you become even more irrelevant to South Florida.
------

By the way, just for the record, on Sept. 24, 2010, I sent several members of the Herald's management team an email noting that the Herald had neglected to effectively report on the search for a replacement for then-Broward School Board General Counsel Ed Marko -in place since 1968!- and had yet to mention the candidates being considered as Marko's replacement for that important and high-paying job.
I noted in that Sept. 24th email that the last time the Herald even mentioned Marko leaving was Nov. 3, 2009.
Nearly 11 months!

Some of you newer readers to the blog might never have seen my past emails to Herald management -and my subsequent posting to my blog- taking them to task for the downward spiral that prevents real news from ever appearing in print like it used to, especially local government stories.
You might want to read the following to consider yourself brought up to speed.
May 21, 2012 - What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...
December 21, 2011 - For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1
December 21, 2011 -Part 2 of More lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza for another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

More proof of how far McClatchy's Miami Herald has fallen: Mia Love, New York-born Haitian-American, Republican mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, GOP candidate for Utah-4, gets ZERO coverage in Herald, in home of America's largest Haitian diaspora. Maybe if she owned a nightclub or retro dress shop in South Beach they'd notice her...




Fox news video: Rising GOP star Mia Love glides into the spotlight at Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL. Published August 28, 2012
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1810973848001/
Related article at: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/28/republican-convention-to-feature-rising-star-mia-love/

More proof of how far the Miami Herald has fallen: Mia Love, New York-born Haitian-American, Republican mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, GOP candidate for Utah-4, gets ZERO coverage in Herald, in home of America's largest Haitian diaspora. 
Hmm-m.. maybe if she owned a nightclub or retro dress shop in South Beach they'd notice her...


Mia Love To Obama: "We're Not Buying What You're Selling"
http://youtu.be/r2Cbvewaa7g

Not a single article even on the night she speaks in prime-time at the RNC:




See also: 
In Utah, GOP finds new Love
By Juan Williams
Published July 27, 2012
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/27/in-utah-gop-finds-new-love/

http://www.love4utah.com/

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

So when are the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel going to note the elephant in the room in Hallandale Beach? The ethics of and the complete lack of candor from Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & his wife Jessica; Mayor Cooper and Comm. Sanders screw with public's access to HB budget meetings; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenuewhich in Hallandale Beach polite society and public policy circles is considered THE most egregious example of dozens of exasperating and highly-questionable examples of dubious government spending and crony capitalism that've taken place on Mayor Joy Cooper's watch, and one of the most dubious of any in Broward County, which is REALLY saying something. It's the infamous former property owned by HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. For what, THISphoto by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The following email was just sent to the Miami Herald's Publisher and Editorial Board member David Landsberg, Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch, and Douglas Lyons, columnist and Editorial Board member of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, along with over 250 bcc recipients, including people throughout Hallandale Beach, South Florida and parent companies McClatchy Company and The Tribune Company.

-----
August 14, 2012
11:15 p.m.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

There's only 84 days left before Election Day, so when are you going to note the elephant
in the room in Hallandale Beach? The ethics of and the complete lack of candor from
Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & his wife Jessica.

I'd originally thought about writing this and then not sending it, just so I could get some of the growing frustration out of my system.

But over the past week or so, as I spoke to more and more concerned and very frustrated residents of Hallandale Beach who are equally dismayed and shocked -if not more so
than me- at your collective incurious reporting, a nice way of saying the all-too-obvious
lack of curiosity by you, your editors and reporters about what is and has been going on here going for years, they convinced me I should send it.
Send it right where you live and go right at your claims to being journalism professionals,
because that's sure NOT how it appears to most of us.

And so I'm sending this to you -plus about 250-275 other interested parties across 
Hallandale Beach and South Florida who wonder what in the world is going on at the Herald and Sun-Sentinel where it's necessary to have to ask you to actually report on something that everyone is talking about but which you both are IGNORING.

There's now only 83 days left for Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders to FINALLY
level with Hallandale Beach voters, after well over three-years of adamantly refusing to saying
anything publicly in front of actual HB residents and taxpayers about his and his wife's land
sale to the city for more than it was worth, and actually tell the truth about it.

Thru his own words and behavior, Comm. Sanders gives every impression of firmly believing
that he can actually get away without ever confronting this issue publicly before Election Day. 
In essence, of running out the clock.

You are perfectly free to speculate on why someone with such an undistinguished a record
in office like Sanders believes that he can get away with such a contemptible strategy.

My questions to you all today about this matter are very simple.

Is it is the intent of the Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel's management and editorial staff
to appease Comm. Sanders in this effort of his, and to let another 83 days go by without
ever mentioning it in print?

Not mention that refusing to tell the truth publicly is strange and counter-intuitive behavior
coming from a man who said once upon a time that his being a Pastor not only qualified
him to be a City Commissioner, but actually prepared him for a job making -supposedly-
hard decisions.

Not mention that someone who claimed before the November 2008 election that having 
grown-up in this city when most Blacks felt ostracized and economically and politically
excluded, he'd represent the entire community, and received the endorsement of both
of your newspapers, would actually turn out to be be someone who, since his election in 2008, has, in fact, been everything but inclusive in his approach.

It's so very much more than common knowledge that prior to every development vote in this city, Sanders has adamantly refused to respond to resident email or return phone calls from residents who don't live in NW Hallandale Beach.
Furthermore, he's refused to even visit with them in their neighborhoods to hear what the neighborhood thought, which is actually part of his job as most people see it.
But that's NOT how Sanders sees his job.

No, Sanders is NOT very big on communications of any sort with most residents of this city, esp. those living east of Dixie Highway, but then he has voted YES on every single development proposal that has come before the City Commission, so perhaps he doesn't see why he should go thru the motions of caring what constituents think, since, a.) he really doesn't care, and B.) in every case, he has already made his mind up before the developer's attorney ever says word one, though legally, of course, he isn't supposed to.

But we all know.

Not because we're all so suspicious, though we are, but rather because Comm. Sanders
has been so clumsy in performing his official tasks that when it comes time for the hearings,
he is so obvious and ham-handed about showing that his only interest in any development
project is, specifically, "job training" and who will provide that, since -wait for itthat's the
ONLY thing he asks about.
Really.

Seriously, it can hardly be called just our imagination when time-after-time it's the only thing Sanders publicly talks about.
All you have to do is look at the tape of the meetings, since even Mayor Cooper has not
voted for every development project the way Sanders has, though that is very faint praise.

But your two newspapers have completely ignored this self-evident fact and trend for years,
for reasons that are frankly hard to figure, even though developers like The Related Group
have waited no time at all to show their appreciation to Sanders via campaign contributions.

Sanders plain doesn't care about the neighborhoods, he just wants to make sure that those
who are close to him get their share of the money on the table.

As far as the Herald goes, not having had any of its own reporters or columnists EVER write
about any of the ethical problems Comm. Sanders has been involved in for over three years,
it's very hard to shake the feeling that if all of this with him, as well as Lewy's attempt to reward
his soul-mate with CRA funds had happened in Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Hialeah or Pinecrest,
it might have actually made it into print, but instead, showing the geographical insularity we've
come to expect in Broward County from the Herald, you've completely kept your own people
off the story.
Yes, we noticed.

So, let me follow-up my last question with one that's just as important.

Is it your intention that another 83 days will go by without your two newspapers publicly asking in-print why and how Comm. Alexander Lewy made a motion last September -after Midnight at a City Commission meeting with less than a handful of citizens present- to give a group completely controlled by Comm. Sanders and his wife, over $200,00O in CRA funds?

And typically for someone who imagines that he's a political comer, do so in such an obvious and over-the-top fashion by intentionally refusing to say their names aloud, but instead, referring to them obliquely via a laughable and inaccurate description of Sanders' group's performance, even though no such objective third-party analysis has ever been done?
But that's what he did and there's video of it.
Video that you can watch for yourself.

But your two newspapers act like it never happened.

If the answers to my are YES, you DO plan on continuing this charade for another 83 days until Election Day, of pretending that you know nothing and have heard nothing about any of this, perhaps with the hope that Sanders somehow gets re-elected anyway, please let me know this week so that I can make arrangements to share the news with interested parties I know throughout South Florida.

That serves a two-fold purpose.
First, when citizens of this community see reporters of yours around South Florida, we can
dispense both with any notions of pleasantries as well as the fiction that your reporters or
columnists might/maybe/ possibly/actually write the truth about what's been going on here
FOR YEARS with some specificity, instead of the usual, well, meandering 'He said, she said"
that leaves those of us who know what's going on, rather incredulous, given that there is so much proof right in front of you, if you only bothered to open your eyes.
Why so much reluctance to do this?

Second, if you confirm that you both have no intention of honestly reporting on any of this, we all can end the pretense that local news in South Florida somehow develops organically,and gets into print or on TV based on its own significance and weight, and that there really are not gatekeepers who keep news out of the public's view because it clashes with their Editorial Board's notions of who should really be running things in this area.

There are plenty of people I know who would be interested in knowing this at Medill, Ernie Pyle,
Poynter and other places where they haven't completely caved-in to the notion of local news
being the low man on the totem pole, or, in protecting newspaper Editorial Boards from the
sudden realization that they sometimes not only make terrible choices, but those choices
actually DO have the power to actually hurt a community, as has happened here, when you
both endorsed Sanders largely out of guilt, and now, Sanders is practically daring you to say
something negative about him, and you won't.

Yes, pure and simple, Anthony A. Sanders sized-up your Editorial Board and played them
for suckers, and they bought his fallacious act -the pastor who brings a community together.

Ha! 
Now, thanks in large part to you, he is laughing all the way to the bank with our
tax dollars!

I'm here today to tell you that if you're NOT trying to appease or protect Comm. Sanders
from himself, you're doing a hell of a good job of faking it, because that's exactly how it looks
to others, especially others who know the facts.

Especially to the besieged residents, taxpayers and business owners here who are the
most-concerned, are the most active and are the most interested in finally having genuine
transparency and honesty in government in this city.

Something that you both like to give lip service to in self-congratulatory editorials once a year,
but when you consciously ignore what we all know and see everyday in this community, yes, it makes us wonder what your true motives are for consistently ignoring the elephant in the room.
The elephant that makes no effort to hide what it is doing.

As you can see from the information below, which arrived a few minutes ago while I was finishing this up, Mayor Joy Cooper and Comm. Anthony A. Sanders are clearly NOT interested in this city becoming normal and its finances becoming transparent, they're interested in maintaining control.

In the year 2012, who else in South Florida is actually affirmatively voting to make it difficult for
their own citizens to attend a budget meeting when there's a perfectly good taxpayer-owned
City Commission Chambers on the ground floor that doesn't require a police escort?
Nobody but Hallandale Beach.

Don't you get that, yet?

If your present reporters don't have the time or inclination to publish the true facts and the news,
maybe you need to get new and better reporters!
People who actually go around town and publicly question why things are the way they are.

And while you're at it, don't forget to look in the mirror and take a hard, serious look at your own
role in perpetuating this mess at HB City Hall by your adamant refusal to actually report ALL
the news to the public, instead of, essentially, doing the bidding of and running interference for
Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew

Trust me, as one of her biggest critics, Joy Cooper couldn't possibly be any happier with your
abysmal coverage of this city and what's been going on, though I don't think that's the sort of
recommendation you'll be sending to the Pulitzer Committee.
For obvious reasons.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Commissioner Keith S. London <newsletter@
keithlondonformayor.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 10:32 AM
Subject: Your Tax Dollars at Work “our” 100 Million Dollar Budget!
To: hallandalebeachblog@gmail.com



Keith S. London - City Commissioner Hallandale Beach
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Hallandale's $100 Million Budget Discussion Held Upstairs in Room 257 instead of Commission Chambers
Weeks after posting the agenda that Budget Workshops will be held in Commission Chambers, staff moved the meeting to room 257, upstairs and difficult for the public to access.
City Hall closes its doors at 5:00 PM.
In order to attend the meeting, if you arrive after 5pm, you must go through the Police Department and be escorted upstairs.
To make access to the public easier:
  • Commissioner London motioned to hold the second budget meeting in Commission Chambers, on Tuesday August 14, 2012
  • These meetings are two of the most important meetings of the year. They should be in Commission Chambers
  • Commissioner London was not informed prior to the meeting
  • Commissioner Lewy seconded the motion for discussion
  • Commissioner Lewy stated "comfort of staff is not his priority"
  • Mayor Cooper stated "this is ridiculous and political and total BS" but also "the budget meeting worked fine last year in city commission chambers"
  • So which one is it Mayor Cooper? "BS" or "access and ease for the public"

The final vote was 3:2 London and Lewy for the public ease of access.
Cooper, Sanders, and Ross to hide upstairs away from those pesky members of the public.

Regards,
Keith
Commissioner Keith S. London
Phone: 954-494-3182
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613 Oleander Drive
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
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