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Remember Sylvia Poitier? She's the one who was voted off the Broward County Commission after creating an untoward relationship (financially) with reviled mega-developer Michael Swerdlow.

You might remember that she had her political Lazarus moment by getting elected to the Deerfield Beach city commission.

Well, she's running into trouble again in Deerfield, this time for her loyalty to the terrible twosome in that little piece of heaven, namely suspended City Manager Larry Deetjen and Mayor Al Capellini.

When Deetjen was suspended by the commission on June 6 for making racist remarks to a Palm Beach International Airport parking employee, Poitier was the only commissioner (other than Capellini) to support the manager. And she happened to be the only black commissioner on the dais.

Now this might have come from some deep principle. Perhaps she knew something the rest of us didn't know or she had a high-minded reason for not voting against Deetjen.

Nah.

It was just another blatant example of political cowardice. Poitier cut and ran from the debate. Here's what she said during the meeting, directly from the official tape from the city clerk:

As long as my name is not called, I'm going to be very quiet and crazy. ... I don't get in all fights, but if you all want to fight about it then I can fight about it. Because I said, don't call my name. I am not going to get involved in this. I am black. And I am black as the night's that are black. There is nothing oreo about me nor white about me. ... Don't use me to suspend or fire the city manager. Just leave me out of it. Whatever you all do is fine, but don't call my name. Don't call my name because I don't want it to be attached to this alleged or proven statement. However you have it is fine. Just do what you have to do ... but don't put me in this one.

So why was she so "quiet and crazy"? Well Sun-Sentinel reporter Susannah Bryan gave us an idea in a story last week. Basically, Bryan reports how Poitier used her position as commissioner to help steer $100,000 to a firm run by her daughter and another relative. Read the story, which was buried in the newspaper and disguised under a misleadingly dull headline. Kenneth Nairn of the Broward Times followed with his own version.

The theory: Poitier forged an unholy deal with Deetjen and now is bound to him as he and Capellini make their final descent through the nine rings of hell. Should make for an interesting ride.

Mike Berardino has an interesting column in the Sun-Sentinel today about the newfound appreciation of long-time Marlins shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Gonzalez is playing this year in a big baseball town, Boston, and is finding out what it's like to be a real major leaguer.

That kind of comparison extends beyond baseball. South Floridians, isolated by sprawl and increasingly bad traffic, don't have much in the way of community, whether it be centered on the baseball team, City Hall, or anything else. Reporters who kick ass on a regular basis know all about the general apathy (though it's not that bad in some cities, like H-Wood, Pompano, Deerfield ... but do you want to hear a giant sucking sound? Try covering Plantation, Coconut Creek, or the greatest beneficiary of sprawl of all, the incredibly unwatched Broward County Commission).

It's a double-edged sword, this flourishing lack of community. In one regard it's frustrating and damaging and, in another, it's liberating. You can be whatever the hell you want to be in South Florida and guess what? Nobody cares.

---AND, for those of you on the Pulp right now, 10 a.m., I'm about to go on Barry Epstein's radio show on WWNN 1470 AM. We're probably gonna talk about Murtha and the Sun-Sentinel.

Well, since I've come out in favor of shooting cats, I might as well defend Jay Mariotti. Picked this up off of Romenesko about the Chicago Sun-Times sports writer, whom White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen (who was with the Marlins second World Series champion) recently referred to (tenderly, I'm told) as a "fag." I don't really read Chicago sports, so I don't know much about Mariotti, and the bit about other reporters being jealous of him is just stupid. And I'm not sure who he's trying to fool with the Brando look. But I don't agree with his critics who say he should make rounds in the Sox clubhouse after he writes about the team. Rick Telander needs to shut the fuck up. If Guillen or any other Sock wants to talk to Mariotti, they can call him on the phone, meet him for lunch, whatever, but he doesn't have to go out there to get hazed by a bunch of jocks everytime he busts a story. It's a power trip and it's designed to intimidate.

The same principle applies to Washington and most every reporting job, where the powerful try to wrap reporters in their clutches with their charm and perks. Access can be good or bad, people, depending on who is controlling the game. If you're a reporter, you better make sure it's you, or you'll write crap your entire life and then die.

Countdown For O'Reilly
Keith Olbermann is at war with Bill O'Reilly and, for the sake of the two Big D's -- Decency and Democracy -- you better hope he wins. Last night he went off on the Factor Man about the ratings. Here's a piece of what he said:

Listen Slappy, FOX's ratings are lower than they were five years ago. Bill-O, 267,000 of your viewers have vanished since last June. Call FOX security, they're missing! All 11 of FOX's regular shows ratings are down, four of them are down by 15 percent or more. If John Gibson loses any more audience, he won't even need a microphone. And your boss, Jabba the Hut, he's taking out ads threatening to fire his own employees. Your ratings whoppin' stick is now smaller than your -- falafel.

Bill, seriously, it's slipping away from you. You don't know what to do. You can't even lie well anymore. Seriously, it's called panic. Like what happened to you in Scranton and Hartford and Boston with that thing with the egg on Zippy the sportscaster's face. And at ABC, when Rick Kaplan got you fired. It's terrifying. You begin to see the audience dying off and the creases deepening in your forehead and the loofas drying up. You make mistakes, you trust the wrong people, you blame Al Franken, you yell at somebody, you yell at everybody. It feels like the ladder is teetering, you're tired, you're depressed, you're anxious, you're balding. Let me give you three words of advice, Bill-O: Keep it up!

And Another Thing ...
There is one thing that has gone unspoken in the whole Sun-Sentinel/Murtha affair: The United States is, clearly, the greatest threat to peace in the world. Yeah, that would be us. We invaded Iraq. Started a war. Are at fucking war. Right fucking now. I'm not seeing North Korea or Iran destroying any other nations at the present moment. What am I missing?

You think about it, the mistake might have led to the best expose in the Sentinel's history -- of the Rabid Right. It definitely revealed them to be dirty, mongrel dogs. Seriously, go back and look at what some of those blognuts had to say about Murtha, a war veteran who is following his conscience.

At least the Sentinel ran a correction.

-- As the Miami Herald tells us in its web tease, a fellow shot his own cat's "head off" and had to go court. Then reporter Amy Sherman tells us all about the case of the murdered cat. First thought: anybody who has [lived with] a cat that is drifting into insanity and disease can relate with what this guy did. Hell, Mama Kitty was at least 13-years-old. It was time to go. An idiotic case from the get-go, another colossal waste of time delivered to us from our Broward State Attorney, Michael Satz, who should have stopped his assistant, Yasser Kader, from dragging this thing into court. I'm glad common sense prevailed and the jury acquitted Michael Stueve of animal cruelty charges. Now go free, you crazy bastard, go free.

-- My how the mighty have fallen. I remember Nathan Avrunin from the Georgia Roberts/Kristi Krueger case and he's mentioned in my book. After reading Tonya Alanez's story in the Sun-Sentinel, I wonder what's worse -- getting arrested for domestic violence or getting whipped in court by a kooky soccer mom.

-- Just more reason to legalize marijuna. It's ridiculous that our government allows criminal syndicates to be built around weed.

By all appearances, it was just another random Saturday afternoon story assignment. A 3B job on U.S. Rep. John Murtha's remarks at a town hall meeting at Florida International University. Get out there, capture the gist of the speech, talk to a few people, get back and file eight inches of copy.

And Sun-Sentinel writer Elizabeth Baier did just that. Here's her lede on Murtha's June 24 speech:

"American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to a crowd of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon."

Those first 18 words were all it took. The story spread through the right-wing blogosphere like wildfire: "Mad Jack Murtha" was at it again, they wrote, hating on America. The well-read Babalu Blog in Miami posted the story and called the war veteran a "traitor" and "scumbag." The Drudge Report highlighted it and Brit Hume wrote a column disparaging Murtha on Foxnews.com. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund pounced on it. On television, Bill O'Reilly brought it up on Monday's show and said Murtha's "extreme thinking" was "putting all Americans in danger." Tucker Carlson chimed in, as did Newt Gingrich. The GOP's official website posted the story under the header: "The Real Dem Agenda: Blame America."

Only it wasn't real. Baier had misinterpreted Murtha's remarks. The first clue was the Miami Herald article on the same event. Written by Melissa Sanchez, it had no mention of the incendiary statement. Murtha's office publicly refuted the story , and even obtained a statement from Sanchez.

"That was in reference to international polls. It was not so much his own conjecture, but a conclusion drawn from polls in various countries," the congressman's office quoted Sanchez as saying.

This morning the Sentinel finally admitted its mistake. The correction, which ran in the regular spot on page A3, is as follows:

An article on Page 3B of Sunday's Local section misinterpreted a comment from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., at a town hall meeting in North Miami. In his speech, Murtha said U.S. credibility was suffering because of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and the perception that the United States is an occupying force. Murtha was citing a recent poll, by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, that indicates a greater percentage of people in 10 of 14 foreign countries consider the U.S. presence in Iraq a greater danger to world peace than any threats posed by Iran or North Korea.

Okay, so they admitted it. The burning question: How did it happen? And the first place to look is Baier, a young reporter who began her career in journalism back in 2000, when the Miami Herald hired her as an intern while she was still a college student. The University of Miami journalism and international studies major, who speaks fluent Spanish and is of Colombian descent, worked on an off for the Herald until last year. In between, Baier did internships and fellowships, one of them with the Inter-American Press Association that took her to Santiago, Chile, where she gained some international reporting experience.

In April 2005, the Sentinel scooped her up from the Herald. Her body of work through the past six years reveals a steady, no-frills, professional reporter without any discernible political bent. For the past year, she's covered general assignment and Wilton Manors, one of the few cities in the country run by a gay-majority city commission. She's worked a lot of Saturdays. She seems to be the prototypical chameleon-like reporter, writing from the point of view of her subjects, whomever they might be. This March, for instance, Baier wrote about a gay pride event in Fort Lauderdale. Here's the top of the story:

They came decked out in rainbow-colored beads, butterfly wings and cowboy hats.

From square-dancing groups and political advocacy organizations, to local vendors and drag queens with fabulousness sprinkled all over, hundreds of revelers filled Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday to celebrate the 29th annual Pridefest.

The event celebrates the diversity of South Florida's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Partiers mingled and laughed their way around three large tents, which featured dozens of informational booths by groups like American Veterans for Equal Rights, Equality Florida and the Dolphin Democrats.

"I think it's awesome," said Plantation resident Alex Seligsohn, 17, who celebrated Pridefest for the first time with four friends. "It's great to feel as part of a community."

In December, she covered an anti-abortion event in Deerfield Beach attended by ultra-conservative maven Phyllis Schlafly this way:

Leslie Parker says she would never do it again. In 1987, when she found out she and her husband Bryan Parker were expecting a baby, she went to a clinic in Montgomery, Ala. and had an abortion. What followed were seven years of nightmares and guilt. Then she embraced Christianity, forgave herself for what she calls a horrendous act of selfishness, and became active in the anti-abortion movement. On Saturday, Parker was among nearly 240 abortion opponents attending the 32nd annual Broward County Right to Life Benefit Breakfast at the Deerfield Beach Hilton Hotel. "That was a mini version of me that I got rid of," said Parker, 39, a Pompano Beach stay-at home mother of a five and one-year-old.

And so it goes. Baier's stories are generally snapshots that capture the surface of times and events, unburdened by much depth. And that's obviously what she tried to do this past Saturday with the Murtha speech.

In other words, it has all the markings of an honest -- if horrific -- mistake on her part.

But, as many commentators have said on many blogs (these left-wing), the damage has already been done. And it's not just about the perception, either. The Sentinel is going through a crisis, whether it cares to acknowledge it or not.

Remember, this is the second major story this month that has been proven dead wrong, the other being a front-page report (not by Baier) accusing Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne of cheating on his taxes. Turns out he didn't.

Both cases share a couple of problems, the reporting snafus notwithstanding. For one, the editors were slow to correct the mistakes. As soon as the newspaper heard from readers that the Murtha story was wrong, it should have investigated thoroughly and gotten a correction up much more quickly. Had it even made it into Tuesday's newspaper, that would have helped incalculably to slow the avalanche of misinformation the Sentinel produced.

And there's been a lack of accountability by management. Let's not mince words: These were colossal errors. And they deserved major mea culpas. Yet, in both cases, the newspaper wrote brief, rather incomprehensible corrections that left the casual readers scratching their heads. Both deserved -- no, demanded -- more prominent play in the newspaper, a thorough explanation, and an apology.

In short, it's time that the Sentinel comes clean with its everyday readers and comes clean quickly. Or it can start kissing its credibility goodbye.

John DeGroot was taking a cigarette break at the North Broward Medical Center this morning and he was mad as hell.

"The fucking Sun-Sentinel is so asleep at the switch, it's just fucking embarrassing," he told me on a cell phone call.

You should know DeGroot. He's a 21-year veteran of the Sun-Sentinel, where he was a reporter, editor, and writing coach. He was also a key assistant to former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth. And he was a top aide to Ken Jenne until he realized that the Broward sheriff should probably be incarcerated in the jail rather than run it. (He also uncovered the sheriff's dirty tricks campaign against Miami Herald crime reporter Wanda DeMarzo).

And in between all that, the man managed to write a play about Hemingway called Papa, which is now playing in San Francisco.

Another hobby of DeGroot's is the North Broward Hospital District, which happens to be the fifth-largest public health system in the United States. That's why he was at the medical center, to watch the monthly District public meeting. DeGroot has been investigating NBHD for years, a pursuit that began during his stint at the AG's office. What he didn't know until he got there -- and what the tax-subsidized district apparently neglected to tell the press -- was that after the regular meeting, the Jeb Bush-appointed district board was going to interview candidates for the district's CEO position, the post vacated by ousted Wil Trower, whose tenure was marked by rampant corruption in the ranks.

There were four candidates to be interviewed, including Alan Levine, the head of the state's Agency For Health Care Administration. In other words this was important. This was newsworthy. And nobody seemed to know anything about it outside the district but John DeGroot.

DeGroot called the Sentinel. Couldn't get through. And the Miami Herald -- well, that newspaper has pretty much given up on covering anything north of Sunrise Boulevard.

"What makes this so egregious are the billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives that are directly affected by the North Broward Hospital District," DeGroot told me. "And the Sun-Sentinel does not care at all. They pay more attention to Cuba or Haiti in their coverage.

"They should be fucking embarrassed and the worst thing about this is probably they aren't even embarrassed."

The message DeGroot left with Editor Earl Maucker's secretary seemed to have an impact. After the interviews began, Sentinel reporter Jamie Malernee arrived to cover it. Malernee is a good reporter -- but she doesn't cover the health care beat. That would be Bob LaMendola, but they probably had him too busy with the important work done by the Sentinel's (How Can We) Help (You) Team.

"It reminds of Bill Moyers' old bromide: 'Reporters are paid to explain things they don't understand,'" DeGroot said during a break in the action. "[Malernee] seems perfectly bright. But she has no fucking idea what's going on."

DeGroot did. He called at precisely 2:02 p.m. and told me what the headline would be in tomorrow's newspaper: Levine chosen to lead hospital district. They hadn't made any decision yet and the interviews are continuing as a I post this, but DeGroot guaranteed it.

"There are four horses in the race and only one of them has four legs," he said, laughing. "Levine is a master of the sound byte. He's very good on his feet, very articulate. He's going to be the guy. And the rationale is that the governor has gambled on his Medicaid reform and a big part of that is in Broward. Levine is going to come down here and help make it work."

My gratitude goes out to John, the newest official honorary Pulp correspondent.

Off To A Good Start: Trevor Aaronson debuts in Miami New Times today with a behind-the-scenes look at the media circus surrounding the "Liberty City 7." Trevor, who did some great journalism in Hollywood and elsewhere for New Times Broward*Palm Beach, was recruited to help shore up the Miami newspaper by Chuck Strouse, his former editor at the Broward paper.

Be Like Wade (Jones): This is just hilarious. (Thanks to Stuck on the Palmetto for the heads-up).

The Miami Herald website lets us know: "Israelis Keep Pressure on Palestinians."
The Palm Beach Post's front page informs us: "Bridges Bombed to Cut Off Militants' Routes."
The Sun-Sentinel: "Israeli Troops Move into Gaza."
NY Times: "Israeli Forces Appear to Increase Pressure in Gaza."
Washington Post: "Israeli Launches Gaza Operation."
LA Times: "Israelis Turning Up Heat in Gaza."

Okay, how about "Israel destroys bond with civilized world, shows itself to be out-of-control monster."

Look, a militant Palestinian group apparently is holding one injured Israeli soldier prisoner. In reaction, the the Israel Defense Forces blew up three major bridges and the only power plant on the Gaza Strip, knocking out power for a majority of the 1.3 million residents there for God knows how long. The Israelis have also cut off the water suppply. And they've conducted an airstrike on a Hamas camp and are flooding the place with soldiers and tanks. Now, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is threatening "extreme action" if the soldier isn't freed.

Can anybody say disproportionate? Can anybody say barbaric? Can anybody say terroristic?

Not the American mainstream media, apparently. It calls it "pressure."

Below is an e-mail from Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulanti responding to her many critics. The mayor was adding her voice to a series of e-mails that began about the Mach eminent domain victory over the city. She was responding, as best as I could tell, to an e-mail from Howard Sher, a long-time critic of the city's payment of millions of dollars in incentives to lobbyist Alan Koslow-backed developers to build in Hollywood. He had written that the city, in all, had already spent or was planning to spend a total of $130 million in incentives to developers. I haven't reported out that number, but here's what Giulanti had to say about it:

From: mgiulianti@hollywoodfl.org
To: Bottjohnjack@aol.com; Dogbrown6123@aol.com; HLSCA@aol.com; sherteebal@aol.com; aboynton@bellsouth.net; astieb@bellsouth.net; eloewe@bellsouth.net; pcbrew@bellsouth.net; auclaira@comcast.net; namllov@comcast.net; lb_wilson@earthlink.net; sarnan2@earthlink.net; marialyj@gmail.com; stevwel@gmail.com; twright@herald.com; wdemarzo@herald.com; bob.norman@newtimesbpb.com; lschecter@pobox.com; ijrodriguez@sun-sentinel.com; jholland@sun-sentinel.com; mmayo@sun-sentinel.com; cyn1greene@yahoo.com; ruby38us2470@yahoo.com; trevoraaronson@yahoo.com
Cc: annmhollywood@aol.com; civicred28@aol.com; drossi3024@aol.com; imskincaid@aol.com; lemkallop@aol.com; Lenorach@aol.com; LESincorp@aol.com; Marilynvh@aol.com; sshagoury@aol.com; unoshken@aol.com; apessola@bellsouth.net; bunnym8504@bellsouth.net; KGS5413@bellsouth.net; satorisurge@bellsouth.net; shiranie@bellsouth.net; suscelfo@bellsouth.net; peter@boberlaw.com; jlebovich@herald.com; Beam Furr ; cpep54@juno.com; cdeminico@msn.com; dianapitt@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 10:05:43 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: Hollywood loses eminent domain fight]]]

Your figures are absurd, obviously made-up. I really do feel sorry for so many of you who have so little to offer but anger and slander. I honestly hope some day you will achieve the happiness and peace that most of our 147,000 other wonderful, hard-working residents have. They wouldn't waste their time poisoning the atmosphere; they are too busy leading productive, loving, caring lives.

Mara Giulianti, Mayor
CITY OF HOLLYWOOD
954.921.3321
mgiulianti@hollywoodfl.org

Yes, yes. So listen to the mayor and keep your uncomfortable views to yourself. Don't "poison the atmosphere" with civic action and political discourse. Be a happy, peaceful, loving, wonderful, productive, hard-working, caring drone, er, I mean, resident like everyone else. The good people of Hollywood work so hard they don't have time to pay attention to anything at all. And then, at night, they sleep well in their pods, er, I mean, beds. So please, stop thinking altogether, er, I mean go achieve peace and happiness. Mara and the leaders of the evil alien army -- er, I mean lobbyists and developers -- will handle the city.

Okay, it looks like that Sacramento Bee story I mentioned in the post below has (or had) been shitcanned. I got an e-mail from Bee managing editor Joyce Terhaar saying the newspaper never had a story about the downfall of Miami Herald in the works. I knew differently, since I'd been interviewed for it by reporter Dale Kasler and he told me he was working on a story about the decline of the Herald as it mirrored the downfall of Knight Ridder. The entire interview was on that theme -- and I even wrote him an e-mail after the interview offering more on the "decline of the Miami Herald." (It was a quickee about the 1998 closing of Tropic Magazine, which I think was a big step toward quotidian mediocrity for the newspaper). I'm sure Kasler must have interviewed others on the topic, too.

So I told Terhaar about that. She wrote back:

"I talked to the reporter and he said your blog completely mischaracterized the interview. Dale was exploring a way to do the final sale of Knight Ridder through a different angle, the perspective of one of the KR papers. He looked at Miami and Kansas and ultimately decided on a completely different angle for the story. Your characterization of the story simply is wrong. While it might make for a snarky take for the alternative newspaper, it's factually incorrect."

Okay, first of all, my blog doesn't mischaracterize anything -- I do. But in this case, as snarky as I may want to be for my weird and subversive alternative newspaper, I didn't mischaracterize a thing. The Bee was doing precisely the kind of story I described. What is obviously true from Terhaar is that, at some point, the newspaper "decided on a completely different angle for the story."

The story idea was killed, possibly by the reporter himself (who did have this article on the subject today). There you go.

And since I've been forced to concern myself with that darn newspaper again, I thought I'd steer you to the Bee's website. Anybody who complains about the Herald site should spend a few minutes there. Then, if they're still awake, they'll have an idea how dull and mind-numbing a newspaper's electronic home can really be.

When you have a gang of disconnected, apparently inept stragglers who make international news because of a federal War on Terror bust, it's the duty of the press to look upon it with a critical and discerning eye. To investigate it to its core and reveal all of its intricacies and, should they exist, its follies as well.

The Miami Herald has led the coverage of Narseal Batiste and his band of brothers and some of it has been stellar, like this story by-lined by Larry Lebowitz, Leslie Clark, and Martin Merzer. At the same time, they've questioned whether it's a bona fide case with this story by Scott Hiaasen and Fred Grimm's column today. If you want to see the case laughed out of existence, figuratively speaking, watch a rerun of The Daily Show.

But, for the first time in my life perhaps, I'm going to agree with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. If you have a group of people, no matter what their abilities and means, who are talking about joining al Qaeda and killing people by blowing things up, you nab them. It's that simple. Think about it. Timothy McVeigh was another seeming bum who blew up a federal building and murdered 168 people with a truckload of damn fertilizer. Hell, this country's history is littered with losers who have done incredible damage with little more than a dream of destruction (Sirhan Sirhan, Eric Robert Rudolph, Charles Whitman, etc etc etc).

The real problem with the arrest was that it was overhyped. And that was done by the media, namely the cable news broadcasts. The Bush Administration is also to blame since they obviously planned to make a major splash with this minor league bust.

But even if it wasn't a primetime operation, it's hard to argue that these guys shouldn't have been investigated and ultimately put on trial.

Okay, I'm backwards today. I should have filed this post this morning and this morning's post now. But if I'm going to be backwards, well, I'm going to be fucking backwards.

Fred Tasker's story about Knight Ridder this weekend was ... God, I still don't know how to charactarize it. It was interesting, revealing, unquestioning, broadly insightful and yet still full of holes and question marks. It starts with a broad meaningless thesis -- that KR had a big impact on the community -- and the lede quote in the thing was from a dubious developer/Jeb Bush crony:

''Knight Ridder has had a very powerful, very positive impact in the community,'' says Armando Codina, chairman and chief executive officer of Codina Group, a large Miami real estate concern.

Yuck. But the stuff about Alvah Chapman's "Non-Group" -- a shadowy club of CEO's that wielded all kinds of power in secrecy -- is unbelievably fascinating. It's been written about before, but you sense that if you knew one-tenth of what really happened, you'd toss your lunch. It's antithetical to what journalists are supposed to do, but Chapman helped build a hell of a newspaper at the same time. In fact, if the Herald hadn't become so good, the existence of the Non-Group probably never would have come to light. Somebody needs to write a book.

Then Tasker quotes Tony Ridder:

"After I became CEO, I read in the newspaper that the Heat's effort to build a new arena in Miami was dead, and that the team was resigned to moving to Broward. I felt that would be a terrible thing for Miami-Dade. I called [Heat owner] Micky Arison and asked him if he would give me 30 to 45 days to put together a coalition to keep the arena in Miami-Dade. He agreed. I pulled together some people and, importantly, we came up with a financing plan to keep the arena in Miami. I don't think that was insignificant for the community.''

You'd think Tasker would have at least brought up the fact that Ridder's actions regarding the Heat brought up serious conflict-of-interest issues and that he did in secret. So secret, in fact, that he hid public records. Miami New Times sued the newspaper -- and won the release of those records. And it was all covered in the Herald. The impetus behind that was Jim DeFede, who called Ridder a "secret agent man."

I'm just saying it deserved a mention in the context of the story.

The story is timed to the closing of the McClatchy deal to take over the newspaper. Christina Hoag weighed in with a long and mostly favorable article on the McClatchy Co., which should be the newspaper's offical owner by tomorrow afternoon. I'd say she struck the right tone. Relative to other newspaper companies, McClatchy is solid, decent, steady, and a little dull. Sure the part about CEO Gary Pruitt could have been written by a clever P.R. person (he's "down to earth," jams to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues in the car, and knows how to "let his hair down") but Hoag balances the story with some of McClatchy's dark side, including its storied frugality (what some call cheapness) and a bitter 1980s labor dispute at the Sacramento Bee.

Speaking of that newspaper, I've learned that it's doing an extensive story on the Miami Herald, only it's not expected to be so favorable. Instead it will detail how the newspaper is the epitome of "everything that went wrong with Knight Ridder" during the past 15 years. And KR won't have anything to say about it -- at least not that will count much. That's what happens when you get vanquished to the the scrap heap of history.

p>I wasn't going to post (about Knight Ridder and McClatchy and other fun things, like the 10-year erection), but I had to point to the St. Pete Times goof-up in running a satiric story on its website as if it were real news. The Times put up a story from Andy Borowitz about the collaboration between Karl Rove and "his long-time comrade in arms, Satan." The mistake is detailed on Wonkette (thanks to Flablog).

Our esteemed state attorney, Michael Satz, is on the cover of the Sun-Sentinel's Society section today. Apparently he's a honcho in the American Cancer Society, an indication that he might actually do something in this world other than sit on public corruption cases until the accused official is dead, out of office, or nobody remembers what the complaint was about in the first place.

He's in proper company. Next to Satz is personal-injury attorney David W. Singer (unfortunately I couldn't access Society on the Sentinel's website -- and really, you can't blame the paper for not keeping an electronic record of it). The pair are long-time partners in organizing the cancer society's "Up the River Cruise" fundraiser, which involves a "fun jail." Y0u might know Singer from those unbelievably awful "Aunt Betty" commercials that air during the Marlins games. You know, the ones where he seems like such a dolt and is so obviously reading from cards that you wonder if it's a put-on. But he does it out of love. According to his website: "A life-long concern, for people in need of help, has kept David in a legal career dedicated to representing victims of accidents." What a guy.

For a kick, you need to check out Singer's MySpace page, which he writes that he opened for "friends." And he has 56 of them. Unfortunately they only get on there to abuse him. Here's a selection:

"Stop cutting into my marlins games. Second, your commercials are the most annoying pieces of trash in the world. Screw your Aunt Betty."

"stop clogging up the television with that filth.......stupid ambulance chaser"

"i grew up with your damn comercials ... fuck the marlins games!!"

"I am so quitting law school after seeing this schmuck advertising on myspace....is this the life I have to look foward to?"

"Singer, I just felt like saying you suck again. You suck."

Satz and Singer. What a team.

You might have read Dave Barry's letter to S.Fla. fans today. It's the first new piece the world's favorite humorist has had in the Miami Herald in a long while.

And apparently it got some tweaking from Herald editors. The edition that appears on this morning's front page and on-line includes this line about Heat mania:

"This is more the hasty groping backseat passion of Prom Night."

But, as the inestimable Sam Eifling pointed out to the Pulp, the original edition of Barry's piece posted on the Herald web site yesterday was just a little different:

"This is more the hasty squirting backseat passion of Prom Night."

Once again, a master being sanitized by his lessers, who clearly believed that Herald readers couldn't handle the startling -- and potentially embarrassing -- imagery of youthful lust. Clearly, this was a case of premature posting. And Eifling knew he'd seen it that way -- and had a second-hand e-mailed version to prove it -- but for a moment it looked like all vestiges of the original work had been scrubbed from public view by the newspaper's overlords. Not so. The cached line remains entombed here on Google forever, historic verification of Barry's intent.

And, in the name of Jack Kerouac, that's a good thing.

Dave Hyde's column about Mickey Arison is on the Internet. The only problem: It's accompanied by a photograph of Jeffrey Loria (thanks to NT colleague Candice Gulley for the heads-up). But hey, who cares? They both own sports teams and sort of look alike. In fact, they might be the same person!

Oh I forgot. Hyde doesn't investigate -- either journalistically or intellectually. He just writes whatever idiotic thing comes into his head, apparently. I've written a lot about the dunderhead lately because of the Heat championship run, but then I swore off all things Hyde. Then came this morning's column, where Hyde's reflexive instinct to nudge his nose into sports luminaries' nethers surfaced yet again. The column is a debacle, basically applauding Arison, a mega-billionaire who personifies the cold dark force of corporatism run amok, for being, well, dull and invisible.

[Okay, I've deleted a portion of this post because it was, well, wrong. I confused something about Arison the father with Arison the son. An anonymous reader commented: "You come across as someone with a vendetta who twists facts to make the point or maybe someone who isn't as good at criticism as he thinks." Touche.
Also, the Sentinel corrected the on-line version, so some (extremely neglible) good came from this.]