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This from an American Journalism Review story on the downsizing of local film critics:

In June, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reassigned movie critic Phoebe Flowers to a general entertainment and pop culture beat, with a focus on local arts, according to Editor Earl Maucker. The paper's film reviews now come from other Tribune Co. papers.

"Local news is the absolute priority," Maucker says. "We have a limited number of resources. On any given day, a lot of things go uncovered because we don't have the resources to be where we'd like to be. We decided those resources would be better deployed on local stories."

For the real story, here's what Phoebe wrote in the comments below:

I haven't contributed anything to the Sentinel since early June. I have been on leave. I return tomorrow, July 31. I am not afraid to say that I very much doubt the Sentinel, in its current incarnation, will have much use for any of my writing -- particularly because it didn't seem to matter that mere weeks before they terminated my existing position, I won the first-place prize in criticism in the SPJ's Green Eyeshade Awards. Any work I do for them will likely be behind the scenes, editing, with which I have a decent amount of experience from my years with the Miami Herald. In case anyone was curious.

The Miami Herald's Dan Christensen tells the story today of how defense attorney Hilliard Moldof was given a "break" -- and not prosecuted or even so much as suspended for bribing a witness in a murder case.

The case involved the torture and murder of 47-year-old Michael Sortal, the brother of Sun-Sentinel reporter Nick Sortal. Michael Sortal's two killers, Kevin Hoffman and Geoffrey Kennedy, are both in prison, but evidence came to light that Moldof, Hoffman's attorney, paid Kennedy to change his story. The case was handed to Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Rundle's office.

Even though the evidence was there, Rundle's office decided not to prosecute. Instead, prosecutors deferred the case to the Florida Bar, which they say they hoped would suspend Moldof's license. The Bar, however, termed the payoff "minor misconduct" and chose not to take any action against the well-known defense attorney.

Both Rundle and the Bar deserve equal blame for this disgrace.

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: "Who the fuck is Cinema Dave?"

Well, he's Dave Montalbano, an erstwhile film critic with a web page who contributes reviews to the Deerfield Observer, that's who. And apparently someone has been carrying out their diabolical anti-Phoebe Flowers agenda using Cinema Dave's good name.

The imposter apparently struck here at the Pulp back in late May when I wrote about the Sun-Sentinel killing local film reviews by moving Flowers to other assignments (from what I can tell, she's now writing about TV -- how's that for an improvement?). The imposter wrote in a comment under the post:

Phoebe has a bad habit of offending readers of her blog, questioning their masculinity and calling them "stupid" for liking Everybody Loves Raymond. I will not miss seeing her name in the Sun-Sentinel.

But doesn't everybody love Raymond? What is this blasphemy? The real Cinema Dave isn't taking it sitting down, thankfully. Or, well, I guess he is, but he's typing on his computer while he's at it. Here's what he wrote the Pulp:

Hi Bob,

This is the real Cinema Dave, not the twisted individual who

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All Sun-Sentinel "Lifestyles" columnist Ralph De La Cruz planned to do was write another silly sentimental piece, this one on his favorite bridge, a step above his usual column, which often doesn't get beyond his couch or kitchen table. But funny things happened on his way to bridge bliss, a set of unfortunate events that led to the best story to be published in the Sun-Sentinel this year.

When Ralph stopped by to talk to the tender of the 11th Street swing bridge in Fort Lauderdale, she made the mistake of entertaining his interest. For that, the company in Clearwater that has the city contract to operate the bridge canned 59-year-old Jeanie Curtiss for breaking protocol. Suddenly, Ralph was in the middle of a real story and he showed his chops. He found out the company, Tri-Angle Maintenance, was way overpaid.

'We pay a company in Clearwater $138,546.70 a year — $379.58 a day — to provide $9-an-hour tenders for that one little iconic

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Former Hollywood Police Chief Richard Witt, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in March, died Monday.

He was one of the good cops but was fired by the political machine for trying to turn around the corrupt, befouled Hollywood PD and get rid of what he privately called the "goombah" criminal culture in the ranks. If Mayor Mara Giulianti had listened to him, there never would have been headlines like this.

Read the Sun-Sentinel obit here.

(Also, the Sentinel comments have gone haywire.)

After the jump: Corral Speaks

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The project manager for URS Corp., which has the county contract to oversee all construction that goes on at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport has filed a police report accusing a newspaper reporter of stealing his business journal -- which happened to contain damning evidence on a county commissioner.

And that reporter is ... your Pulp host.

URS project manager Todd McClendon filed a police report listing me as the suspect in the so-called theft of his journal. But before I tell you about his report -- which is full of untruths -- let me give you the background on this journal.

I first heard about its existence from sources about a month ago. I was told that McClendon had left his notebook -- actually, it's hardbound and more like a journal -- in the county commission chambers. A politically interested party noticed this and picked it up.

Lo and behold, among McClendon's notes was evidence that indicated Russ Klenet was still working for URS -- which was recently slammed in a county audit for not justifying its fees (that run to nearly $100 million during the past decade or so) -- as a lobbyist. This was a problem. A big problem, in fact. Because ever since Klenet's wife, Stacy Ritter, was elected to the commission in November, he wasn't supposed to have any involvement in county commission business whatsoever. And this seemed to be an especially egregious case, since Ritter was the commission's liaison to the airport and had defended URS on the dais, even helping it keep its sole contract into the foreseeable future.

Problem was, I couldn't track down the notebook. Finally I found a source who had copies of the pages from it and he/she gave me key pages. And I found there were indeed numerous mentions of "Russ" in the book after his wife's election, including his inclusion in the company's lobbying "posse" -- which also includes Ron Book, George Platt, and Bernie Friedman -- in April. One page lists all the commissioners next to the lobbyists who were expected to influence them. Next to Ritter's name is "Russ/George." On another page, McClendon simply wrote: "Staci = Russ."

(For the whole story on the contents of the notebook, click here).

It was good stuff, friends. So last Tuesday I called McClendon on the phone to confirm that what I had was, in fact, what he'd written. He told me that a

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The Pulp has been delinquent in pointing you towards the incredible story about Ken Jenne and Michael Satz putting their resources into arresting and prosecuting inmates in the Broward County Jail who commit sex acts while alone in their jail cell.

Or at least that's what the Miami Herald calls it. You probably refer to it as jacking off, choking the chicken, pounding the pud, or even the more clinical "masturbating."

In its follow-up of the story originally broken by the Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez, the Herald somehow manages to avoid using the M word at all, at least not outside of

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Just to rile things up a bit, here's the latest from "Ellen Dalton," a soldier on the Post side of the newspaper war sputtering along north of the border:

Have you noticed that the Palm Beach Post's Internet site has become the new "tip sheet" for the Sun-Sentinel?

Case in point: The Post posts a story about the Boynton Beach Police Department's investigation of "pay for play" allegations involving a city commissioner and a development company.

A few hours later, Sun-Sentinel.com posts a similar story.

This really helps one paper, especially when one newspaper is constantly following the other. (Out of simple respect, I won't name the paper that gets beaten all the

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In the Miami Herald version of the Jim Naugle "apology" and subsequent big gay rally at Fort Lauderdale City Hall, there is mention made of a New Times story the mayor handed out as proof that homersexuals are banging each other in every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area (Tommy Lee Jones, we love you).

I remember that 1999 article well. Written by the illustrious Jay Cheshes, who has been freelancing in New York for several years since, it made quite the splash at the time. I'm not sure what social truths can be taken from it, but it's beautifully reported and written and one hell of a read.

Click here to read Cheshes' "Sexual Roulette."

The Sun-Sentinel is reporting that Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle is about to hold a press conference at city hall that will include an "apology."

Naugle's 1 p.m. press conference will preempt a rally scheduled for 4 p.m. by the Flush Naugle crowd calling for his resignation for his recent anti-gay remarks. The mayor has said he would never apologize for what he said and I believe him. I'm smelling a stunt here, people. Should be interesting.

ADDED: Here's a link to the Miami Herald report, as well.

ADDED: Yup, it was a stunt. From the Sun-Sentinel:

Mayor Jim Naugle issued a public apology on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon, but it wasn't the apology the gay community was looking for.

Naugle apologized for underestimating the problem of men having sex with each other in public restrooms, and urged people to call police to complain when they come upon it. He also said Broward County leads the nation in the incidence of new AIDS cases involving men having sex with men, and questioned whether the county tourism office should be welcoming them here.

What's really funny is that the Herald, as evidenced by the link above, really believed Mayor Jim was going to bow down for the homersexuals. The guy is loving the attention and basically auditioning for his own radio show after he leaves office.

Daily Business Review Law Editor Harris Meyer, a former NTer, goes off on judges and corruption in Broward County and comes up with one reason why it's been able to flourish so long:

Why has all this gone unchallenged for so long? Reporters who cover Broward quickly discover one answer — it’s extremely difficult to get reputable, knowledgeable people, particularly lawyers, to go on the record criticizing anyone in power, no matter how egregious the abuse. It’s much more difficult than in Miami-Dade County.

Privately, many lawyers long have raised questions about the conduct of Broward judges. And many judges privately have complained about Chief Judge Ross. But the lawyers kept contributing to the judges’ election campaigns, and refused to run against incumbents or support challengers. Few had the guts to take their criticisms public — even during the recent marathon of bad judicial behavior.

What are they so afraid of? This isn’t China or Saudi Arabia, where political critics are tortured and killed. No, they’re afraid that if they speak out, they’ll lose clients, referrals, contracts, business opportunities, desirable assignments, or campaign contributions.

That’s why attorney Lawrence “Chris” Roberts says he didn’t rat out Judge Seidlin four years ago when the judge allegedly pressed him to buy his wife a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse. Roberts was regularly getting lucrative special public defender assignments from Seidlin, so he gave. No electric shocks to the genitals needed to keep Roberts from reporting Seidlin’s alleged abuses.

What are the good people who put the Sun-Sentinel together every night smoking? Can't be good imported stuff, because they'd come up with something better than this.

What provokes the latest Pulp assault? The top of the front page this morning. It starts with a picture of a kid who looks like what I can only imagine the bald and exceedingly dull Hollywood director Ron Howard might have looked when he was a boy. Then there's the headline: "Does this child have the face of a terrorist?"

No sir! He's no damn dirty Arab!

We all know terrorists look like a hungover Ron Jeremy.

Then there's the actual words. It's about the boy, seven-year-old Michael Martin, being put on the no-fly list.

And guess what, folks? Instead of letting him fly, they put him in a cold holding cell, where he trembled and sniffled until he got pneumonia and died.

Oh no, that's not true. Actually, they just delayed him at the airport long enough for his family to miss their flight and totally ruin a long-planned vacation.

No, missed again. Sorry. I can't seem to get this right, so I'll just quote from the top of the article to make it clear what really happened:

Michael Martin went through a hassle trying to

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The Sun-Sentinel's Doreen Hemlock did what is, overall, a decent front-page piece on the dearth of vacation time in the U.S. of A. But I had a hard time getting past the lede. The story's downtrodden subject, the one we're supposed to sympathize with for not taking much vacation time, is a ...

... high-priced lobbyist.

It is specifically Becker & Poliakoff's Yolanda Cash Jackson, who counts the insurance and gambling industries among her clients. Nothing against Jackson (who is one of the few black women in Broward's power structure), but for most of the millions of workers who don't get a single day of paid vacation, her days of hobnobbing with the power elite would probably seem like time off anyway. The other poor folk quoted in the story: a lawyer, a vice president for a finance company, and a restaurant owner.

What's next, a heart-wrenching story about how corporate executives are too busy to enjoy their yachts?

Miami Herald investigations editor Michael Sallah is going to be at Border's Books in Aventura tomorrow night talking about war. The Society of Professional Journalists is sponsoring the event and Sallah will be signing his book, Tiger Force, the literary version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series he and Mitch Weiss (who also might be at the event) did for the Toledo Blade about a platoon that committed all kinds of war atrocities during the Vietnam War.

This one comes highly recommended by the Pulp; Sallah's a rare journalist diamond down here in the South Florida sand.

INFO ON EVENT:
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
7-8:15 p.m.
Border’s Books
19925 Biscayne Blvd.
Aventura (just north of Aventura Mall on the east side of Biscayne)
Phone: 305-935-0027

Full press release and details after the jump.

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The governor's office accidentally e-mailed mainstream media outlets a round-up listing "all inquiries by reporters to state agencies.

You can bet the statehouse reporters consumed every word of this missive with zeal and I'm assuming (because New Times didn't receive the e-mail) that there's some interesting info.

On the Miami Herald's brief politics blog post about it, a commenter called "JB" brings up an interesting issue:

"Any reporter that makes a public records request for this item is a desperate traitor to his or her craft."

That is so full of (unintentional) irony, you almost expect it to slide off your computer screen. Reporters, at least good ones, spend their days digging up information through records requests on everyone, but if they use the state's laws to dig up information on what other reporters are working on, they're "traitors."

And I have to say that I largely agree with JB, absurdity and

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