Blogs

-- You got the FAU shooting, or grazing, in both the Palm Beach Post and Sun-Sentinel. Interesting, but the must-read is the Sun-Sentinel comment board, which is so full of abject racism that the newspaper should delete the whole mess. Are these idiots organized or do they all just congregate at the S-S?

Oh my. As I was typing this, the Sentinel did what I thought they should do: Killed the commenting function under the FAU shooting story. Good for them. It was absolutely out-of-hand.

But now I see the Miami Herald board is taking up the slack. Vote Obama!

-- Cara Fitzpatrick gives us a scintillating tail -- uh, I mean tale -- about a "buxom blonde" who claims she was fired as a teacher at Port St. Lucie High School for some particularly revealing extracurricular work on a fishing boat. The story in the Palm Beach Post is good. The accompanying photos are fantastic. The Pulp thinks the teacher, with the pornalicious name of Tiffany Shepherd, should stop complaining. She skipped too much school and her true calling is obviously on the high seas. The real victims: A slew of acned boys in biology class, who are gonna be very bummed about this development.

UPDATE: From a comment below, here's a link to Shepherd's blog. Call me a sexist pig (again) or a prude (which I don't think I've ever been called), but I think it provides further evidence that not only does Tiffany not belong in a public school, but that she also doesn't really care. This is a publicity stunt, and a good one.

Local governments spend a lot of money to get out the information they want you to hear about (aka propaganda). But what about when you try to utilize the state's vaunted public information laws (aka Sunshine Law) to get the stuff they don't necessarily want out there?

Well, that's when they charge you and, in general, try to break you down like a rented mule.

It's a despicable practice, but it happens all the time. Just about every journalist around has dealt with it a time or two. One recent case study in these dirty tactics comes via Cal Deal, who is trying to pry loose some public records from the City of Fort Lauderdale.

Deal, the local graphic artist and gadfly-extraordinaire, wanted some of Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson's e-mails (you know Hutch, she's the commissioner spent a few bucks in city money to send out campaign mailers and then lied about it). His pursuit started out innocently enough, with an email last Wednesday to the city's Maxine Singh:

From: Cal Deal [mailto:caldeal@gate.net] Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:55 PM To: Maxine Singh Subject: Email Hi Maxine, Please consider this a public records request. I would like you to forward to me copies of all email between Cindi and Mark Boyd from April 1, 2008 to the present. Thanks. Cal

Two days of silence passed, so Deal reminded Singh of his request:

From: Cal Deal [mailto:caldeal@gate.net] Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 3:35 PM To: Maxine Singh Subject: emails Hi Maxine, When can I have those emails??? Who should I contact? Email address please. Thank you. Cal

Singh informed Deal that she'd forwarded the request to City Attorney Harry Stewart. Stewart promptly sat on them. It was apparently a process whereby each lax official had to be reminded of the request, so Deal gave Stewart a gentle nudge:

From: Cal Deal [mailto:caldeal@gate.net] Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 3:51 PM To: Harry Stewart Cc: Jonda Joseph Subject: emails Importance: Hig

I was wondering when I can expect the emails requested below.

Thanks.

Cal

Stewart, thus awakened, replied:

From: Harry Stewart Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 4:06 PM To: 'Cal Deal' Cc: Jonda Joseph; DJ Williams-Persad Subject: RE: emails

Mr. Deal - I have forwarded your request to DJ Williams-Persad, Assistant City Attorney for handling.

DJ - After you talk to the IT people please let me Deal know when to expect the emails and what the cost will be.

Stewart here shows his mastery of sandbagging snooping citizens, first stalling him and then hinting that he will have to pay through the nose for his nosiness regarding the commissioner.

A few days passed before the city's Williams-Persad got back to Deal:

On Apr 29, 2008, at 9:06 AM, DJ Williams-Persad wrote:

Good Morning Mr. Deal,
I forwarded your request to IT for an estimate (as you can see below) and I will respond to you with a amount for deposit, if applicable, as soon as they get back to me.

Thanks,
-DJ

A deposit. You gotta love that. It's like he's about to rent an apartment or lock in an offer on a house. And all the poor fellow wants is a few emails. Deal responds:

From: Cal Deal [mailto:caldeal@gate.net] Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:10 AM To: DJ Williams-Persad Cc: Brittany Wallman ((E-mail)); Bob Norman; Tim Smith ((E-mail)); raymond dettmann; Karen Becker Subject: Re: emails New Public Records Request

I would be shocked if a deposit was required for a small number of emails in this six-day-old request.

Cal

You have to imagine Harry and the boys getting a chuckle out this. The city responded just a couple hours ago:

On Apr 29, 2008, at 3:30 PM, Karen Becker wrote:

Dear Mr. Deal: We have been advised by IT staff that there will be a special service charge in the estimated amount of $28.36 to gather the e-mail you requested. The staff member makes $56.73 per hour and it will take him approximately 30 minutes to gather the records. We are authorized to charge a special service charge pursuant to Section 119.07(4)(d), Florida Statutes which provides:

If the nature or volume of public records requested to be inspected or copied pursuant to this subsection is such as to require extensive use of information technology resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance by personnel of the agency involved, or both, the agency may charge, in addition to the actual cost of duplication, a special service charge, which shall be reasonable and shall be based on the cost incurred for such extensive use of information technology resources or the labor cost of the personnel providing the service that is actually incurred by the agency or attributable to the agency for the clerical and supervisory assistance required, or both.

If you do want us to proceed, we will need half of the amount as a deposit, i.e., $14.18, in a check made payable to the City of Fort Lauderdale. Please advise if you want us to proceed.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Thank you.

A half hour of an IT person's time is considered "extensive"? So Deal now has to pay that person's salary? Where does the money go? Does the IT person get paid double for that half-hour? Or does it go into a slush fund for the bureaucrats to have a few drinks?

What the hell is this?

Deal, seeking the answer, wrote back:

From: "Cal Deal" Subject: Re: emails New Public Records Request Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:38:53 -0400 To: "Karen Becker"

Karen,

Please tell me the city's definition of "extensive use of information technology resources" and "extensive clerical or supervisory assistance." What constitutes "extensive?"

Please tell me how that applies to giving me copies of maybe 15 emails transmitted in a very short period of time to and from one individual.

Cal

Give Cal the credit, he made it all the way to the endgame. And it's pretty cheap, relatively speaking. They let him off easy. The county and various local governments have tried to charge me and my newspaper hundreds of dollars for similar requests. At times, we've paid it, other times we've told them to go screw themselves sideways.

In the name of transparent government, of course.

Things seem mighty boring around this burg lately. It's got me in a foul mood, to tell you the truth. You'd think with all the journalists working in South Florida (600 or so?) there'd be a lot more interesting stuff to read. Seriously, what do you people do with your time?

Oh yeah, your daily beats.

"I don't have enough time to do anything interesting!"

How many times have I heard that one? Just another of the great failings of the embattled newspaper industry. Yeah, used to be that shit would fly. Get some faithful stenos out of college, fill them in their respective slots, and let them crank out the same tired stale stories year after year. Hey, circulation was steady, the market was cornered, and everybody had a chicken in a pot at home.

New world. Look at the Miami Herald. It's been hit by an 11 percent decline in the six-month period ending at the end of March. It's down to 240,000. Yeah, under a quarter mil in Miami. Those sound more like stinking Jacksonville Times-Union numbers to me. Remember when the Herald had a circulation of about 400,000? Wasn't that long ago. My God, how the mighty have fallen.

And what is Anders Gyllenhaal doing? Who knows. He's not saving the newspaper, that's for sure. Then you've got Sam Zell and his chief innovation officer, Lee Abrams, over there at Sun-Sentinel's Tribune Co. talking about making the newspaper "the Disneyland of the mind." And what do we get? Same shit, only softer. Have you noticed that the Sentinel has taken to allowing newsless features to dominate the front page lately. There's the MLK assassination anniversary special. The "low-paying labor of love" that is NBA stats-keeping. The fascinating art of "high-tech rescues at sea."

These are just in the past couple of weeks. The problem is that nobody is going to pick up a newspaper to read these things. Newspapers have to be more aggressive, more investigative, more confrontational, more of what they're supposed to be. They've got to get off their prissy perch on the sidelines and get into the game (and, hopefully, eschew easy cliches like that one). It's hard, uncomfortable, uneasy work -- and there's no better place to do it than South Florida.

But I digress. What I wanted to do was share with you the Sunshine State Awards page. Yes, that's right, even while our industry is rotting on the vine, there's always plenty of time to pat ourselves on the back.

I was going to wait until all the results were in, but it looks like it might be a while. There's good work on the list (especially something in the sportswriting category by a fellow awfully close to this blog), but overall I wasn't impressed. First, New Times was put in the small category. Didn't ask for it and didn't want it. Second, there's too many of the damn things. Check out the the list -- damn thing looks like a corporate ledger. "Age Beat Reporting"? Serious and light feature reporting? Consumer reporting? (At least there we have the delicious irony that the Sun-Sentinel's Help Team didn't win anything in that category, for which the entire newspaper seems engineered). Criminal and civil law reporting? Social policy reporting?

Why stop there? Doesn't everybody deserve a category? For Ralph de la Cruz, it can be the "Wife Sniping Reporting Award." Or for Daniel Vazquez, we can have the "Technological Gizmo Pumping Award." Give Kingsley Guy the "By-Rote Right-Wing Regurgitation Award." The list could go on and on.

Oh, almost forgot, congratulations to all the winners.

American Lawyer Media, which owns The American Lawyer magazine and 12 newspapers nationwide, announced last week in a memo from CEO William L. Pollak to staff that it is laying off 42 employees nationwide, which amounts to about four percent of its workforce.

Locally, the only employee that was terminated was Miami Daily Business Review editorial assistant Sergy Odiduro, nee Tabuteau, who also happens to be an officer in the local chapter of Society of Professional Journalists.

Great, fire an employee at the bottom of the ladder who also happens to be someone who volunteers for the good of journalism. And a minority and new mother, as well. This from company that publishes The Minority Law Journal and often criticizes law firms for failing to hire minorities. Way to keep our dim view of the values of corporate America alive and well, ALM.

When you report stories, there are some facts you report and some you don't. Sometimes they don't add to the story, sometimes they aren't 100 percent nailed down, sometimes you have strategic reasons to hold them back until later.

Well, in this case, I just forgot to put it in the story. The article in question is "Judging Ana" which some of you have been clamoring for on this blog during the past couple weeks. Well if you read JAABlog, you know it's out. If not, click above to read it. Also, read this for a little back story on my interview attempt with Gardiner.

The fact in question is a remark Sheila Alu says Gardiner made on the phone before they met at Timpano's. Alu says that Gardiner told her on the phone, "I'm with someone I'm not supposed to be with."

That someone was prosecutor Howard Scheinberg. Read the article and you'll know the significance.

This just came across the Pulp transom -- an invitation to join CBS 4's local web network. I kind of like the idea, though it would be weird to have CBS 4 news video on the Pulp. Sounds a little unholy. Still might do it.

Good Day,

My name is Bree Zimmerman , and I am the Administrator of Strategic Partnerships for Pulse360.com.

I am writing to invite you to join your site into South Florida ’s local network for CBS. On April 28th, we will be launching this network that through CBS 4 will cover the best in South Florida ’s news, sports, lifestyle, politics, arts and culture.

The main benefits of becoming a member include:

Content – CBS 4 is offering content widgets for you to place on your site in either both video and story formats. The content is fed live from CBS 4 itself, and will complement your original content to provide an even richer experience for your readers.

Revenue – Each widget includes a companion banner advertisement. You will earn revenue on a CPM basis for every impression of the widget on your site. Additionally, you can also place Pulse 360’s Sponsored Links on your pages and generate incremental revenue each time a user clicks on an ad.

Traffic – Members of the CBS 4 network will have direct links on cbs4.com, which will also drive traffic to your site and help improve your search rank.

Here are some live examples of member sites in other CBS local networks:

www.bostonmusicspotlight.com
www.dallassouthblog.com
www.northsidebaseball.com

To learn more information about our program, see additional examples, or to sign up to become a member, please click or paste this address:

https://pvn.pulse360.com/pvn/verticals/cbs-southflorida/

We would be happy to see you join our network for South Florida , and look forward to working with you. Please feel free to call me at the number below, or email me at breez@pulse360.com if you have any questions or feedback.

Sincerely,

Bree Zimmerman

Administrator-Strategic Partnerships

Pulse 360/SyndiGO Networks

I may not be a superdelegate, but that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion. Since the Democratic primaries began I must confess that opinion has switched more than few times between Barack and Hillary. With Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania, the Big Mo is swinging her way.

But I've decided to go with Obama.

I could go into all the arguments, but what clinched my choice was Clinton's rotten campaigning. She questioned whether Obama would push the button at 3 a.m. She pandered to the Red Staters who hate her guts when Obama spoke the truth about rural America's ignorance and gun-clinging ways. She even complimented John McCain -- the ultimate foe for Democrats -- while trying to slam Obama.

Disgusting stuff. Typical middle-of-the-road bullshit from the Clintons, too. They try to play it in a way to make just enough people happy to get elected. Yeah, well, right now Americans don't need to be assuaged. And they don't need to be scared into more of a bunker mentality, either. They need to be kicked hard in the ass. Then they need to get down on their knees and ask for penance for Iraq, Wall Street, and for all the other sins of the Bush Administration for which they are complicit. Then they need to get up and start fixing this fucking rogue nation for the better.

Goddamn America, indeed.

I have my doubts about Obama. Never been sure he's strong enough or experienced enough to fulfill even half the wild promise his most rabid supporters see in him. Too often he seems to be on cruise control, letting his silver tongue get him by without really meaning anything. But his response to the overhyped Rev. Wright controversy was frank and refreshing. His remarks about Red State bitterness was provocative. He will definitely raise the IQ of this place. And, who knows, he might be able to save it, too.

You can't say the same about Hillary Clinton.

The Sun-Sentinel's Elizabeth Baier reports this morning on the scheme to recall Cooper City Commissioner John Sims and I think it stinks.

Most recall efforts are bunk. Unless they are truly based on crimes of corruption (that perhaps a certain state attorney might have ignored), I don't want to hear about them. Why? Because the people voted and a few politically motivated players with a clipboard and propaganda campaign shouldn't be allowed to undo democracy. The effort to recall Steve Gonot in Deerfield Beach, for instance, was a sham and a disgrace.

And so it is with this recall campaign in Cooper City. The grounds for recalling Sims are generally pathetic (failing to be prepared for meetings? you have to be kidding), but throwing in the charge of anti-Semitism should get the ol' kick-the-bastard-out-juices going, eh? And what is that based on? A blog that was registered to Sims that apparently depicted Cooper City Mayor Debbie Eisinger with an Adolph Hitler mustache.

First of all, that isn't anti-Semitic on its face. It is, however, American free speech. I don't think the alleged anti-Semitic comments that appeared on the blog have been published, so I'll withhold judgment on them until I see them.

It was a BSO subpoena that proved the blog was owned by Sims, who says somebody else put up the offensive stuff. BSO is saying that the blog postings constitute a hate crime, according to Baier. What utter nonsense. The fact that it's vile doesn't mean it's a crime. BSO threw the Bill of Rights out the window on this one, just as it did in Deerfield Beach when it subpoenaed Google to reveal the owner of another political blog (under the guise that it was part of a sex crimes investigation, no less). They are tying it into an incident where Mayor Debbie Eisinger's campaign manager's car was apparently vandalized with a Swastika. Now that looks like a hate crime -- but there's no evidence tying Sims to it. Why would a man running for commission (and with enough popular support to win) do such a thing? It makes no sense.

Look, the voters can decide what they think about John Sims. They don't need former commissioner Elliot Kleiman to tell them what to do. Voters already decided what to do with Kleiman -- they kicked him out of office. Now he wants to return through a back door. This isn't about anti-Semitism -- it's about anti-Simsitism. It's a move by the Eisinger-led old guard to regain power and put the dissident Sims out to the curb.

Let's hope the residents of Cooper City don't fall for it.

Cal Deal captures one of the pitfalls of newspaper online advertising -- and he's not pleased with the Sun-Sentinel's "web weenies."

"If their goal is to annoy visitors to your web site, they are succeeding brilliantly with these annoying pop up windows. Do they understand why browsers like Safari have things called 'pop-up blockers?'"

It's undeniably ridiculous and irritating, but I think people adapt to it. If it brings in the revenue, get used to it (if you haven't already).

Miami Herald sports columnist and ESPN commentator Dan Le Batard is taking a year-long leave of absence from his column so, according to a memo sent out to the newspaper's newsroom yesterday evening, he can "have more balance in his life."

Here's the memo from Miami Herald Sports Editor Jorge Rojas:

From: Rojas, Jorge - Miami

Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 5:13 PM

To: MIA Newsroom

Subject: dan le batard

TIME AWAY: After many years of juggling a large variety of responsibilities all over the map, Dan Le Batard will be taking a leave of absence so that he can have more balance in his life. We will be
without his services for one year starting May 15. The good news is that he will be back doing 20 Questions and online chats before we know it. He says he still hopes to write occasionally, a la Dave Barry. No word on whether any of South Florida's sports teams will be any good by the time Dan returns.

jorge rojas

Le Batard has been juggling his column-writing duties with extensive work for ESPN. Stephen Rodrick, in an excellent 2005 Slate piece on how TV is killing the newspaper sports column, summed up Le Batard's duties this way:

As far as I can tell, the gifted Dan Le Batard is a Miami Herald columnist, writes a twice-monthly column for ESPN Magazine, hosts a Sunday morning show on ESPN Radio, is a guest host on PTI, and has a daily drive-time show with somebody named Stugotz on Miami's 790 AM. How can you be on the radio with Stugotz and stake out Shaq's stool at the same time?

Something had to give and, in this case, it was the Miami Herald, according to author and journalist Robert Andrew Powell, who shared his perspective on the matter with the Pulp:

This is an issue that's talked about A LOT in sports journalism. These guys like LeBatard, they use their newspaper gigs as springboards to bigger things, but they know that without the imprint of their newspapers they'd have no substance or credibility -- they wouldn't get the bigger opportunities. LeBatard long ago leapt up to TV and radio gigs -- lucrative gigs -- that make local newspaper column writing seem boring and irrelevant. It's no surprise that he's wants out of the paper duties. What's absolutely remarkable ... is that the Herald is letting him continue to have an association with the paper. So LeBatard gets the all-important newspaper credibility without doing the work.

Whatever you think, it is certainly sad the way TV chatter is killing the sports page -- and this is certainly another example of the trend.

The move hasn't been reported by the Miami Herald yet.

The Miami Herald's Dan Christensen writes about State Attorney Michael Satz choosing not to charge Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter with corruption counts -- despite strong evidence that she voted on matters that enriched her husband, the lobbyist Russ Klenet.

It provides further evidence that Keith Wasserstrom was basically a one-time sacrifice and that Satz is back to his disgusting practice of excusing political corruption while loading up both barrels on the poorest sector of our society.

Christensen broke the story about her conflict with voting machine maker ES&S and I broke the initial stories about her conflicts of interest with airport manager URS and Vista health. I've been busy with another project and haven't seen the closeout memo, but Christensen writes that Satz dropped the URS case because she abstained from voting.

To understand what garbage that is, read this.

In other news about top public officials who absolutely suck, Judge Joan Lenard's second go at the Liberty City Seven (now Liberty City Six) ended in another mistrial in Miami. She should have gotten the clue the first time that this was a total farce of a case brought on by political pressure to show a homeland victory in the Bush Administration's ill-advised War on Terror. There is more going on here that I'll be writing about later, but now it's safe to say that this has been a huge black eye for the FBI, the Bush Administration, and Joan Lenard. Give it up, Joan.

Lenard and Satz -- two arguments for why a free press is still America's last hope.

Well, it looks like it if this is any indication. And remember, if you want to be editor of New Times, you have to be able to edit and write. Not just one or the other. I can't stress that enough, people.

Our current chief, Robert Meyerowitz, will be departing in about a month and is likely heading back to his beloved Alaska. I'll have more on that later, but the Pulp certainly wishes him all the best after his year seeing to our award-winning staff (hey, it says so in the ad, so it must be true).

I'm a bit tardy with this news. In fact, I've terribly neglected all of Pulp readers lately, and I'm terribly sorry for it. I've been busy with my day job and I got this nagging cold thing that has me more sick of being sick than I am actually sick (some of you know exactly what I mean). Oh, and the New Times has shrunk. It looks more like a -- gag -- magazine now. It's all part of a new design (a design to save the company some money, I believe).

While we're shrinking, the Sentinel is softening. More on that later, too, but I'll leave you with this little screen capture courtesy of Cal Deal. His caption: "And the most important story in the world is ..."

In it's story on Gov. Charlie Crist's chances of being picked as VP candidate by John McCain, here's how the Miami Herald and political columnist Beth Reinhard handle the whole big gay thing:

"Crist's moderate politics and bachelor lifestyle could rankle conservatives suspicious of McCain. Imagine their reaction if McCain picked a single man who has never owned a home, prefers to 'change hearts and not the law' on abortion, and has distanced himself from a campaign to ban gay marriage."

Ah, the "bachelor lifestyle." Such language makes you want to put on the fire up the ol' Victrola and enjoy a good rich tobacco smoke. Hey, it gets the point across to everyone who has been paying attention. And those that aren't? Well, don't expect them to start any time soon.

Reinhard's overall analysis is quite sound. The truth is that with or without the questions about his "bachelor lifestyle," he doesn't fit the bill for McCain, who needs to solidify the red-state Republican base. You know, those bitter folk who cling to God and guns to get them through the night. (I'm really starting to like Obama -- if he was elected he would raise the American IQ, which wouldn't happen with the other two.)

That's conventional thinking anyway. I take the contrarian view, however. I don't think Crist is presidential material (he's simply not a strong enough leader), but he would light up McCain's campaign, get some interesting national dialogue going, forever alter the GOP, and most likely deliver Florida. In other words, I think he would be a brilliant choice.

Vanilla Ice was arrested last night in Wellington on battery charges after his wife complained that he'd punched and kicked her after an argument over a bedroom set. Here's the story by Antigone Barton in the Palm Beach Post.

But the Pulp has done one better: Below is footage taken just before the alleged assault.

video.vh1.com

Okay, so it's a couple years before the assault, but you get the picture. Here's another tirade in which he came very close to busting up Ron Jeremy.

Whatever you do, don't call Rob Van Winkle an angry guy. Lies like that fill him with homicidal rage.

I know postings on here have been a bit light, but there's a good reason for it: I want to live!

By that I don't mean that I want to have a life -- gave up on that a while ago (about the time I had my second kid and took up the column). You may have seen the New York Times story last week about how blogging is killing people. As in dead.

The story, by one Matt Richtel, posited that the overwhelming stress of blogging was causing folks to drop like flies. And he had the facts to back it up: Two bloggers had died recently. One of them, Russell Shaw, happened to have been buried in North Lauderdale.

Most people wouldn't see much significance in that since there's millions of bloggers and two deaths wouldn't seem like much. But that's why most people don't write for the New York Times. It takes a very keen mind to take a couple of unrelated deaths and turn it into a trend. Reporters have been paid very mediocre money for decades to turn such tricks.

The key is imagination. Two bloggers died in America within a three-month period? My God, the stress is killing these poor bastards!

And I am, to a degree, one of those bastards, so I had no choice but to slow down considerably.

It will pick up the pace soon, I promise. I'll risk my life for the Pulp (and I'm sure you would too, if the chips were down). But now I have to go, since this effort is really starting to make me feel a bit faint ... what's that tingling in my left arm? ... stay tuned.