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Young reporters read this latest screed from John DeGroot carefully -- your life just might resemble it.

Here's the text/outline DeGroot sent the Pulp this morning:

Yesterday’s Sunday editions of the Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel were textbook examples of Journalism Redux. Well done, yes. But….

In the case of the Herald, it was Part One of yet another series on “What’s With Cuba?” – a question that’s been around since the Spanish-American War.

In pandering to a different market, the Sun-Sentinel gave us Part One of a yet another series on “More Development & More People” – a subject as old as the first Conquistadors (here's Part 2).

Okay. In all fairness, Journalism Redux has been the warp and woof of the news business for as long as I can remember.

For example: While South Florida’s news media have Cuba and Growth, the small town daily I worked for as a fuzz-faced reporter back in Ohio had the Pothole Crisis – a source of annual local outrage which we wrote about every year when frozen roads began to thaw.

No matter. Be it Cuba, Growth, or Potholes, it’s still the SOS – or the Same Old Shit.

And therein lies both the rub and the creative challenge for the news media, which is: How to repackage their SOS to make it look like new

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The birds know it's coming. About two dozen of them were burrowing in the ground in front of my house before my four-year-old daughter knocked on the window and scattered on them. You can see it now. The winds are starting, the clouds are there, the clockwise rotation already visible in the sky, though extremely slow at this early moment.

It's gonna be a big mess, but probably not much more than that. Flooding is the biggest concern. Hopefully I personally won't need any more than the 9.5 gallons I have stored for my generator. If we lose power, the fam will probably sleep in the garage, where there's a wall-unit A/C. Good luck to everybody in the path.

Anyway, to get your mind off the storm, I've got another special report from John DeGroot, the playwright, "recovering journalist," former writing coach at the Sun-Sentinel, and all-around bon vivant. He recently dropped me off a t-shirt he'd made with the Sun-Sentinel logo and the words: "We're Journalism Lite -- And Usually Right." Hey, the man has some time on his hands. Here's his latest report from the wilderness, where he takes Earl Maucker to task:

Storytelling: Sun-Sentinel Style

The Sun-Sentinel's Editor Earl Maucker is one of the most artfully non-controversial and downright pleasant newsroom managers that I've known in my four decades as a journalism.

Truth be told, I'm sure anyone who ever worked with or for Earl would agree he embodies the go-along-to-get-along style of management.

In short and in my book, Earl Maucker is a really nice guy.

Which is why, I'm too often embarrassed by Earl's sublime ability to hoist himself on his own petard in his attempts to tell-it-like-is with the Sun-Sentinel's brand of journalism.

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John DeGroot, the former Sun-Sentinel writing coach and Sheriff Ken Jenne aide, is back at work. His new employer: Gold Coast Magazine.

The mag is a glossy mostly for rich folk, but Publisher Bernard McCormick is an old-school journalist who steers the publication into some serious stuff. DeGroot -- who left the sheriff's employ after he spoke out against BSO management about the Powertrac scandal -- will edit stories and help reporters produce first-rate pieces.

Lori

While I'm on John, I thought I'd share a recent e-mail I received from him. He later sent me a revised version, saying this one is too snotty and too much about himself, but fuck that. This one was a shitload better. It starts with the Pulp, goes to John, and dovetails to the Property Appraiser, Lori Parrish.

To: Bob Norman, blogmeister

From: John deGroot, recovering journalist

Re: Your Daily Blog-Rants

Dear Bob:

I fear for your health.

Why?

Your daily Blog-Rants must be taking a savage toll on your blood pressure and stomach acid, if nothing else.

Clearly, all your bile-infested sturm and drang over the quality of journalism in South Florida should merit you combat pay. However, given the likelihood of that, I strongly suggest You begin each day with the Serenity Prayer which goes:

"God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

Courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference."

Believe me.

It will help

(The Serenity Prayer is how and why I came to retire from journalism back in 1998 after four decades toiling in the once ink-stained bowels of various newsrooms.)

For the record, I learned the power of the Serenity Prayer during last job in journalism was with the Sun-Sentinel where I served as the newspaper's "writing coach."

Bottom line?

As a veteran journalist, I was well-paid to improve the quality of what the Sun-Sentinel calls its "news product" — or what ignorant readers call "stories." Trouble was, I soon discovered (and prayerfully came to accept) the hard truth that no one on God's green earth can teach a reporter or editor certain basic journalistic skills like:

One — Intellectual curiosity

Two - The difference between what's interesting and what's not

Three — How and why "The Old Man and the Sea" works better than the "Old Man and the Ocean."

The above trinity consists of things you either know or don't. Or, more to the point, they require talent — a politically incorrect word rarely heard in the Egalitarian Baroque culture of today's newsroom.

No matter.

None of the above can be coached — anymore than you can coach a three-legged horse to finish in the money.

Which is why you gotta start accepting the things you cannot change in the mundane world of corporate journalism. But don't take my word for it. Let's take something simple like the business of Intellectual Curiosity.

Hell, even cows are curious!

With Rocky

So see where and how the local media falls on the Curiosity Richter Scale when it comes to former Broward County Commissioner Lori Parrish after her three years as Broward County's elected Property Appraiser.

We'll begin with a simple question like: How's the lovely Lori doing as Broward's chief elected Tax Lady?

Anybody in the local news media know?

Anybody care?

Anybody curious?

Or am I the only one?

Or do I need to get a life?

See, as anyone who reads or watches the local news media --- this just in — IT'S HOT.

So, seeking the coolness of my office at home, I decided to dilly-dally around the internet and spend a few minutes checking out how various Broward elected officials are spending my tax dollars. (See Broward.org)

And what to my wondering eyes did appear....?

Broward County Property Appraiser — Budget Trends

Fiscal Year Total Budget
2000: $7,370,637 Bill Markham Appraiser
2001: $7,719,223 Bill Markham Appraiser
2002: $8,560,911 Bill Markham Appraiser
2003: $9,102,236 Bill Markham Appraiser
2004: $10,730,516 Bill Markham Dies (March) Rodriguez Appointed Appraiser
2005: $12,915,386 Lori Parrish Sworn in as Appraiser (January)
2006: $16,105,300 Lori Parrish Appraiser
2007: (Approved) $17,803,900 Lori Parrish Appraiser

% increase: 142%
2000 — 2003 23% - (Under Markham)
2004 - 2007 66% - (Under Rodriguez/Parrish)
(Source: Broward County Annual Operating Budgets)

Okay.

Call me silly.

But even my nine-year-old grandson (who can work a pocket calculator) might decide the above numbers pose --- well — a few questions.

Like: What the hell is Lori Parrish up to?

I mean, Lori's the very same politician who -- as a then County Commissioner — raised holy righteous hell over the way Miriam Oliphant was blowing her budget during her dismal years as one of the most incompetent elected officials in the history of Broward County.

But no one in the local news media seems to know or — worse — to care.

Oh yeah.

I know I'm gonna sound like another Old Bastard bemoaning how we did it better but....

Back then, when I worked a governmental beat in the days of black-and-white TV, the one thing I damn well HAD to do was pay regular attention to how and why the politicians were spending my readers' tax dollars.

Oh well.

There's always the Serenity Prayer.

Even cows are curious. I like that.

Back On Barry
I'll be on Barry Epstein's radio show again Friday morning at 10 a.m. on 1470 AM or here on the Internet. We're going to talk about Riviera Beach, a whacked-out city with a helluva lot of money pouring into it.

Earl Maucker (looking blurry at right) done good.

I don't say that very often. Sometimes I even criticize him. Some of you might even believe that I don't think he's fit to be editor of the Sun-Sentinel. Not so. I think he's an honorable guy and decent newspaper steward who sometimes makes bad decisions. And I pounce every time he does so. So when he makes a good decision, I need to pounce then too. And his move to install Tony Fins as editorial editor was a good decision.

The news that Kingsley Guy is stepping down from the editorial board is well-received. Guy might have been good, oh, about a quarter century ago, but he'd held onto that position far too long and had become part of the problem before this next crop of high school seniors was born.

The Sentinel's editorial page has been lacking a little something for a long while. A little something called substance. Fins is a damn good reporter and I think he'll bring more substance with him. Congratulations, Tony.

But I welcome him into his new job with a little taste of fire (didn't think it would that easy, did you?). Former Sentinel journalist and writing coach John DeGroot, who provided the Pulp a great post last week, gives a scathing review of Fins' debut effort this morning concerning the North Broward Hospital District.

DeGroot, who has been looking into the hospital district for years, sent a follow-up of sorts of the previous Pulp post explaining why he used so much "dock-wallopper language." (For the record, the Pulp found the all his words totally appropriate and necessary). Then he went off on this morning's editorial, which urged the public to watchdog the district:

... no way could the ghost of Spectator ignore the surreal, jabberwockian logic in today's Sun-Sentinel editorial sanctimoniously warning how: "The public ... must remain vigilant and watchful" when it comes to the district's "decision making" and annual use of more than $200 million of our local property taxes.

Here I go again:

Give me a fucking break!

Or at least tell me how exactly how and why Broward's John and Jane Q. Public have the necessary time, training and background needed to "remain vigilant and watchful" over the district's tax funded health care services — let alone its annual budget of nearly $3 billion.

I mean, isn't this the 1st Amendment-spawned responsibility of the local news media? (Good thing the Washington Post never urged its readers to "remain vigilant and watchful" when it came to politics in the White House during Watergate.)

Which is why, in Candide's best-of-all-possible worlds, today's Sun-Sentinel editorial should have promised its readers:

As your local newspaper daily striving to answer the question of "Can we help you?", we hereby dedicate and promise to "remain vigilant and watchful" over ALL the inner-workings of the tax-funded North Broward Hospital District.

Trouble, that's not now and never has been the Sun-Sentinel's philosophy of local news coverage — which is, "We make hard news soft for our readers."

Which how and why Forrest Gump's Mommy was right.

"Stupid is as stupid does."

You really need to read the whole thing. Click here and scroll down. Bon Appetite.

Levine

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).