Category Archives: The Media

Herald Does Gables Election

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

The Miami Herald does a long ‘process’ story about the elections coming up in Coral Gables and Miami Shores. It’s mostly about how there have been unprecedented expenditures and unprecedented negative campaigning. It’s a long story, and it’s in the print edition as well as online — probably more column inches then ever devoted to any of the issues in this election.

Two items of special interest. First, the Herald has found out something about the mysterious mailers (cf. Electioneering Report — April 8, 2011 (Update 4)):

According to a Statement of Electioneering Communication filed with the city of Coral Gables, Jordan Behlman is the committee’s chairman. When contacted by The Miami Herald on Friday, Behlman would not comment about his involvement with the group. Behlman, 30, is a registered student at the University of Miami School of Law.

The mailer’s return address is 3606 S. Waverly Cir., Tampa, which Behlman listed as his permanent address on the electioneering statement. It’s the address of Behlman’s parents. Behlman’s mother, Jaynee, said Friday they have nothing to do with Coral Gables.

“I don’t know what’s going on in Coral Gables,’’ she said. “I don’t know who got my address, but they’re using it without my permission.”

She said her son is not living at home and that she was approached by a private detective this week who said he was looking into the committee.

“He scared me to death,” she said.

The Committee for Coral Gables’ Future is not registered with the Florida Division of Elections. According to the statement of electioneering communication, the purpose of the organization is to, “support and oppose candidates in Coral Gables municipal elections.”

(Incidentally, as far as I can recall, I’ve never met this student.)

Second, they quote me (without giving the name of this blog or the URL). Ironically the point of my quote is that I wish they wrote more about issues and less about process.

“It’s always a struggle in municipal elections to figure out what the issues are and what the candidates’ stances are,” said Michael Froomkin, who has lived in Coral Gables for 19 years. A University of Miami law professor, Froomkin writes a popular blog that has chronicled the campaign.

“Certainly the high budgets and the negative mailers are what have attracted the media’s attention,” he said.

Indeed.

Posted in Coral Gables, The Media | 1 Comment

Palm Beach Post on Judicial Reactions to the Foreclosure Crisis

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

I’m quoted talking about the virtues of having judges look carefully at foreclosure cases instead of rubber-stamping them in the Palm Beach Post’s, Foreclosure crisis: Fed-up judges crack down disorder in the courts written by Christine Stapleton and Kimberly Miller.

Posted in Econ & Money: Mortgage Mess, The Media | Comments Off on Palm Beach Post on Judicial Reactions to the Foreclosure Crisis

Florida as Journalistic Paradise

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

The editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is reported (!) to have issued what is widely being called the world’s greatest journalism job announcement touting the virtues of their newsroom — and the joy of reporting in the target-rich environment which is Florida.

We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.

We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble … well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.

For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.

The Political Animal (Steve Benen) posting that I linked to above has other reasons why Florida is so great for journalism.

I’m reminded of a comment — that I want to attribute to Dave Barry because even if he didn’t say it, it sounds like he should have — that Florida is what you get when you pick up the country and shake it: all the nuts fall down to the bottom.

Plus, I can’t help wondering why the Herald is so lame.

(Thanks to Ann Bartow for the original link to another version of this announcement.  It’s everywhere.)

Posted in Dan Froomkin, The Media | Comments Off on Florida as Journalistic Paradise

The Washington Post Says It has an Ombudsman

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

How, I wondered, could I get it so wrong, sending an email to an ombudsman who had left the Post? Indeed, if I had just read his last column Can The Post regain its legacy of excellence? I’d have seen him saying it was his swan song.

But in fact, the reason I got it wrong is … I relied on the Washington Post. On the Opinions page, the sidebar reads as follows:

Ombudsman

Andrew Alexander serves as The Post’s internal critic and reader representative. Read his blog and his latest column. Or e-mail him.

There’s a moral there somewhere, and I’m sure Brad DeLong knows what it is.

Update: Hey, guess what — according to a Feb. 23 item on WashPost PR: a tumblelog,

The Washington Post today announced that Patrick Pexton will become the news organization’s ombudsman. Formerly deputy editor for National Journal, Pexton’s two-year term with The Post begins March 1.

Maybe someone should tell the Washington Post?

Posted in The Media | 2 Comments

We Write Letters (to the WashPo Ombudsman)

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Just sent this to the Washington Post’s Ombudsman:

Today’s lead editorial on the Al-Kidd v. Ashcroft case blindly repeats a piece of government propaganda that has been decisively falsified in the court proceedings of that very case.

“High Court Should Overturn Kidd v. Ashcroft” begins like this:

ABDULLAH AL-KIDD was arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003 after purchasing a one-way, first-class ticket to Saudi Arabia.

In fact, testimony and subpoenaed airline records establish that Al-Kidd had a round-trip coach ticket. The government’s false statement — originally made to the court to justify arresting him — misled the court and it is this very pattern of government misrepresentations that played a significant role in the judicial turn against immunity which the Post (in my opinion wrongly) critiques. The Post’s error is no mere detail but serves as means of obfuscating — avoiding — the central facts that undermine the argument the Post wishes to make.

I guess if you use fake facts it’s easier to write editorials in favor of unlimited and un-accountable state power to detain US citizens (AP: “Over the next 16 days he would be strip-searched repeatedly, left naked in a jail cell and shower for more than 90 minutes in view of other men and women, routinely transported in handcuffs and leg irons, and kept with people who had been convicted of violent crimes. On a long trip between jails, a federal marshal refused to unlock al-Kidd’s chains so he could use the bathroom.”).

No mere factual correction can fix this problem since that would fail to make clear that the factual change undercuts the entire logic of the editorial, but I have never yet seen a correction which makes such an admission, and don’t have much hope here.

The question for you, though, is this: how could the Post allow someone to write an editorial on such an important matter who isn’t even aware of one of the better-known facts of the case? And who doesn’t then check the facts. Or read the AP feed on the subject (2/27/11) which in addition to summarizing the vile conditions of confinement in which the government held Al-Kidd states,

But the sworn statement the FBI submitted to justify the warrant had important errors and omissions. The $5,000 one-way, first-class seat that the agents said al-Kidd purchased was, in reality, a coach-class, round-trip ticket. The statement neglected to mention that al-Kidd had been cooperative or that he was a U.S. citizen with a wife and children who also were American.

In other words, the accurate facts were and are no secret: it almost takes work to avoid them.

And one more question for you: even as the Post preaches a doctrine of no-accountability for government officials who lie about and mistreat US citizens, does it practice a similar doctrine of non-accountability for editorialists who get basic, key, facts this badly wrong? Or will there be some internal sanction?

Update:

I got this auto-reply a little while later:

I will be out of the office starting 01/31/2011 and will not return until 12/31/2011.

Thanks for writing. My two year term as ombudsman has ended and a replacement will be named soon. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns about news coverage, I’d suggest you e-mail or call the appropriate department in the newsroom. Among them:

Local: 202-334-7300 metro@washpost.com
National: 202-334-7410 national@washpost.com
Business: 202-334-7320 business@washpost.com
Sports: 202-334-7350 sports@washpost.com
Foreign: 202-334-7400 foreign@washpost.com
Style: 202-334-7535 style@washpost.com
Obituaries: 202-334-7389 newsobits@washpost.com
Book World: 202-334-7882 bookworld@washpost.com
Food: 202-334-7575 food@washpost.com
Health: 202-334-5031 health-science@washpost.com
Travel: 202-334-7750 travel@washpost.com
Photo/video: 202-334-7380
Graphics: 202-334-7380
Post Main Number: 202-334-6000

A variety of other contact information, including e-mail links to reporters and editors, is provided through this page on The Post’s Web site: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/contactus/index.html

Letters to the Editor should be addressed to: letters@washpost.com

For circulation or delivery issues, call the subscriber services department at 202-334-6100, or homedelivery@washpost.com

-Andy Alexander

So it looks as if the Post has been Ombudsless for a month (suggesting that filling the job is not a priority, or perhaps no one good wants to touch the job with a ten foot pole). And also that the Obmudsman role doesn’t extend to editorials. I don’t know that there’s much point in sending this in as a letter to the Editor. They’ll just chop it to bits even if they run it.

Update 2: More on the Post and Ombudspersons at The Washington Post Says It has an Ombudsman.

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law, National Security, The Media | 1 Comment

Spot the Difference

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Headline on front page of Miami Herald, Sunday February 20, 2011

The curse of negative home equity:

Hundreds of thousands of South Floridians are underwater on their mortgages, which could have profound impact on the region’s economic recovery, or lack of.

Headline on front page of Miami Herald, Monday, February 21, 2011:

Miami boat, art shows during Presidents’ Day weekend point to a brighter economy

As thousands pack this weekend’s boat and art shows, and fill hotels and restaurants in South Florida, all signs point to an economy on the upswing.

“[A]ll signs point to an economy on the upswing”???

It’s hard to see the headline on the fluff piece in today’s paper — and its placement as the lead story top of the fold — as anything other than a corrective for yesterday’s serious journalism which was a solid article and a welcome antidote to the Herald’s generally boosterish coverage of the local businesses that advertise in it.

The actual article today is a perfectly standard feature story on the Boat Show. It’s the unwarranted headline and the ridiculous placement on a day when revolutions continue in the Middle East and the US hurtles towards a government shutdown that make me suspect the editors.

Posted in Econ & Money: Mortgage Mess, The Media | 2 Comments