The Five Worst Media Personalities In Miami

By Luther Campbell Tue., Sep. 18 2012 at 8:00 AM

Alex Izaguirre

Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke ranks the least trustworthy names in local news.

Miami has a lot of media personalities and journalists who are full of it. They use their lofty positions to spread poorly thought-out opinions and don't do any real reporting. You can't trust nearly anything they say or write. Here's my list of the worst news reporters, columnists, talk show hosts, and publishers:

5. Rachel Reeves
The chief executive of local black newspaper the Miami Times is interested only in making money. She doesn't care about doing quality journalism. When I was running for county mayor last year, I found out the first story is free. But a "second interview," I was later told, "would cost me."

4. Sid Rosenberg
The 640 AM sports talk radio host goes on the air to castrate athletes who act stupid off the field. But when he gets busted for driving under the influence after a night at the titty bar, it's all hush-hush. He also has a history of making offensive remarks, like saying that Venus and Serena Williams belong on the cover of National Geographic and that the United States women's soccer team is a "bunch of juiced-up dykes."

3. Fred Grimm
The Herald's metro columnist is a hypocrite. Last year, when I endorsed former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina over Carlos Gimenez in the county mayoral race, Grimm wrote a column attacking me by bringing up my 20-year-old arrest record and my raunchy lyrics with 2 Live Crew. But Grimm has not written one word criticizing Gimenez for getting in bed with Robaina and current Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez. I'm still waiting for a Grimm column slamming the Gimenez re-election campaign's role in the latest absentee-ballot fraud scandal to embarrass Miami-Dade County.

2. Barry Jackson
This Miami Herald sportswriter is an all-star hack. He has misquoted me in stories about the University of Miami football program. He will also take things out of context for a juicy quote. I have cussed him out more than any other reporter because he always gets it wrong.

1. Michael Putney
The host of WPLG-TV's This Week in South Florida uses his show and a semimonthly column in the Miami Herald to promote projects that are bad for the community. For example, he advocated for Genting, the company that wants to build a casino/resort on the site of the current Herald offices despite widespread opposition to the project. Oddly, he sometimes opposes development in the African-American community. Last year, he criticized Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones because she tried to give grant money to small-business owners in Liberty City to fix up their storefronts.

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Tags:

Barry Jackson, Fred Grimm, Miami Herald, Miami Times, Michael Putney, Rachel Reeves, Sid Rosenberg, WPLG

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dantevida

1 Like

interesting list. look who's photo tops the column.

codperfumes

Luke has similar to qualities of a low class Beach. Is this what you call journalism. BTW, does miami new times support prostitution under backpage and their newpaper??

i.am.10thletter

Maybe Putney backed the casino proposal because it would have at least given some in Lib City and Overtown an opportunity at employment, even if part-time w/no benefits the whereas the female canine spence-jones grant helped only a few businesses, which just happened to have close ties to her and her family, and would have created zero new job positions. That whole grant was simply a way for spence-jones to get her name in the paper again and put some coin in her purse. art teele used to do the same thing only his thing was building parking lots, about as equally needed in the depressed communities. Spence-Jones should do like Teele and kill herslef, take her bloody tampon, place in squarely in her big, fat mouth and choke on it. I'm glad Putney speaks upon issues others are afraid to, we need more like him.

MiamiPenguin

I found this article somewhat pitiful because it suggests that these journalists have incorporated Mr. Campbell into their stories over and over again because it's impossible to write about a news topic without including a tidbit about him.

Just for grins, I googled "Luther Campbell" with "Barry Jackson" and "Miami Herald." Gee, yes, there were a lot of hits, but they were mostly because Campbell and Jackson went to the same high school. (Admittedly without dedicating the rest of my life to researching this) it seems like the only time that Jackson has mentioned Campbell is when he wrote that Nevin Shapiro had been called "Little Luke."

Have some fun. Google "Luther Campbell" with the names of the other reporters he dinged. I think that you'll find that they weren't terribly interested in him and that he doesn't feature often, if at all, in their work. This is to say, poor Luke Campbell seems to be angry because he's not getting enough attention. Boohoo.

drinas

Your list loses credibility with the top 3. Fred Grimmis a respected local columnist. Barry Jackson's stuff is consistently well researched and interesting. And Putney is the dean of poltical reporters - there's nobody better.