Miami News Blog

Photo by Bill Cooke

Gerald Posner

​Miami-based investigative reporter Gerald Posner has been caught lifting lines from Miami Herald stories for his own stories at the Daily Beast. As a result, Posner has been temporarily suspended.

Posner, the author of Miami Babylon and many other well-received nonfiction books, took a gig at Tina Brown's Internet-based Daily Beast as the chief investigative reporter, where he bylines pieces about celebrity scandals, international affairs, and every once in a while, turns his attention toward home, writing about South Florida.

You'd think with his connections and sources, he could crank out South Florida scoops all day, but Slate's Jack Shafer caught him lifting lines in a story about the mysterious death of Fontainebleau heir Ben Novack from the Miami Herald.

Watch out. His lawyer is, like, a total badass.

​Commissioner Marc Sarnoff has some very vocal enemies among business-owners in the Coconut Grove parcel of his district, thanks in large part to his unwavering support of a 3 a.m. bar curfew there. Public officials -- especially those with controversial stances -- usually expect to take a smattering of public ridicule as part of their job; Riptide would be pretty much screwed otherwise.

Instead, Sarnoff has reacted like a despot -- sending a rich-guy legal threat to a blogger ordering him to remove satire from the comments section.

Whatever happened to a nice, "Hey, it's the Commissioner. Would you mind taking that comment down?"

Last Thursday, Coconut Grove Grapevine editor Tom Falco, who has been on the side of restaurateurs and bar-owners against the early curfew, blogged about a City Hall meeting discussing the issue. Falco mentioned the point that since other districts have later curfews, Coconut Grove's early curfew doesn't do much to curb drunk driving overall, which is its primary purpose.

​Not long ago, New Times ran a story titled "Escape From South Beach," which makes the case that the epicenter of the gay community is no longer in South Beach. Miami Beach's gay paper, Wire Magazine, apparently took it personally. This week, editor Thomas Barker dedicated an entire issue to "a rebuttal."

That gay dating site that wanted to air an ad during the Super Bowl? Not going to happen. CBS nixed it, even as it goes forward with airing Tim Tebow's Focus on the Family-sponsored Pro Life ad.

The ad for ManCrunch.com hit the web today, and it's nothing that controversial. Two dudes watching the game accidentally brush hands while reaching for potato chips, and then start cold snogging. We're not even sure there's actual lip-to-lip. Really, it's less man-on-man action than you'll see during the Super Bowl itself.

​Next week, CBS and its Super Bowl crew will invade Miami, and they're bringing their news shows along. It's a homecoming of sorts for two of the network's biggest stars. The shows will also bring to South Beach live performances from Gloria Estefan, Justin Bieber, and Wynnona Judd and Wyclef Jean (together).

The Early Show, cohosted by former CBS4 anchor and Miami native Maggie Rodriguez, will broadcast live from Lummus Park the Thursday and Friday before the big game. Harry Storm, Dave Price, and Erica Hill will join Rodriguez each morning from 7 to 9. The Thursday show will feature a performance by Estefan, and Friday will welcome Bieber.

via Gizmodo

iOcho

​The first image most people will ever see of Apple's recently unveiled iPad displays Liberty City's own Chad Ochocinco. Interesting, but perhaps more important is that the image was party of the New York Times' app for the new machine. For months, rumors swirled that the iPad would be the killer app that keeps newspapers relevant in the age of technology, and that Times interface does look kinda nice, but will the iPad save the troubling fortunes of daily newspapers? Maybe not. Not yet at least.

Like many newspaper companies, the stock of Miami Herald's parent company, McClatchy, opened up more than a point higher this morning. That's a heck of a jump for a stock stuck in the single digits, but by the time the iPad was actually unveiled, the stock fell half a point. Maybe because the iPad didn't deliver on expectations.

Via the front page of the Miami Herald's website today

Glenn Garvin, who's taking part in the Herald's weird Biggest Loser-esque thing, gets back to his fighting weight.

​On his MSNBC show, Keith Olbermann has this terribly annoying habit of self-righteously addressing, in overly dramatic terms, any criticism directed against him. The Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin has this terribly annoying habit of filling and shaping his TV reviews with his right-wing political stance. It was only a matter of time until these two blowhards crossed paths.

Garvin made a cameo appearance in Olbermann's trademark "Worst Persons in the World" segment. The honor that night went to Bill O'Reilly, natch, but Olbermann took a few digs at Garvin too.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

​Beloved luxury-porn mag Ocean Drive celebrated it's 17th anniversary by putting beloved amateur-porn star Kim Kardashian on its cover and invited her to host their big self-congratulatory party last Thursday at the Delano. 

Michelle Spence-Jones is not taking her latest suspension from the Miami City Commission quietly.

The District 5 commissioner has taken aim at her two biggest adversaries -- Gov. Charlie Crist, who suspended her again yesterday, and the Miami Herald, which has oft criticized her attempts to keep her seat -- with probably the best news release of the year.

"First of all, I would like to correct the Miami Herald," she writes in the first line of the release. "I did not compare myself to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

Spence-Jones is referring to yesterday's column by Fred Grimm, who has roundly blasted Spence-Jones, where he writes:

But Tuesday evening, Spence-Jones, as is her wont, framed her coming collision with Crist as a race issue. She invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and suggested that if Crist removed her so close to MLK Day, it would demonstrate a blatant disrespect a for "everything he stood for."

Not so, Spence-Jones says. "I would never compare myself to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," she writes.

She also blasts Crist anew, saying, "Just because Gov. Crist is falling in the polls like a rock, I refuse to become a key element of strategy in his campaign for U.S. Senate."

Click through for her whole statement.

​A few weeks ago, we announced that we'd be going glossy. Well, that day has arrived. Newsstands today will carry our first glossy issue, which is also nicely trimmed and stapled.

The premiere glossy issue features Tim Elfrink's story "Homesick," which delves into the Chinese drywall issue affecting South Florida homeowners. The tainted construction material is causing dwellers to get sick as well as corroding home appliances.

Also in this week's issue is Lee Klein's review of downtown eatery Wok Town, while Carlos Saurez de Jesus looks into the Miami Art Museum's latest exhibits "Space as Medium" and "Carlos Bunga: Metamorphosis."

So what are you waiting for? Pick it up today!

​I honestly have no idea why you'd want to see a video on a CNN website about last week's South Florida storms, when, you know, you could have just looked out your window. But if you did, you might have your citizen journalism weather report brought to you by Collin O'Neal, a gay porn star. 

Cleverest newspaper motto ever? "Gay news, straight facts."

​The South Florida Blade has closed, but soon the region will have not one, but two gay newspapers.

Window Media, which owned a number of GLBT newspapers, including the Blade and it's pervy little listing mag brother 411, abruptly closed its doors in November. In a nice web-to-print story, local gay entertainment website JumpOnMarksList.com bought both the Blade and 411, renaming them the Florida Agenda and Mark's List Magazine. There's no doubt Mark's List can sustain the integrity of the listing mag (which recently featured on its cover identical twins who have sex with one another on camera -- because it's a classy sort of publication), but can they run a publication that is supposed to turn out actual journalism?

If they don't, according to the Herald, there's another endeavor on the horizon: SouthFloridaGayNews.com. Despite its name there, will be a print edition, published tabloid-size and distributed Mondays throughout South Florida. The publisher is Norm Kent, who started Express Gay News in 1999. That paper, of course, was sold to Window Media in 2003 and was renamed the Blade.

via The Herald

​Perhaps after a long, stressful day of crunching numbers and contemplating layoffs, some Miami Herald executive decided to go for a walk to clear his head. This being Miami and all, he came across a beggar asking for spare change. Wait, he could have thought, Maybe we have it all wrong. Did this beggar lay off a big chunk of his newsroom? No. Does he have to walk a fine line of keeping some semblance of journalistic excellence while pleasing readers and advertisers? No. Does he have to deal with the ongoing onslaught of new media in the face of economic recession? No, he sure doesn't. Maybe, just maybe, we should consider entering the begging business ourselves. 

via Rakontur

How is it that a man who's paid to review television doesn't seem able to grasp ESPN's The U in the same way that writers who don't generally review films do? Oh right, because it's The Herald's Glenn Garvin we're talkin' about.

While other early reviews of Rakontur's documentary on Miami Hurricanes football key in on how the film ties in the racial tension and vast poverty that ran through Miami at the time, Garvin ignores that and just riffles through the sensational negative aspects of the team. The stuff that anyone vaguely familiar with the history of the team already knows. He doesn't touch on the comical and touching segments that the other reviews see.

Of course it's the closing paragraph that really should piss off fans and flies in the face of evidence:

Myriam Marquez

​When The Miami Herald was the only American paper to run a world-wide op-ed about Climate Change by London newspaper The Guardian we thought either they must be the only daily in this country with balls on that particular issue, or because they've fired so much of their staff they just desperately needed the copy.

Though, it was a little odd when they deleted a sentence that was somewhat critical of America.

Turns out, according to editorial page editor Myriam Marquez they dropped the line because they actually didn't have enough space.

She tells The Guardian that the ed was all laid out when she was sent a last minute, one-line re-write.

​For more than two decades, Miami New Times hasn't changed much. On January 1, the weekly paper will become something altogether different. A glossy cover, staples, and perfect trimming with give this old dog an impressive new trick.

The content, however, isn't going anywhere. We'll continue to offer 70,000 copies per week of the kind of investigative stories that have been honored repeatedly by national groups such as Investigative Reporters and Editors. And we will keep providing the very best cultural coverage in Florida, including comprehensive music, food, art, and theater reviews.

In fact, our breaking news coverage on the web -- which garners about a half-million page views a week and has launched us into the ranks of Florida's best news sources -- should grow throughout 2010. As daily newspapers struggle, we are thriving.

via the Guardian

The logos of all the participating papers

​In advance of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, which kicked off today in Denmark, 56 papers across the globe yesterday published a front-page editorial led by the Guardian calling for international action on the global warming front. The only American paper to sign on: our own Miami Herald.

"This initiative offered the Miami Herald's editorial board a terrific opportunity to join other papers across the globe on an issue that is of paramount importance to Florida and to our nation," editorial page editor Myriam Marquez told the Guardian.

Today, media critic Michael Wolff, in wording that's a slight dis to the Herald, asks "why no major U.S. newspapers would play." His answer: "They have no fight left in them."

via Sodahead

What's black and white and re(a)d all over? Will this be the only answer soon?

​It seems any news coming out about 1 Herald Plaza is uniformly depressing, and today is no different. According to our colleagues at the Juice, publisher David Landsberg sent an email this morning informing the Miami Herald staff that 24 more jobs have been cut -- seven of which came out of the newsroom. Those affected were notified this morning. 

At Northwestern University, there's a remarkable student-led initiative called the Innocence Project. Since 1991, the J-school program has helped free 11 wrongfully convicted men with good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting on the flawed cases.

via Illinois Dept. of Corrections

Anthony McKinney

​In the case of Anthony McKinney, sentenced to life over a 1978 shotgun killing, it looked like they had a 12th.

One of South Florida's leading serious gay news sources, South Florida Blade, has shut down, according to reports. Its owner, Window Media LLC, which is the largest publisher of gay newspapers in the nation, has abruptly closed all of its titles.

Originally founded in 2000 as the Express Gay News, it was bought by Window Media in 2003. The name was changed to South Florida Blade, styled after sister paper Washington Blade. The paper was edited by Dan Renzi, an occasional New Times contributor and former cast member of The Real World: Miami.

Also shut down is the paper's slutty little corporate sister, 411 magazine, a listings/dudes-in-underwear glossy.

Update: Apparently, 411 will live on as Mark's List Magazine. Multimedia Platforms LLC bought 50 percent of the popular gay website, JumpOnMarksList.com (which our sister paper in Fort Lauderdale named Best Locally Generated Website in 2008), last week, and has taken on the staff of 411, which will now be a bi-weekly publication. But 411 is primarily an event listings mag, whose most recent cover might be a little too racy to publish even on Riptide, and won't make up for the journalistic voice lost when the Blade went kaput.

​CNN's Rick Sanchez was in extreme overshare mode last night on Twitter. Apparently a combination of not being picked to replace Lou Dobbs and flying to FIU parents' weekend to see his son had him feeling emotional, a bit edgy, and finally confessional, admitting to something we've long known: He was a bit of an airbag during his days behind the WSVN desk.

"when i was a local anchor in miami, i was so clueless. funny how years can make you get life. i know so much more now," tweeted Sanchez [we left the capitalization to preserve the tweet-tegrity]

That's not news to New Times. He was our favorite TV punching bag back in the day. We even created a "Best Of" award category for him: Least Credible News Personality.

But Sanchez has redeemed himself a bit since then. He's a Twitter pioneer, after all. And his 3 p.m. CNN broadcast is one of the few, if only, shows on the channel that beats both MSNBC and Fox News. Apparently that wasn't good enough to get him Lou Dobbs's recently vacated slot.

One Twitter detractor said Sanchez might have gotten the job if he wasn't so liberally biased. "then i don't want the job," Sanchez replied.

Sanchez had mentioned his son in a tweet, and another follower asked him if he's in legal trouble.

"what a stupid question," Sanchez bluntly replied.

After Sanchez tweeted, "i was so poor as kid, my son so rich. i want to make him hungry like old man," another follower asked if he had to walk to school in the snow.

"no, walked to school in miami dumb ass. no snow. but my dad made me wear hard soled shoes, no jeans and long sleeve shirt," Sanchez replied.

via Fox News

​Well, this is just delightful. In fact, Riptide would like to nominate this video for Best Unintentionally Funny Clip of the Week.

We don't want to give too much away. No, no. It would spoil the climax. But let's just say you can count on the following (in chronological order):

1. A pushy Fox News reporter.
2. An abortion doc from Miami.
3. Yelling.
4. Broken objects.
5. A mustache!

Can you think of a more entertaining situation? Ever? OK, maybe if there were also a mud-wrestling pit. And some whip-its. But, you know, other than that.

Just weeks after much too much of Florida's political establishment and media took a dumb Crist/Rubio remix of an old YouTube meme way too seriously, there's another stupid YouTube video that certain journalists, it seems, are forcibly trying to turn into a controversy. 

via The V Files

​Considering Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin now gets his own right-wing political column every other week, is it asking too much that he keeps pointed, half-baked political theory out of his television reviews? Because all too often the man's words come off seeming ridiculous.

After deciding to attack the National Park Service and nature itself a few weeks ago, Garvin sunk his teeth into the Obama administration while nominally reviewing ABC's new alien show V.

ABC's series takes aim not at a German dictator from the misty past but a sitting -- and popular -- U.S. president. From the fawning reaction of the news media (sample press-conference question to V [Ed: alien visitors who are actually evil space lizards or something] leader Anna: "Is there such a thing as an ugly visitor?") to the recruiting of human supporters into an alien front group that could easily be mistaken for "community organizing," the parallels to Obama are unmistakable.

But what says actress Morena Baccarin who plays Anna?

"I don't think we're saying Anna is President Obama," she tells i09.

Well then.

It's definitely with in line, if not expected, to comment on any political subtext in a television show, but Garvin all too often crosses the line by making that subtext fit his own personal partisan political views, and attacks those programs that don't. Not only does it come off as a whack job, but also a hack job.

jacco.org via Flickr CC

Editors, shmeditors.

​On the opinion page of the Miami Herald , Patricia Kawaja's letter begins dramatically. "I am alarmed by Tomas Regalado's election as mayor of Miami," she blasts. "Another Cobwebbed politician...."

Only that's not what she actually wrote. When the British-born writer-by-trade sent her letter in earlier this week, it read: "Another Cobwebbed Cuban." Yesterday morning she opened the paper and found the word had been changed. Kawaja now claims her letter was slashed because there's a significant population of Cuban writers and editors at the daily paper. (which by the way is true -- new Metro editor, new senior editor for news, for intance.) It's a freedom of speech issue, she says. "The Herald is constantly sucking up to Cubans. I have never been so livid."

"We want the media to do its job. To start doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is investigating, reporting, asking the right questions. You turn on the media right now and what you hear  is stories about who shot who, houses of filth. Trivial stuff. Fluff," Bichachi says. "We're not able to know what's going on in municipalities, in the county, what commissioners are up to, what mayors are up to. All we hear is insignificant stories." 

​They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. We haven't been quite this flattered in a very long time.

Three weeks ago, Riptide published a story about the very drastic fall of former pro basketball player Rumeal Robinson. We used court documents filed in Miami-Dade court and a revealing interview with Robinson's brother, Donald Barrows, to show how a guy could end up virtually homeless and under indictment for financial crimes after a lucrative NBA career.

The short answer: strippers.

This Sunday, the Boston Globe published its own story about the extent of Robinson's decline. We knew Globe scribe Brian MacQuarrie was working on one, because he called three times asking for the location of the documents we used and for Barrows's phone number. Still, we were a bit surprised to find a virtual Xerox of our article reprinted in the Boston daily, with slight wording changes. But don't take our word for it: After the jump, judge for yourself.

​For the first time in its 15-year history, the National Circle of Journalists from Cuba did not give out an award recognizing a heroic colleague on the mainland when they commemorated Cuban Journalist Day on October 25.

It wasn't that reporters on the island were no longer risking arrest by stealthily passing information to a foreign correspondent. Or that there weren't still those posting anonymous blogs on the tightly State-controlled Internet. Or even that mimeographed dispatches were no longer being surreptitiously distributed.

The problem, group leaders say, was that the circle couldn't contact any of the candidates to inform them they would be winning an award that could place them "at great risk."

"There is a repressive wave in Cuba that has risen," says Jose R. Carreño, the group's president and a former political prisoner under the Castro regime. "We tried to make contact through various means."

P.S. Silicon Beach? Where have I heard that before?

​​Here's news you won't be reading in The Miami Herald*: the daily, once the largest in Florida, has now shrunk to third in the state based on circulation, according to numbers released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The Herald had settled into the number two slot behind The St. Petersburg Times, but now is also bested by The Orlando Sentinel.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel was fourth. The Herald now only outsells its Broward rival by fewer than 10,000 copies a day.

The Herald moved about 162,260 copies on weekdays between April and September of this year, down from 210,884 during the same period last year. That's a nearly 50,000-copy drop (or 23 percent), one of the greatest circulation declines in the country. On average, the circulation for dailies across the nation fell by 10.6 percent.

To give you an idea of how drastic the drop is historically, In 1950, the year The Herald won its first Pultizer Prize and the population of Miami-Dade was only about 495,000, the paper had a daily circulation of 170,000. Of course, that was in those long-gone pre-Internet times when the daily paper business model actually made sense.

*We're not saying the Herald wouldn't publish it, but if they did would you actually be reading it?

To some, Barra da Tijuca is Rio de Janeiro's hottest new neighborhood, blessed with beautiful rock formations and a beach blanketed with some of the planet's sexiest bodies. To others, it is a Brazilian version of the worst of Miami, full of traffic jams and tacky shopping malls.

And the "good":Do you hear that? More Miami-like than Miami? How is that even possible? It's like this entire city has turned its own reputation into a giant, fake, uber-branded, easy-to-stereotype dreamland that can't even live up to its own hype. Oh wait -- that's exactly what's happened.