The Palm Beach Post has a front-page story this morning on Nintendo’s new Wii video game system that may or may not have much worth. Reporter Pat Beall explores complaints on the Internet that the system’s hand-held device has been flying out of people’s hands while playing and breaking household…
In a letter to the editor, the president of Florida Keys Community College announced that the school is boycotting the Key West Citizen newspaper. President William A. Seeker writes in the letter, published in this morning’s Citizen, that the school is “canceling all advertising, printing contracts and most subscriptions with…
You have to dig deep into the Sun-Sentinel article on the Fort Lauderdale police shootings to get to the most interesting part: Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Carlton Moore — who has been highest-profile critic of the shooting — was pulled over by a BSO deputy Sunday, found to be driving on…
The Washington Post today reports on the institution of mobile reporters — mojos — at my old newspaper, the Fort Myers News-Press. And the really interesting thing about the experiment is that it mixes both good ideas and horrid ones to create what is basically a journalistic horror show. Read…
The Dolphins blew it yesterday, or I should say the Dolphins’ offense blew it. Had Miami beaten Jacksonville, they’d have been in the thick of the playoff race, believe it or not. And even though Jax QB David Garrard was sensational, the D held them pretty well. Naw, it was…
The most-viewed story at the Palm Beach Post is an AP story headlined “Britney’s Crotch Shots Take Web by Storm.” Well, I read it and was struck by reporter Erin Carlson’s parenthetical line about the photograph in question: “Be prepared to cringe if you dare to view the uncensored photos,…
Frank Veltri, the longtime Plantation mayor, died yesterday at 94. This was a man who first ran for office at 57 years-old and managed to become a political institution in South Florida. Hell, for decades, Veltri was Plantation. He was strong and tough as a bull. I saw him at…
A good reader sent me this link to some horrible creation called the Readership Insitute about how Sun-Sentinel Earl Maucker has become a leader in building something called “readership” (apparently it’s not tied to circulation, since that has steadily been going down). Horrifically, the Institute summarizes Maucker’s “presentation on how…
Omar Vega/Sun-Sentinel Last night’s town meeting with Fort Lauderdale police — meant to quell tensions in the predominantly black northwest section of the city after a questionable shooting — was by all accounts a near-disaster. Broward Times columnist Elgin Jones sent the Pulp a raw description of the meeting that…
R.C. White/Miami Herald The Stolen SUV The Miami Herald wupped the Sun-Sentinel again on the latest Fort Lauderdale police shooting story, again with the benefit of more reporters assigned to the breaking news. From the Sentinel story: “Police declined to identify the officer or officers who fired or explain what…
Last year, after the gruesome murder of Jessica Lunsford by a convicted sex offender, the City of Miami Beach decided to do something revolutionary. Even though Florida law already prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of places where children congregate, Miami Beach decided to make it illegal…
So this was what it was all about, then. The special referendum, the Constitutional amendment, the breathless newspaper coverage, the fight in Tallahassee — it was all about a bunch of steel and glass boxes with annoying sound effects and bad cartoon images whirling around in them. You can imagine…
The Deepest Truth Zak’s death touched some tender spots: I have to tell you that “Rebreathe Deep the Gathering Doom” (Ashley Harrell, November 23) is without question the best article I have ever read regarding diving that was written by a reporter, with or without formal dive training. One would…
Florida Supercon…
Robert Rutherford thought he had a pretty good idea. A way for Oakland Park, where he lives, to honor its most famous native son, storied jazz bass player Jaco Pastorius, by naming a small new city park after him. Rutherford, an unassuming man in his early 30s (he won’t give…
Fort Lauderdale police shot two men, killing one of them, yesterday afternoon off Sistrunk Boulevard. The best coverage comes from the Miami Herald, which put five reporters — four of them bylined — on the story. They identified the dead guy and his passenger and got a lot more detail…
Bob Eighmie/For Miami Herald This photo comes from Dave Barry’s Annual Gift Guide, which was published Sunday in the Miami Herald. The picture comes from the motorized ice cream cone bit. Is that who I think it is? I’m not 100 percent sure, but if not, there is a veritable…
Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I finally got around to arranging a bust-out for the book. So now I get to invite you all to a book reading. That’s right, it’s at Murder on the Beach in Delray this Friday evening, where I’ll be reading from Florida…
I’ll begin by announcing that this post isn’t to pick on the Boca Raton News. It’s a tiny newspaper on a shoe-string budget. I have nothing against it. But for the first time, I stumbled upon the on-line editorials in that newspaper and found them incredibly entertaining. You know, in…
Gretchen Day-Bryant must have the easiest job in journalism. She’s the Sun-Sentinel’s Lifestyles section editor and that means she must pick stories about pop culture, shopping, and video games off the wires and pop them onto her pages. Apparently she has also been given a directive to display the resulting…
Some interesting takes on cartoonist Jose Varela and his seige of the Miami Herald building you might not have seen: — From Category305 here. — From Stuck on the Palmetto here. — From Critical Miami here. — NEW-Dan Sweeney’s take at Doomed Generation. NEW-After the jump: A letter posted at…
Will Miami Stick It To Stoda? It’s a slow news day. So slow that all three big dailies’ web sites are headlined by a double fatality on Sunday on Donald Ross Road in Palm Beach County. That’s to be expected. But it wasn’t completely slow at the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel,…
