While Miami Herald Editor Tom Fiedler has been relentlessly preaching the wonders of newspapers’ convergence onto radio, TV, and, most importantly, the Internet, the Palm Beach Post got the attention this week. Editor & Publisher’s Steve Outing wrote about the Post’s web-feedin’, bloggin’, multi-taskin’ reporters in his recent column. He…
Veteran South Florida newspaper editor Diann Slattery died Monday, following a sudden collapse at a public library. Slattery, who was 46 years-old, last held the position of managing editor at Miami Today. Prior to that, she spent 12 years at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where she worked as graphics editor,…
Headline from a Clark Spencer story in the Miami Herald: “Marlins can’t seem to find their place.” Thought they found their place during the first week of the season: last. And this from a crime brief in the Palm Beach Post: “Quarrel leaves homeless man in critical condition.” A quarrel…
Back on the Help Team real quick. Yes, as a whole it’s an abomination, but the reporters in it are alright. Take Bob LaMendola. He’s a darn fine reporter. More than one of you has asked that I throw a shout out to his death doctor story. It is, indeed,…
Before looking at the weekend highlights from the morning papers, let’s quickly address the Help Team/Sun-Sentinel Watch. You know, where the so-called Help Team tries to fix little neighborhood problems like dim streetlights, debris, and, today, missing signs on Pompano “roundabouts.” What, is Prince Charles doing a fucking guest editor’s…
The Herald has been accepting comments on its web site for stories that appear in the newspaper for about a month now — and it has the feel of a bold experiment. There seem to be few controls. The editors allow commenting on a handful of potentially controversial stories each…
Brownie In Action Good newspapers today. Damn good, really, but I only have time for the cream of the crop. Sally Kestin had a wet dream of a story regarding the FEMA coverage she led. FEMA released e-mails showing the feds freaked out over the Sun-Sentinel’s stories about the agency’s…
The waiting room in Mitch Ceasar’s law office is stocked with fancy magazines. There’s Golf Connoisseur, Kiplinger’s, Wine Spectator, and, in a prominent position on top of the table, an issue of Cigar Aficionado with a grinning Gen. Tommy Franks on the cover. Not exactly the kind of publications you’d…
I’ve been wanting to get in here that my favorite Da Vinci Code article written in the United States to date came this Sunday in the Sun-Sentinel. Chauncey Mabe did it. I like Mabe. You’d think that a book editor with a name like that would be insufferable. But Mabe…
Jerry Berrios has a story in the Herald today about what she deemed “gatormania” in the light of the recent attacks. She included a line or two about a fatal attack on a mutt in West Palm Beach yesterday. “An alligator eating a dog is a common occurence,” Berrios writes,…
In the lead of his expansive story on Hawaii in the travel section of the Sunday Times, NYT editorial writer Lawrence Downes includes this little observation: “Hawaii’s blandly sunny face hides a turbulent history, an extra dimension of sadness and beauty. This is what separates Hawaii from the beach-and-beer nowheres…
Winton In an apparent game of one-upmanship, Miami City Commissioner Johnny Winton has outdone Deerfield Beach City Manager Larry Deetjen in airport tirades. The Miami Herald’s David Ovalle and Michael Vasquez do a bang-up job on deadline of telling us about Winton’s apparently drunken scuffle with cops last night at…
On January 3 of last year, Office Depot scored a home run with the Sun-Sentinel. Advertising and marketing columnist Jeff Zbar led his story this way: Office Depot is taking care of business again. The office supply retailer has reached back to refresh its long-time “Taking Care of Business” marketing…
Deetjen (far left) with Jeb Bush In light of Deerfield Beach City Manager Larry Deetjen’s racist blowup at the Palm Beach County Airport, I feel it is incumbent upon the Pulp to allow Deetjen a full airing of his defense. It comes in the form of a memo he wrote…
Gator That Killed Jimenez Some newspapers — I’m looking north here — are starting to take these memorial guestbook things way too far. When the Miami Herald did one for Gene Miller, it proved that these things can transcend the coverage of an event. But at the Palm Beach Post…
Deetjen Occasionally the Pulp busts some news. This is one of those times. I just received a copy of police reports concerning an argument at the Palm Beach County Airport last month. It involved Deerfield Beach City Manager Larry Deetjen and a black Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office parking cop. It,…
I don’t know what’s in the water (or the estrogen) around here, but in South Florida right now a handful of journalistas are lighting up the newspapers in the crime-writing department. From the Herald you have this generation’s grande dame of the genre, Wanda DeMarzo. She’s relentless, has the best…
And I’m back. That to me was the funniest thing that SNL guy who everyone is slowly forgetting about did on that show. What was his name? Jimmy Fallon. It was the bit where he played the morning DJ. The Osama-Saddam phone bit he did with the fat guy was…
Sorry for the lack of action yesterday, but the NT corporate attorney pulled a post from the blog after my editor sent it to him. It wasted my time and the lawyer was dead wrong, but hey, that’s the newspaper business for you. It was a reminder to me that…
Slow day at the Pulp, so I thought I’d unleash a dose of Malcolm English on you. I don’t know who Malcolm English is, but I suspect that (s)he is a Sun-Sentinel writer. It’s certain that (s)he has a major grudge against the Palm Beach Post. But that’s what I…
The big investigation among this week’s Big Three newspapers was the Palm Beach Post’s look at abuse of the federal government’s food stamp program after Wilma. Good work by Kathleen Chapman, but I don’t know about the headline “Real need or unchecked greed?” Anybody who would wait in ridiculous lines…
I have to thank the Sun-Sentinel this morning for finally allowing me to achieve my lifelong dream of winning $25 from the Columbia Journalism Review. The money is for that back-page thing, “Lower Case,” where they run headline gaffes. And mine came from the Sentinel. Okay, I haven’t actually received…
