Yahoo For Tiger

Did you see on Romenesko that New York Times sports business columnist Richard Sandomir criticized the 60 Minutes puff piece on Tiger Woods that aired this past Sunday. Sandomir did a good job, but he missed two things. 1. Ed Bradley gave Tiger not one, but two jovial fist bumps…

Someone Has To Die Tonight

From the “What The Hell Do I Know” file, the Herald story about the FDLE chief’s e-mails in the Bay County boot camp death case caused the special prosecutor to take the FDLE off the case. You may recall that I derided the story as overplayed and overstated, saying the…

Of All The Pictures In All The World …

Did anybody fail to notice the dominant art on the Sentinel sports page today? It’s Maria Sharapova bending down after a serve. But what’s she’s really serving up is maximum cleavage. You know some of that plum, fair, privileged Sharapova cleavage that you don’t come across every day (if you…

Tube Boobs Take Over Newspaperland

Newspapers have lost it lately over television. The fearless leaders of the industry seem to think it sells newspapers to talk about television and reporters are more than happy to oblige them by writing about it. Beats work, you know. There’s nothing wrong with good TV reporting, but endless jabbering…

If Waldman’s a Dem, What’s With the GOP Cash?

Coconut Creek Commissioner and state House candidate Jim Waldman claims that his heart is with the Democrats, but a look at his campaign contributions shows that his wallet is being stuffed by Republicans. One of the lawyer’s chief financial backers, private college heavy Arthur Keiser, is a major GOP donor…

Something Is Happening Here, Mr. Jones

The Key West Citizen has an exhaustively reported story today by Chris Tittel about a weird murder that’s got Pulp splattered all over it. Hard-luck factory worker Johnny Ray Holt in Alabama robs girlfriend’s parents’ house, drives down to Key West, kills a man in his house and steals his…

FEMA Veddy Veddy Good To Sentinel

Two of the South Florida-based Pulitzer finalists — the Sentinel’s FEMA stories and the Herald’s hurricane tracking series — went head to head in the prestigious IRE (Investigative Reporters & Editors) journalism contest and the winner is … The Sentinel’s FEMA submission. It won a certificate from IRE while the…

Pulp Puts Herald In The Hot Seat

Carol Marbin Miller is moving on the Bay County boot camp death again, this time writing about FDLE director Guy Tunnell’s e-mails about the investigation. The headline on the Web: “E-mails put Florida investigator in hot seat.” Now I may be jaded, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of…

How Benevolent Is That?

What happens when you invesigate South Florida’s finest? Well, for Channel 4’s Mike Kirsch it meant having a BOLO put out his ass. “Channel 4 News is… setting up officers and instigating confrontations, then filing complaints with the various police departments,” the Broward County Police Benevolent Association wrote about Kirsch…

The Phantom Bank Shot?

UF seems to be kissed by destiny in this years NCAA tournament — but that ridiculous Corey Brewer shot didn’t kiss off the glass. Not So Lucky That Time Did it? You remember the falling-down shot Brewer hit to help seal the deal against Georgetown on Friday night? The shot…

It’s Alright Ma (He Was Only Bleeding)

More on the Anthony Clark saga from the Sentinel’s Paula McMahon. She reports today that Clark “isn’t proud” that he left Norris Gaynor on the ground to die without so much as an anonymous phone call to 911. “His attorney said Thursday that Clark did not realize the victim, Norris…

Help a Dying Man? Don’t Bother

The Herald ran another story on the homeless beating deaths this morning — and, unlike yesterday, it named Anthony Clarke, the man who witnessed part of the beating, saw Norris Gaynor dying on the ground, and went home without so much as notifying authorities. But they added this caveat: “Broward…

Submit, You Pathetic Loser

Pastor Bob So what happens when a fundamentalist preacher gets an advice column in a mainstream daily newspaper? The Sun-Sentinel recently found out. Pastor Bob Coy of the Cavalry Chapel has been doing occasional columns in the Sentinel’s Saturday newspaper called “Ask Pastor Bob.” I never noticed the thing and…

Oh, Canada

Southwest Ranches Town Manager John Canada is officially above the law. The man who runs the Ranches, that wealthy rural “horse community” in the southwest corner of Broward County, isn’t beholden to the state’s Code of Ethics. That means a conflict of interest is no conflict at all for Pat…

Gunz for Hire

Reports of the death of South Florida’s top political website, Politics1.com, were greatly exaggerated. Both the Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel published stories back in January 2005 stating that Ron Gunzburger, the lawyer and political animal who runs Politics1, was killing the massive site. They reported the news based on…

Magazine Copy Rights

When Palm Beach Post crime reporter Stephanie Slater read the story in the glossy Boca Raton Magazine, she broke down and cried right there in the newsroom. It was like she’d been robbed. Slater, who also serves as president of the Florida Press Club, complained to editors that her work…

The GOP’s Buddy

The Lauderdale Beach Republican Club had a problem: There was a Democrat in the house. Or in the resort, to be specific. The Clarion Beach Resort in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Club founder Bob Wolfe invited Sun-Sentinel political reporter Buddy Nevins to address the flock at its monthly meeting on February 6 at…

Stop the Internets!

Kids at St. Thomas Aquinas High School are learning a tough lesson about MySpace.com: It isn’t really their space at all. The Archdiocese of Miami, which owns the private Catholic school, has taken over the networking Internet site, at least as far as St. Thomas students are concerned. One student…

Bros and Cons

It’s starting to hurt all over for Parkland Mayor Bob Marks. First, he’s the subject of a criminal investigation of his financial ties with WCI Communities, the biggest developer in town. Then his wife, Carolyn, files to run against him. But don’t worry — their marriage is as strong as…

Stupid (Young) White Men

In my Plantation neighborhood, the kids all seemed to have met Tom Daugherty, one of the boys accused of beating a homeless man to death in Fort Lauderdale. “He was on pills,” said one. “Zany bars,” said another. It’s one of those things that everybody knows but nobody knows —…

Firing Squad

When the Plantation Acres Improvement District had an emergency government meeting on January 5, no agenda was posted. But everyone in attendance knew exactly what was going to happen. They were going to fire Lee Hillier, manager of the $1 million, tax-subsidized district that oversees water drainage in the Acres…

The Alien Has Landed

The extraterrestrial sits on a couch in his bare feet, as always. He looks up at a blank artist’s canvas hanging crookedly on the wall. Only it’s not blank. There are vague grayish shapes and blotches in the white background. “That picture is transforming right now,” Prince Mongo proclaims. “It’s…