The governor’s office accidentally e-mailed mainstream media outlets a round-up listing “all inquiries by reporters to state agencies. You can bet the statehouse reporters consumed every word of this missive with zeal and I’m assuming (because New Times didn’t receive the e-mail) that there’s some interesting info. On the Miami…
In my own newspaper’s Tailpipe, there’s a a piece regarding Fort Lauderdale’s recent proposal to sweep the streets clean of scum. You know, like newsracks. George Gretsas wants to take all the newsracks down — including ones holding the best weekly in town — and replace them with “modulars.” The…
A Broward County teacher is getting disciplined — and probably will be fired — for content on his MySpace page. Jean-Paul Renaud reports in the Sun-Sentinel that 31-year-old Scott Davis, who teaches band at Pompano Beach High School is getting the business for “profanity, inappropriate photographs and depression/alcohol/drug content.” Here’s…
You know, it really isn’t fair. I have to dig up information, usually regarding extremely complicated and convoluted matters, to break big stories. Good journalism isn’t easy. Sources won’t talk, or they are afraid to talk, powerful people put you on their enemies’ list, governments screw around with public records…
Is She Ugly Or What? Ever wondered what they really do to make stars look flawless on those glossy celebrity magazine covers? Click here to see the amazing before-and-after Faith Hill photos from her Redbook shoot. It’s downright ghoulish. Redbook editor Stacy Morrison, meanwhile, defends the touch-up, saying it is…
Burt Strikes Again Remember when Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson made national headlines for proposing a resolution to change the name of French fries to freedom fries? That was back in 2003, when the commish was outraged that the country of France opposed George W. Bush’s war in Iraq…
The Miami Herald’s Fred Grimm takes on a website that revels in cockfighting and underground human fighting. In it he takes some jabs at Miami attorney David Markus, who runs the Southern District of Florida blog and is defending the website’s ability to show roosters killing each other with citations…
Almost missed this, but Gov. Charlie Crist has appointed the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office to investigate Judges Larry Seidlin and Robert Zack. Hopefully there will be separate investigations of each judge and prosecutors will delve deeply into Seidlin’s relationship with an elderly woman in his condo building who has bestowed…
The Sun-Sentinel’s web page redesign is … an improvement. Main thin is that it’s a whole lot easier to navigate the actual news, since they’ve put more of it out there on the page. They done good. And there’s a good news story in the paper today as well. Tonya…
… and not the kind you drive. State Rep. State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested yesterday after he police say he offered to give oral to an undercover male officer for twenty bucks in a public bathroom. After the arrest, Allen, a married father who gets an A-rating from the…
Larry Seidlin, the recently resigned Broward judge and would-be TV star, was once the best of friends with attorney Lawrence ¨Chris¨ Roberts. They chummed together in the courthouse every day. They dined and vacationed together. But today they´re involved in a very public battle that could wind up in a…
So the 19-year-old murder suspect who was in a shoot-out with deputies wasn’t killed by cops but by himself. And he shot himself twice in the torso to get the job done. Sounds crazy, but based on what’s been reported by witnesses and the Medical Examiner’s Office, it seems to…
When the Gray Lady is really good, she’s really good. But when she’s bad, she’s spectacularly bad, too. For a case in point, check out this story about the Miami trial of alleged wannabe dirty bomber Jose Padilla and his alleged recruiter, Adham Hassoun. It reads at times like a…
The Miami Herald’s “Talk of the Town” columnist Joan Fleischman has another dandy report today with news that Miami-Dade Police Director Robert Parker is hitting up CBS-Channel 4 for a half million dollars or face a defamation lawsuit for an erroneous report that was aired last fall. Channel 4 apparently…
The Sun-Sentinel’s Vanessa Blum has an excellent article today about Adham Hassoun, the Sunrise man accused of aiding terrorists overseas. The article basically supports what seemed to be obvious from the get-go: The government doesn’t have the goods on Hassoun and the trial itself is more anti-American than anything the…
Sun-Sentinel columnist Micheal Mayo weighs in on the Seidlin story this morning with a piece focused on Lawrence “Chris” Roberts, the man who blew the whistle on Judges Larry Seidlin and Robert Zack. The piece has its merits, including being the first to report that Roberts was planning to move…
… And the Palm Beach Post censored it from their news stories, which surprises me. The AP’s Brian Skoloff reports today on a gang rape in West Palm Beach in which a gang of teenagers, some of them in middle school, raped a woman and forced her 12-year-old son to…
I don’t get the big deal over the Scooter Libby thing. George W. Bush said from the beginning that if he found the leaker, they would be “taken care of.” He’s taking care of Libby right now, just as originally promised. And well, too. Read Larry Lipman’s piece in the…
A look at Judge Larry Seidlin’s financial disclosure forms not only shows that he never reported any gifts from wealthy widow Barbara Kasler, but they also reveal that the feds hit him for $11,000 in taxes and penalties for allegedly failing to report profits he made from stocks in 2004…
Remember feature writer Chris Hutchins at the Palm Beach Post? Well, now he’s J.C. Hutchins of podcast semi-fame, New Times’ Amy Guthrie tells us. Hutchins has written a clone-populated sci-fi trilogy called “7th Son” and when he couldn’t get it published, started with the podcasts on Podiobooks.com. The pod thing…
Ah, the Fourth of July. A time to remember our freedoms to say what we want, do as we please, and publish a front page of a newspaper without any articles on it. That’s the way the Sun-Sentinel celebrated, anyway. Their cramped front page came sans stories. Just a photo…
What’s really going to be fascinating as the Judge Larry investigation gets going is how much he really procured from Barbara Kasler, the lonely old and wealthy woman whom he “reverse-adopted.” Seidlin befriended Kasler and began delivering her meals to her every day and taking her to the hospital and…
