If a journalist were to write a first-person article chronicling her jewelry store robbery, her editor might be inclined to say, “Um, that sounds kinda illegal, sort of. We shouldn’t run this.” Or at least title the piece “If I Did It.”
But when a reporter recounts her trip through New York’s Canal Street on a quest to score counterfeit bags, her editor knows it’s going to wind up on the paper’s most-emailed list. So: onward, enterprising scribe!
These stories aren’t new – but, news peg: Fashion Week! – and they’re transparently hinged upon our innate desire to go up close with the black market. Readers love these stories for the same reasons we love To Catch a Predator: It’s journalistic porn.
But Elaine Pasekoff’s story, in the Miami Herald last week, where her life intersected at Canal and Mott, has the paper’s ombuds Edward Schumacher-Maltos reaming her out.
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Nothing said “taking Thanksgiving off” like a (faux) gunman storming the Miami Herald. Lucky us, now that it’s Monday and we’re getting around to Friday’s story (which we saw the NYT homepage ignore for hours and hours) – where former cartoonist Jose Varela dressed in police getup, donned a knife and fake machinegun, and raided El Nuevo Herald’s offices, discontent with how the Spanish-language paper covers the Cuba-Miami community, before being apprehended without incident – all that’s left to feed on is a judge’s order that Varela undergo a mental health exam. (We’ll save the taxpayer dollars: He’s crazy.)
Judge David H. Young also mandated Verela not to have any contact with Miami Herald employees. Which, of course, will have the ultimate irony of keeping the Herald from pouncing on this story with an exclusive interview.
In a Miami Herald staff meeting on Tuesday, Tom Fielder, the paper’s executive editor used a somewhat insulting metaphor to describe the listeners of Cuban Radio. We have to sign up for the Miami Herald to get the full article, which is taking forever, so we don’t exactly know what this meeting was about … but we assume it has something to do with those who were laid off for accepting bribes from our extremely ethical government.
In staff meetings Tuesday, Miami Herald reporters asked whether the paper was caving to critics. Editor Tom Fiedler dismissed that notion, saying the ”22 people who listen to Cuban radio” were being stirred up by ”little chihuahuas nipping at our heels.” He later apologized for his choice of words.
Yeah. We can see how calling a group of Latinos “chihuahuas” might be taken as an offense. But, the editor apologized, and said he meant no harm by his choice of words. It just popped into his head for whatever reason.
Words are important. Using them properly is critical to me as executive editor of this newspaper and to me personally. I am conscious of the power of words to render good. And the power of words to create hurt.
I am guilty of using words that created hurt by way of an ill-chosen metaphor I used during a newsroom staff meeting Tuesday.
I want to repeat my sincere apologies for those remarks. I was referring to a particular critic mounting relentless attacks on our newsroom for the last several weeks charging that we are in league with the Cuban government. I used an unfortunate term, intending only to refer to the persistence and sharpness of the commentary. My intent was not to offend anyone, although I now realize that I did. Again, my deepest apologies.
If only he had the foresight to have said “poodles” instead.
Fiedler Apologizes, But For What? [New Times]
An apology over my words [Miami Herald]
Miami Herald editor apologizes for “ill-chosen metaphor” [Romenesko]
Today, we got a tip from Miami rag New Times, pointing to a recent “blogger bust” article they ran. And who doesn’t love a good one of those. This one points to Lesley Abravanel’s blog for rival paper Miami Herald called Scene in the Tropics, and New Times is accusing the Abravanel of lying, and saying that she was somewhere she wasn’t.
In any case it’s difficult to account for Abravanel’s postings July 23 on her blog (blogs.herald.com/scene_in_the_tropics). They describe hobnobbing with Mrs. Ciccone-Ritchie and witnessing a cold-shoulder catfight next to the La Perla catwalk.
She wasn’t there. The Bitch, who knows Abravanel and was at those same places at the same times, doesn’t remember seeing her.
Funny, because when we looked at Abravanel’s blog (providing it hasn’t been updated since the time of the post) we get the distinct feeling that this blogger was posting sightings, and not claiming to be at The Setai (where she saw Madonna). Abravanel admitted to being on vacation when these incidents took place, causing the accusation that she “claimed to be in two places at the same time.
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So, we sort of glazed over this story this morning because we were so inundated with Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, and Jessica Joffe. Plus, we thought it was common knowledge that most reporters were paid by the government. (Kidding, Observers, kidding!)
We’ll cut to the chase. 10 Miami reporters who were being paid upwards of $100,000 by the U.S. government (where the fuck are we? Russia?) have been exposed by the good side. Among those who were willing to sell their soul and obviously missed that J-Schoo ethics class include “veteran reporters” from El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language subsidiary of the Miami Herald, along with various radio reporters.
The “journalists” (pictured below) were paid thousands by the White House over “several years” to carry out the duty of undermining Cuba’s communist government under Fidel Castro. To the Spanish people so they would vote Republican …. we assume.
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• Self-proclaimed “world’s first supermodel” Janice Dickinson is taking her dirty mouth from the small screen to the mirrored walls of Equinox, throwing around insults and treating other sweaty bodies to a locker room meltdown. Janice, of course, says she gets along nicely with everyone there
• Fired Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede, who illegally taped a phone call with counselman and suicide victim Arthur Teele, claims his former employer initially said it would defend him before pulling a 180 and ejecting him.
• It’s not exactly a book deal, but Mischa Barton ex Brandon Davis landed a fictional starring role in Melissa de la Cruz’s new book The Au Pairs Skinny-Dipping.
• News Corp. execs are trying to reassure MySpace users that its recent acquisition will in no way affect normal use of the site. Or, as president and co-founder Tom Anderson said, he’s “not going to let things suck.”
• The New York Times is looking at a reopened libel case from Steven Hatfill, who sued the paper in claiming columnists unjustly linked him to 2001’s anthrax mailings.
• It’s time to vote for the ladies of Conde Nast.
• American Idol casting begins August 18, so start packing your sleeping bags and find out when producers will be in your city.
Now we know of plenty of ways to cause a scene at a publication, whether it’s having your sources exposed as fraudulent or having your white mink sprayed with red paint by some PETA activists. Shooting yourself in the head, however, never really occurred to us.
Unfortunately, it did for Miami Commissioner Art Teele, who walked into the lobby of the Miami Harold yesterday afternoon and put a bullet in his head, but not before he dropped of a note intended for columnist Jim DeFede.
It took a couple hours for Teele to actually die, which he did at the hospital with his wife Stephanie at his side. And just two hours after he passed, DeFede got the pink slip. Apparently he taped a phone call with Teele without the commissioner’s permission, a fact DeFede admitted to his bosses without their prior knowledge of it, he claims.
Which brings yesterday’s Miami Herald death toll to two.