Dan Kennedy: Print is dying, Digital is no savior: The Long, Ugly Decline of the Newspaper Continues Apace ... by gimleteye

We started blogging Eye On Miami in 2007. Not sure how far this unpaid ultra-marathon can continue. We began with the entrepreneurial spirit that the market (ie. for newspapers) failed to print news and views of importance to us; mainly because subscription or advertiser-driven newspapers do not want to bite the hand that feeds them.

Since we began, a few facts became obvious to us. First, maintaining a loyal audience requires daily blogging. The reason we can keep an audience at EOM is that our readers know we write from experience and knowledge about the inner workings of Miami-Dade County (and sometimes the municipalities) and Florida. We write stories that sometimes people are surprised to read.

We are, as a result, sometimes investigative journalists. But we also bring strong opinions to what we write, and that is not accepted practice in journalism. We do that as a matter of economy of time. Since we are unpaid and don't have supervisors/ editors, we often write what we think or freely lift from other websites. To be sure, it is not a financial model. One writer dismissed what we do, saying: if she doesn't get paid, she doesn't write. Period. Fair enough. But then, you don't get views that are widely shared by readers but rarely in print because editors fear the backlash from advertisers.

I call what we do: civic journalism. Sometimes we investigate. Sometimes we opine. We always try to have a daily piece of interest, even if that means highlighting what other media have printed or blogged or streamed. Because we do this work for free, we are part of the flood of web-based "news" that is putting newspapers out of business.

What happened: newspapers had captive audiences. Their profit models were disrupted by online, free sources of information; sometimes more specific and tailored to audience segments than they (newspaper publishers) could provide without offending advertisers. To maintain profitability -- and the interest of investors who clamored for profits and "growth" from web-based sources of "news" -- publishers of newspapers axed staff and began putting out radically slimmed versions of the practical, payable, and possible. "All the news fit to print"? Scarcely. Newspapers began to bleed subscribers, and the result is exactly as Dan Kennedy describes for Medium (a high quality, free-to-readers service of in-depth articles of wide public interest: "The sky is falling on print newspapers faster than you think".

This is not good news for the bloggers at EOM. We do what we do here because we have already invested the time to understand in depth our subjects. We can be investigative journalists -- the highest function of print newspapers -- but if we did it all the time it would take over our lives.

Along this line, what I've learned in sixty one years on the planet: democracy cannot survive without a strong and independent press. The notion that what we do here is critical is frightening, because who can afford to write for free? This is a long way of saying: if American voters and taxpayers were smart, we would make reversing the decline of newspapers a high priority. Hiding content behind firewalls is not working. Basing newspapers (or web based services) on voluntary subscriptions: that is not working, either. (If it is, please let us know where!)


The sky is falling on print newspapers faster than you think
Medium, January 20, 2016
Dan Kennedy

Last October, a McKinsey report declared, “We believe that many of the people likely to abandon print newspapers and print consumer magazines have already done so…. We believe most of this core audience — households that have retained their print subscriptions despite having access to broadband — will continue to do so for now, effectively putting a floor on the print markets.”

Florida newspapers: trolling in polluted waters for readers … by gimleteye

One of the mysteries of 2014: why -- despite pressure from everyone from the Florida Congressional delegation to the White House -- did the US Army Corps of Engineers fail to sign off on a plan to help the Indian River Lagoon: the Central Everglades Planning Project.

One of the satisfying results of the pollution of the Indian River Lagoon: the emergence of Scripps Howard with the best newspaper coverage on the environment in the region. Eve Samples, a terrific writer on the environment for the TC Palm, was just promoted to editor of the paper.

Let me restate that in another way: because readers in the Indian River Lagoon region became enraged about pollution, the newspaper responded. (And by the way, so did Gov. Rick Scott.)

We haven't had an energized, muscular Miami Herald on the environment since Martha Musgrove retired from the Herald more than a decade ago. Interesting, too, that the Herald journalism on the environment in South Florida picked up once the international press started reporting on the jeopardy to Miami from climate change. (Jenny Staletovich, who moved into the environmental beat at the Herald, came from The Palm Beach Post, another South Florida newspaper that regularly outperforms the Herald on environmental coverage.)

Here is a recent Treasure Coast Palm, article:

The Army Corps of Engineers gave the Indian River Lagoon an early Christmas gift - and one that has been long overdue.

The agency announced Tuesday the signing of an 8,000-page report on the $1.9 billion Central Everglades Planning Project, which is expected to help reduce the number of discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the lagoon by diverting water south toward the Everglades.

Advocates have been waiting for the report approval, which was originally expected to come last year. After numerous delays, the Corps' Civil Works Review Board rejected the report in April, citing cost-sharing issues with the state.

Sorry to see this story: pay cut at Tampa Bay Times … by gimleteye

I'm not sure I agree with Peter Schorsch's blog assessment of shortcomings of the Tampa Bay Times. He writes, "Today’s pay cut announcement reminds us that the Tampa Bay Times is the Boston Celtics of regional newspapers." Meaning, the paper has been resting on its laurels.

For seven years now we've been at our blog, Eye On Miami, and ours is a frequent one-way dialogue with our city's newspaper of note: The Miami Herald.

We started writing, believing that maybe the Herald editors (publisher/s?) would see there is a dedicated audience for strong local content bearing a sharp, critical eye (hence, gimleteye). Alas. We were wrong.

The Herald has been less and less relevant, as financial pressures erode Miami's only daily newspaper (although the publishers and top line executives never seem to suffer). Part of what keeps us going is that there are other newspapers in Florida where tough-minded editorial content seeps throughs; the Tampa Bay Times being first and foremost.

Now the Times, owned by the non-profit Poynter Foundation, is contracting (read, reporter salaries). Nothing good came from the Herald's contraction, and nothing good will come from the Times'.

In a fair and equitable democracy, there would be a public clamor for print journalism above and beyond the stipulations of the so-called free market.  I don't know if that discussion will ever happen in the United States …


By Peter Schorsch on September 18, 2014
st. petersburg times

It is another dark day at 490 First Avenue South, the headquarters of the struggling Tampa Bay Times. CEO and Publisher Paul Tash lowered the boom with a memo outlining a 5 percent pay cut for all staff — or whatever staff is left after forced layoffs further decimate the newspaper.

It’s so bad at the Times, which is facing a 2016 deadline to pay back a $28 million loan from high-interest lender Boston-based Crystal Financial LLC, is warning employees to take the blue pill, resign voluntarily now and receive 13 weeks severance pay or take the red pill, take your chances and see your severance package capped at eight weeks.

Collapse of print news … by gimleteye

The website Medium publishes: "Last Call: The End of the Printed Newspaper".

Back in 2007, when Eye On Miami began its daily blogging quest, we had in mind to challenge the Miami Herald's tepid coverage of local and state news. The city's only daily newspaper made us angry: there was so much to report that never saw the light of day.

Who can argue, though, that a newspaper is a business and a business has to turn a profit to succeed? On the other hand, the idea of newspaper publishers making tidy fortunes while reporters and other staff struggled to make ends meet … what values are upheld by that equation?

"It’s tempting to try to find a moral dimension to newspapers’ collapse, but there isn’t one. All that’s happened is advertisers are leaving, classifieds first, inserts last. Business is business; the advertisers never had a stake in keeping the newsroom open in the first place. This disconnection between the business side and the news side was celebrated as a benefit, right up to the moment it became an industry-wide point of failure."

Yes it is tempting to find a moral dimension in the collapse of newspapers. Civil society and, arguably, democracy depends on an educated electorate. The demise of print journalism and the difficulty of maintaining web based sources of news speaks to the state of the union.

Frank Rich to leave The New York Times: a view from the samizdat ... by gimleteye

I wasn't always a fan of Frank Rich. When he was the New York Times main theater critic and I was aiming to write for the theater, Rich's blistering reviews had all the subtlety of a natural gas explosion. We moved on but never far from view.

In this fucked up world, Frank Rich's editorials in the Times-- sometimes three times as long as standard opinion pieces-- stood out as a beacon of clarity if not hope. News that Rich is leaving the Sunday Times is deeply troubling. I can live with the mystery why Rich is leaving one of the most important posts in journalism to a monthly column at New York Magazine. I can't live without a muscular New York Times. Without Frank Rich or someone as keenly observant, the Times is a weaker newspaper.

For more than 30 years, Rich lent the Times uncompromising luminosity on American politics. He was one of our most clear-headed observers of the radical right and its horrid results. As a cultural and political commentator, Rich has the great talent to weave facts in the narrative to which they belong, exposing fabrication, lies and decoding the world we live in. If there is another voice at the Times who can do Rich's work, as well, it would be good to know.

I dislike writing of Rich, in an elegiac way. We are the same generation. Again, it is the Times that worries. Like all major newspapers, the Times is suffering. Last night, I offered a friend a view: that a cultured society would not throw the newspaper business to the Internet wolves, leaving us all to Google News and pathetic advertising vehicles like Fox and ignoramuses masquerading as men and women of sober wisdom. But we are not a cultured society. We are a society made up mostly of idiots, with an even higher percentage in our legislatures and Congress: the underlying fact that pushed Frank Rich to one of the loftiest perches in American journalism.

Journalists in transition...depressing topic. By Geniusofdespair

The Society of Professional Journalists mistakenly believes there are some REAL paid journalists at this blog. Luckily, we don't get paid and are NOT facing a lay-off otherwise we might be forced to attend this depressing workshop that they are sponsoring on April 10th: "Life After Journalism, repackaging your skills for a career change."

Who would have thought, in my lifetime, that 'Journalism' would not have been a smart career choice.

Outside the box: a surtax on utilities to restore journalism ... by gimleteye

Our blog has taken plenty of pot shots at The Miami Herald over the years, but we've also recognized that high quality investigative reporting can accomplish what unpaid bloggers rarely do: break important stories that require the investment of time and research and are important, one way or another, to the public interest. Journalism is not an air plant: it needs a profit model. There has been an endless amount of ink spilled on this issue. I think the answer is simple: treat the consumer base and news as an extension of regulated utilities. Anyone who gets an electric utility or water bill, gets a surcharge to support paid journalism.

That the Great Recession/Depression has put newspapers under unprecedented pressure is not news. It takes blogs like ours to point out that the pressure of profits from advertisers constrained most if not all daily newspapers from tracking and reporting out the housing market bubble as it was rising; there was no criticism of these sacred cows and, as a result, no public pressure where it might have built in defense of reasonable measures to protect the nation's financial, insurance and banking systems. (The print journalism sources who did the best job, like Harpers Magazine, or -- in Florida-- The St. Pete Times, are not hooked up to the Wall Street quarterly profit squeeze.)

A reasonable people would conclude that being asleep at the switch-- as the mainstream press was, leading up to our economic crisis-- is a matter of national defense, not just a matter of talk and hand-wringing at Congressional committees.

Our own, only daily newspaper-- The Miami Herald-- so carefully balanced income and expenses that it missed reporting the political origins of the housing boom and bust, right in South Florida, completely. I've written this before: our democracy cannot survive the withering of independent journalism. It is a death by degrees. In 2009, Congressional hearings on "The Future of Journalism" took a close look at these issues. They were explored in detail. There, David Simon, former journalist with The Baltimore Sun and writer of the acclaimed series, The Wire, testified, " In short, my industry butchered itself and we did so at the behest of Wall Street and the same unfettered, free-market logic that has proved so disastrous for so many American industries. And the original sin of American newspapering lies, indeed, in going to Wall Street in the first place. When locally-based, family-owned newspapers like the Sun were consolidated into publicly-owned newspaper chains, an essential dynamic, an essential trust between journalism and the communities served by that journalism was betrayed."

But if journalism doesn't go to Wall Street or to Rupert Murdoch and the Fox News Circles of Hell, where does it go? I think it has to go on our electric or water utility bills. We need independent journalism the same way we need water and light. Of course, as we well know and report on our blog, there is a whole other set of difficulties with regulating the purveyors of electricity and water. Florida's dismal politics have allowed utilities to act in ways that are often contrary to the public interest in order to prioritize the 20 year investment schedules of the Engineering Cartel and Growth Machine. The mechanics of allocating income from a surtax on utilities, in order to insulate and firewall journalism and its beneficiaries from exactly the rat's nest of problems that afflict the relationship of consumers to utilities today, needs to be carefully sorted out.

There are all sorts of problems with this out-of-the-box idea to save journalism, but none are greater or more looming than the demise of American democracy.

"Biscayne Times" is alive and expanding its reach. By Geniusofdespair

At a time when many newspapers are cutting corners, Jim Mullin, Publisher and Editor, is expanding the reach of his freebie Biscayne Times. His paper is now available all the way to the North Miami Dade County-line. I looked at it this morning - last time I reported on Mulllin was April 2007 around when he became Publisher, almost 3 years ago. The paper has plenty of big ads and it is full-color. Must cost a small fortune to print. I always read Jack King and Frank Rollason's columns. Jack King wrote about news reporting online (unreliable) and on paper (St. Pete Times rocks) in this issue and Frank Rollason wrote about crooks in local government (a favorite subject of mine).

Anyway, it is good to see the paper succeeding in this market. I was happy when a menu fell out for "Urbannite Bistro." I always wanted to go to a restaurant in walking distance to the Arsht Center so I could park early and eat. This place is at 62 NE 14th Street. Worth a try. I wouldn't have heard of it if not for Biscayne Times. You can read the paper online if it is out of your reach.

Hope you have continued success Jim. I am glad you didn't leave Florida when your gig at New Times ended.

Readers: The Good News...and the Bad. By Geniusofdespair

The bad news is that newspapers aren't doing so well. The once bustling Suffolk Life in New York, now boarded up, stands as a sad example. It folded about a year ago. But take heart, there is good news on the horizon for readers, magazines are dirt cheap! I just got offered two different magazines, Money and Fortune for $10 each a year: that is eighty three cents an issue! If I get 3 years of Fortune at the cover price it would cost $275.46. They are offering me the three years for $20! That is a zillion dollars off...well close. It comes out to thirty three cents an issue, which translates to about 18 minutes at a parking meter.

My advice for good value, forget books and newspapers, instead read magazines but don't get too long of a subscription just to be on the safe side.

Miami Herald: Bellwether? By Geniusofdespair

Daily, in the Miami Herald, there are articles about wacko Rubio. Not a peep about Meek. First, what is this reporting doing? Second, does the volume of ink overshadow the content?

My mother-in-law, at 102, has the cognitive ability of many Herald readers. She is not what she once was but still a sharp tack. She can comprehend but not exactly make reasoned analysis anymore. As I said, she is like many Herald readers. She gets all her news from the Miami Herald. And, like many Herald readers, the content of an article like today's article, is somewhat glossed over by her. All she sees is another article about Rubio. She thinks, he is getting popular.

Sunday she said, "Crist is in trouble." Now where exactly did she get that idea? It wasn't from me as all we seem to talk about are her health issues.

Miami New Times and Biscayne Times in kerfluffle ... by gimleteye

Chuck Strouse picks a strange fight with his predecessor, Jim Mullin, on the website of the New Times blog, Riptide 2.0

Click 'read more', to read the Strouse diatribe and the BT editorial by Jack King that triggered it. I'm OK with Strouse defending how well his newspaper is doing; but why bring up the sad circumstances of Mullin's departure, or, the fact that ex New Times writers are taking a paycheck from the Biscayne Times, a much smaller monthly? It's a mystery why he raised these points out of context of factual inaccuracies he claims against the BT. Can anyone shed some light on this kerfluffle?

Miami New Times Editor to Predecessor: Back Off, Pipsqueak!
By Chuck Strouse in El JefeFriday, Jun. 12 2009 @ 9:18AM

I once thought Biscayne Times editor and publisher Jim Mullin was a principled, smart journalist. I don't anymore.
Jack King's June commentary "Miami's Media Muddle" in the BT should embarrass both Mullin and the writer. It calls Miami New Times "a shadow of its former self," says the staff is "down to nothing," and asserts "the value of the editorial content is even less."

This is utter garbage.

First because it is factually incorrect: the editorial staff - which by the way is bigger than it has been in years -- has won more awards than ever before in the last two years. We took the Investigative Reporters and Editors prize last year for the best investigation in America after breaking news of the sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. And we have delivered more than 40 state and regional awards, better than ever in our history. What has the Biscayne Times won? Ever?

Second because the piece is ethically challenged. Not only did it fail to mention that after almost 20 years, Mullin left New Times in disgrace after the suicide of a local African American politician. But it didn't say that eight people listed on the masthead as "contributors" have received New Times paychecks. Perhaps bitterness drove the comments. But how would the reader know?

I guess Jack King forgot to call for a response. He may not know better. Mullin should.

Miami’s Media Muddle
Written by Jack King
You know things are shaky when the BT scoops everyone in town

Last month Biscayne Times did something that should have never been done: It scooped Miami’s big-city daily, four big-city television stations, and one big-city alternative weekly with a story that was right under their collective noses. The story, of course, was about the truly excessive salaries and benefits the City of Miami pays to many of its employees (“Gravy Train,” May 2009).

The first question that comes to my mind is this: Are we that good here, or are they that bad there. Alas, I am afraid it is the latter -- no offense to “Gravy Train” author Erik Bojnansky. And to punctuate that point, you have to understand that we had the story for several weeks and were absolutely fearful that someone else would discover it and break it before we could go to press. That’s no small fear when you only publish monthly in a news environment in which the Internet breaks news every minute.

And that may just be the crux of the problem. It is very easy to break news, but it is not so easy to gather news, especially quality investigative reporting. After all, this is the town that invented the instant news cycle for television. Some 20 years ago, the so-called reporters at WSVN-TV (Channel 7) sat by their police scanners, ready to leap at a moment’s notice to cover Miami’s latest auto accident or police shooting.

It was easy, took no brains, filled hours of mostly dead time on television, and gave rise to the catchy phrase, “If It Bleeds, It Leads.” After years of this crap, the public began to think this was actually news.

Miami’s two giants in the print news business, the Miami Herald and the weekly New Times, are quietly, slowly falling on hard times. Ten years ago they were considered among the best in their respective areas. Now both of them are reeling under huge debt and doing everything they can to cut costs, mostly by eliminating writers and editors.

The Herald and 31 other Knight Ridder daily newspapers were purchased in June 2006 by the McClatchy Company for a hell of a lot more than the Herald and the rest of them were worth. (Total price: $4.5 billion.) Even worse, the Herald is worth much less now than when purchased. Not a good business model. So what is a good business model? How about firing or buying out most everyone in the editorial department and replacing them with recent journalism school grads who will work for 50-percent less pay and few benefits. That’s a business model that works, but not for long. And who gets the short end of the stick? How about the paper’s readers, who think, at least for the time being, they’re still getting a quality product. Fat chance.

Miami New Times is a sad case. Once a beacon of journalistic light in the darkness that is Miami, today it is, as they say, a mere shadow of its former self. For years, while the Herald was chasing Pulitzer Prizes, New Times was chasing local news and doing it well. Now their staff is down to about nothing, the value of the editorial content is even less, and their only hope is to find a way to make money off their blog, Riptide 2.0. It is good and it’s timely, but it’s not very effective at generating revenue.

I had thought New Times could survive on its classified section and adult ads. That doesn’t seem to be so. Even the hookers are affected by the economic downturn. Who would have thought? I always believed that sin was recession-proof.

Even the ego media is suffering. Ocean Drive magazine, whose founder, Jerry Powers, sold out last year, is dropping its sister publications like hot stones. It won’t be long before Ocean Drive will be alone and considerably smaller than it is now.

Staying with the ego-publication business (and there have been many over the years in Miami), Elena Carpenter’s Miami Monthly looks like it might be going down also. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that Ms. Carpenter and I were partners in a now-defunct publication for a short period. She and I may have had our differences, but I don’t like to see any publication fail.) Miami Monthly is a classic Miami publication -- fantastic art direction and vaporous editorial content. How do I know Miami Monthly is in trouble? They were running in-house ads begging people to subscribe in order to keep the publication going. Gutsy, but not especially effective.

So we have the mainstream media in the crapper, the electronic media in the crapper, the alternative media in the crapper, and the ego media in the crapper. That leaves us with online media, which get millions of hits on every major and minor site every day. Unfortunately no one has been able to make any money off of it. And if you consider the fact that Internet media steal most of their information from the mainstream media, where does that leave us when the mainstream media stops giving away news for free? Frankly, I don’t know. And that’s one of the reasons I don’t write as much as I used to.

I still have high hopes for the journalism business, and that includes Biscayne Times, which publisher Jim Mullin blithely describes as “a clean-cut, hyper-local niche newspaper-magazine hybrid.”

Journalism is the lifeblood of the knowledge business, and knowledge is power. That cliché “what you don’t know won’t hurt you” is completely wrong. What you don’t know will adversely affect your life in many ways.

The New York Times has a project in conjunction with Google called TimesReader 2.0. It is as close to an online newspaper as I have seen. It is still in the experimental stage, and it is free, at least for now. They might be on to something. It’s been a long time coming.

Feedback: letters@biscaynetimes.com

Want to Recognize Some of The Miami Herald Reporters Who Won the Sunshine State Awards. By Geniusofdespair

Thanks all of you for your excellent reporting:

The James Batten Award for Public Service and the Gene Miller Award for Investigative Reporting were awarded to Jack Dolan, Matt Haggman and Rob Barry for their series, ''Borrowers Betrayed,'' showing the state's failure to keep criminals out of the mortgage industry. Breaking News Photography, Patrick Farrell, for his photos of the destruction and deaths in Haiti caused by last year's storms. International Reporting, Jacqueline Charles, for her stories of the same storms and the human tragedy that followed.

Local Political Government Reporting, Larry Lebowitz, for his series, ''Taken for a Ride,'' highlighting widespread waste in Miami-Dade's transit tax program. (more)

Medical /Health Care/Science Reporting, Jay Weaver, for his series, ''South Florida's Medicare Racket,'' showing massive fraud among recipients of Medicare dollars.

Serious Column Writing, Fred Grimm, for his street columns on a wide range of topics, including the homeless beating trial, the Miami underpass camp for sex offenders and the impact of the Everglades land deal on Clewiston.

Compare: Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post on legislature ... by gimleteye

I'll say straight out: it's not exactly fair to compare a news report with a newspaper editorial column. But I have been trying to make a point about the parochial and spotty coverage by The Miami Herald of the worst tendencies of the Florida legislature: dominated as it is by Miami Dade County interests.
This comparison gets to the point of the Herald needing a "new narrative" for Florida: and not just the idea the paper has embraced as inevitable... that economic development can only happen through increase in population numbers. (That point is made in today's Business Monday.)

The Herald article is about Miami-Dade legislators bringing home the bacon, for the most part. It is a positive story about the power of the Miami-Dade delegation, with the only negative note about the failure to secure agreement-- possibly because of infighting-- for a half cent sales tax to support Miami Dade College.

If you only read the Herald story, you would have no idea that this legislative session was one of the stinkiest in modern history. OK, so that wasn't what the Herald was writing about. But we still haven't had the full accounting of the worst piece of legislation brought forward during the session: Alex Diaz de la Portilla's effort to ram through changes to election law in Florida. Only a state-wide and then national outcry caused retreat, but it was no thanks to the Herald and we still don't have a clue who in Miami-Dade was its driving force. Though we can guess.

The Palm Beach Post gets a lot closer to a state-wide look, including some sense of the players. I have to say this: I get more from the Palm Beach Post than from our hometown newspaper on state-wide stories.


Posted on Sun, May. 17, 2009
Lawmakers tout wins for Dade

BY BREANNE GILPATRICK
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

With a record budget deficit, this was a year legislators went home with little to brag about. Unless they were from Miami-Dade.

During the legislative session that ended on May 8, Dade lawmakers found money for a medical school at Florida International University at a time when higher education was being cut.

They inserted last-minute language into the budget that gave local school boards the opportunity to temporarily raise property taxes to cover funding shortfalls.

They tucked a provision into an 11th-hour gambling deal to the shuttered Hialeah Park racetrack, and they put plans for a $1 billion Port of Miami tunnel back on track after state transportation officials had declared the project dead.

''I'd be hard pressed to name a county that did better than we did,'' said Rep. Juan Zapata, a Miami Republican and Dade delegation chairman. ``In a very difficult year, I think we had some significant successes.''

Lawmakers traveled to Tallahassee with a $6 billion budget hole. Even with money from the federal stimulus package shrinking the deficit to $3 billion, legislators had to look to new fees and service cuts to close the gap.

Despite a budget year that was so brutal it kept lawmakers in Tallahassee an extra week, Dade legislators protected funding for Jackson Memorial Hospital, found $11 million for FIU's fledgling medical school and secured funding for smaller local agencies like La Liga Contra el Cancer.

To give school districts more funding flexibility, lawmakers included a provision in the budget to allow school boards to increase property taxes by a rate of about $25 per $1,000 in taxable value.

To keep the tax hike, voters will have to sign off on it in the 2010 general election.

Dade lawmakers also were successful in pushing a top county priority: an extension of the Dade's documentary stamp surtax to secure affordable housing money.

The surtax is collected on a portion of property sales in Dade, and the county uses the money to provide housing to people with very low to moderate incomes.

Under the bill by Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a Miami Republican and House majority whip, the surtax will be extended to 2031.

''In a tight budget year, to get a dedicated funding source for Dade County affordable housing is tremendous,'' Lopez-Cantera said.

PORT TUNNEL BACK ON

Delegation members also used their political clout to put plans for the Port of Miami tunnel back on track.

Pressure from local leaders helped revive the project, after state transportation officials pulled the plug on the tunnel in December.

When the Florida Department of Transportation announced plans to reopen the project to construction companies worldwide, Dade legislators feared that would delay its completion, so they persuaded FDOT to stick with the original construction deal after weeks of mid-session negotiations.

''Considering it was declared dead, reviving the port tunnel was nothing short of miraculous,'' said Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican who helped broker the deal.

Another big victory was including provisions in a larger gambling bill that could resuscitate Hialeah Park, which closed in 2001.

The complex bill, approved in the final hours of session, offers a new gambling deal to the Seminole Tribe and a lower tax rate for parimutuels. It also gives the dormant track quarter-horse racing, card rooms and -- after two years of live racing -- slot machines.

Estimates indicate the reopened park could generate thousands of jobs, and after word leaked that it might finally reopen, 4,700 showed up looking for work.

''Hialeah's back,'' said Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Miami.

POWER PLAYERS

Unlike last year, Dade didn't have the benefit of a House speaker from Miami, but it still had several senior members and well-placed legislative leaders.

Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, of Miami, is the Senate Republican leader, and Sen. Alex Villalobos, also of Miami, was the Senate rules chairman.

Rivera and Rep. Marcelo Llorente, R-Miami, were the top House budget chiefs, while Rep. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, oversaw the House pre-K-12 budget.

`WORKING TOGETHER'

Some worried the delegation's reputation for infighting, fueled by the fact that the three House budget chiefs are running for the same open Senate seat, would be a disastrous combination.

But lawmakers said they wanted to leave the politics down in Dade.

''You don't get that many big-ticket items done without the delegation working together,'' Flores said.

Some delegation members said the budget crunch forced them to pull together.

''Nobody had time to think about those things,'' said Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami. ``We pretty much were marching to the same cadence.''

But others point to the delegation's major defeat as proof that personalities still interfere with policy.

Lawmakers spent the session pushing a bill that would allow Dade County to ask voters whether to impose a half-cent sales tax to benefit Miami Dade College. A similar statewide referendum failed in November but won 61 percent of the vote in Dade.

The proposal by Zapata and Villalobos won unanimous approval in the Senate, but could not get a vote on the House floor.

Some say political infighting might have been the reason the bill stalled in its last committee stop.

''Frankly, for it not to even get heard on the House floor is incredibly disappointing,'' Villalobos said. ``I think that really let down a lot of families in South Florida.''

Breanne Gilpatrick can be reached at bgilpatrick@miamiherald.com



© 2009 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com



COLUMN: Delusion in Tallahassee

By Randy Schultz

Palm Beach Post Editor of the Editorial Page

Sunday, May 17, 2009

When the Florida Senate finished nine days ago, there was more delusional self-love than at a John Edwards/Sarah Palin lunch.

Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, acted as if the Legislature had pulled its money from Bernie Madoff just before the feds swooped in. Two days ago, he said, things had looked bleak. But thanks to his colleagues, the 2009-10 budget isn't nearly as bad as it might have been.

Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, practically canonized lead budget negotiator J.D. Alexander. It reminded me of the Woody Allen line in Annie Hall that "life is divided into the horrible and the miserable." The horrible are "blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life." The miserable "is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable ... " Florida for next year will be only miserable. Sleep on that.

No Republican in the Senate or House, of course, mentioned the $5 billion gorilla in the chamber. Without the federal stimulus money that got all of three Republican votes in Congress - and no votes in the House - Sen. Atwater, and House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, would have had to cut $5 billion more or find that much in new taxes or "fees" or "surcharges." Horrible would have looked pretty good when they finished.

Someone needs to crash this party. Let the crashing begin.

A legislature that deserved to congratulate itself would have used this financial crisis to transform how Florida taxes and spends. Instead, this Legislature in the past year has taken short cuts. Legislators swiped $2.2 billion from trust funds and $1.1 billion from the Budget Stabilization Fund, a key reserve account. These figures come from Kurt Wenner, Florida TaxWatch's director of research.

There's no obligation to repay the trust funds. Still, Gov. Crist did promise the family of former Gov. Lawton Chiles that the state would make good on the $700 million stripped from the fund named for him and financed by the tobacco settlement that Gov. Crist tried to block as a state senator.

But the Legislature does have to replenish the Budget Stabilization Fund, which Mr. Wenner calls "the cornerstone of state reserves." The Florida Constitution requires that the fund be at a minimum level compared to what the state collects in taxes. According to Mr. Wenner, the fund is about $1 billion short. That bill comes due next year.

The Legislature also has to replace the federal stimulus money that will stop after next year's budget. Most of the gift from Washington went for what the bean counters call "recurring expenses" - education and health care. Basically, this Legislature is borrowing from future Legislatures, meaning the taxpayers.

What does it mean to you? Florida's once-impressive financial rating is starting to look like an orange that has citrus canker. In April, the Moody's rating service placed Florida on notice for a possible downgrade. Obviously, the lousy economy was a big reason. But Moody's didn't let Florida off the hook.

Among the state's other problems: "Failure to prepare a reasonable plan to restore budgetary structural balance" and "General Revenue Fund surpluses were essentially drawn down during the course of the last three fiscal years with increasing reliance on the use of non-recurring revenues in fiscal year 2009." (That's the trust fund and reserve fund raiding we discussed.)

A downgrade would force up Florida's debt cost. Moody's offers some tips to head off a downgrade. Florida would have to shore up those reserves and craft a more realistic budget. The warnings include "increased reliance on one-time solutions to balance budget" and "lack of a reasonable plan to restore reserves." Uh-oh. That's why Gov. Crist wants to be Sen. Crist in 2011.

Republicans control Tallahassee these days, but the problem is bipartisan. In 1992, coming out of the last bad recession, the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission offered a menu of good ideas. The Democrats didn't bite. Now, though, Florida is on the brink.

Those running the 2009 Legislature didn't want to feel miserable after 65 days. It was horrible to watch them try to fool themselves.

Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is schultz@pbpost.com

Colossal Waste of Money: Miami Herald Poll on Father Cutie. By Geniusofdespair

The Miami Herald has cut reporters and reduced the salaries of those who remain, yet they have enough money to poll on whether people think a priest in Miami, caught embracing a woman on a beach, should have honored his celibacy vows.

Well, who cares? Here is a tip Miami Herald: Why not poll the readers you have left to see what they want you to cover? Do they want fluff or news? The Cutie Poll story got right column above the fold, the most coveted position on a front page. This story is so over in my book...unless you have a better photo of the woman.

Damn Newspaper Die Off. By Geniusofdespair

I saw that Russell Crowe Movie "State of Play" tonight. It was about a real, hard-boiled reporter working an intricate story for a dying newspaper. Crowe's character even had to deal with a young blogger working for the paper. He asked her, when the story they were both working on was about to break, why she wasn't off blogging it. She said to him, this story was meant to be in newsprint. In other words, too good to be blogged.

The movie made me sad.

There are too many reporters out of work and 5 that I know have turned to blogging. It is not the answer for them if they want to make money. And bloggers don't have the resources to do in-depth research, nor do they have the time, especially when they have to write every day. Blogging wastes the talent of news reporters. Also, readers are fickle. They will leave your blog, just like they left your newspaper. The news business sucks and the brilliant reporters I know out of work proves it.

How do you cope with the newspapers? ... by gimleteye

For all of my adult life, I have read newspapers, in the morning, and then before bed. But for the past few months I've given up reading the papers at night, because it hasn't been helping my sleeping. If I continued to read newspapers at night, I'd read about Fed Chief Ben Bernanke informing Congress that we are in a "severe recession"-- yesterday-- and that would lead to revenge dreams. I don't think there's will be much good from economic front in 2009, but still we have to read newspapers, don't we? Some people are saying that we just need to stop worrying and be happy. What do you think?

The financial worth of newspapers, measured by rate of decay ... by gimleteye

Yesterday, McClatchy announced cost-cutting measures that must be very upsetting to Miami Herald employees. Publisher David Landsberg wrote a memo, "This morning, McClatchy announced that it is freezing its pension plans and temporarily suspending the company match to its 401(k) plans, effective March 31." Talk about distress signals.

Landsberg goes on, "Here at the Miami Herald Media Company, we have seen an unprecedented loss in advertising revenue, with quite a few of our retailers and auto dealers going out of business or leaving the area. In addition, employment advertising revenues continue to drop to all-time lows and real estate remains very weak. These challenges are clearly driven by a deepening recession that is hurting our economy. We are still developing our plan to address this extraordinary economic challenge."

I don't believe Landsberg has a plan, any more than his immediate predecessors did-- except to the extent it meant skewing the reporting of the news toward the paper's big advertisers. In its avoidance of reportage that alienated advertisers-- like the explosion of unsustainable development in South Miami Dade--the Herald and other mainstream media blinded themselves to the unfolding economic disaster built on unsustainable credit and the explosion of debt and also lost the trust of readers.

It is clear enough that the costs of newsprint and distribution can't outlast this economic crisis. The moment for private equity investors to step in and rescue small regional and local newspapers has passed; it's an unattractive scenario to measure the worth of a newspaper by its rate of decay.

There's a bigger issue: can democracy survive without print newspapers? I wonder if my fear is a generational bias. Perhaps the Herald needs to go all-electronic and all local with its reporting. Will advertisers trust that format?

Not So Fast Elena's Miami Monthly Magazine! By Geniusofdespair

I read the December issue of "Miami Monthly" and disagree with the column on Holding The Line in their City Watch Section which says:

"Miami Dade is getting help from the feds on its hotly contested Urban Development Boundary. The county is among three communities recently selected to participate in the Envrionmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program, which will provide technical assistance, analysis and input from a team of national experts on the policies surrounding the UDB."

Miami Monthly, I think that this effort is being pushed as an end run around the State of Florida's negative findings on moving the UDB line, not to mention County's staff negative recommendations to the County Commission.

Is it true that Neisen Kasdin (former lobbyist for the Latin Builders Association and Builders Association of Florida and current lobbyist for Krome Groves Land Trust) who has been pushing to move the line on behalf of his clients is behind the EPA selection?

I don't look at this move as a GOOD THING. Crafty yes, good? No. Miami Dade is not getting "HELP" from the EPA (which will begin this effort early next year). I believe the Miami-Dade developers believe this is their only chance to turn things around in their favor: Go over the State of Florida's head.

Why bother? Tough times for journalism. By SunshineUnderground

On Monday the Miami Herald held a forum on Haiti at Books and Books in Coral Gables, and I was struck by something Nancy San Martin, the associate world editor, said in the introduction. I think it reflects the state of journalism in this town, and how rough it is for those still left in the field. She said:

"People ask us why you do what you do, and with everything that is going on with the industry now-a-days, as you know it is tough times for all of us, we also in the newsroom are finding ourselves asking ourselves that very question, of why we do what we do, or what I call the 'Why bother factor' - why bother working 12 hour days in very difficult conditions when the situation is so bad? Why bother, day in and day out, stressing yourself for deadlines when the situation is tough and getting tougher? Why bother risking your life?"

Some readers might see this as just another navel-gazing whining journalist, but I think she had a point.

The downturn in print journalism began long before the economic downturn or our current financial crisis, and it is now likely to get worse as businesses continue to cut back on advertising. I heard an unverified rumor that the Herald is planning more layoffs, on top of all the other layoffs that have occurred over the last year, not to mention the salary freeze. To a certain extent the layoffs mean less coverage, and to a certain extent they mean that the people left on staff have to do more. The Herald is trying to plug holes in the paper with a content sharing agreement they have with the Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post, but this too, has its limits, unless we assume that all three publications are going to end up as one big happy newspaper.

The forum though, had to be cathartic for her and for the other Herald reporters present, as the crowd gathered there thanked them over and over for bringing attention to the hurricane damage in Haiti and the worsening humanitarian crisis occurring at Miami's doorstep. San Martin and her staff are dedicated to covering it, and we can only hope that they will continue to have the budget to do so.

I'll have more on Haiti, and the forum, in my next post.

Daily Newspapers In Trouble Everywhere. By Geniusofdespair

Another McClatchy paper offers buyouts to 320 workers, entire newsroom.

Things are not looking good for newspapers. McClatchy is the same company that owns the Miami Herald. We have had buyouts at the Herald but not of the magnitude of this Raleigh, N.C. daily.

McClatchy's top dog, Gary Pruitt, recently resigned from a group of trusts that control much of the voting power in the company. He was the one who moved the buy of Knight Ridder in 2006 which put the company in debt at a time when ad revenues fell sharply.