The Miami Herald ♥s the Marlins Stadium

Question: Has anyone else noticed that the Miami Herald's coverage of the new Florida Marlins Stadium has been a little one-sided lately?

Five weeks ago, Herald sportswriter Greg Cote told his readers that better days were ahead for the Florida Marlins and South Florida sports.

In his column, Cote promised his readers that no matter how big their problems, they would all magically disappear once they got a glimpse of the Miami skyline from the new Marlins ballpark.

The new ballpark on the old Orange Bowl site is 70 percent complete, as a Thursday media tour verified — and the sight from home plate will be a panorama of the downtown skyline.

Standing at home, the view is of better days ahead — as hard as that might be to fathom at the moment. -June 17, 2011

Exactly one month later, the Herald editorial board sang the praises of the new Marlins Stadium.

The writer of the editorial apparently forgot that a majority of the paper's readers had just fired the politician responsible for saddling them with this monstrosity.

Whatever your view, the Marlins Stadium going up in Little Havana has brought a decidedly new and exciting look to the Miami skyline where the Orange Bowl once rose. -July 17, 2011

Today, it was Herald sportswriter Barry Jackson's turn to kiss some Marlins butt.

He didn't disappoint.

Jackson penned a wonderful piece of fiction titled, "Marlins’ new stadium brings jobs, new business opportunities."

On his Facebook page, Miami filmmaker Billy Corben called the piece a "staggeringly one-sided pro-team article riddled with misinformation."

Corben posted a link to the "Field of Schemes" blog, which offered some thoughtful rebuttal to Jackson's piece.

Of course, we still haven't gotten to the "business opportunities," which come down to ... um, a guy with a food cart who's been selling burgers and churrasco to the construction crew, and says he's "hoping to stay when the stadium opens."

The real point of the article, needless to say, is to let [Marlins VP Claude] Delorme go on about all the stuff that will be available at the new stadium (Cuban sandwiches! Cuban pastries!). Save your time, and re-read the six big lies about the Marlins stadium instead.

So, here's a suggestion for those in charge at the Herald: If you're going to continue to run one-sided puff pieces on the stadium at regular intervals between now and Opening Day 2012; why not drop any remaining pretense of objectivity?

Just come out and tell your readers not to expect any more honest journalism when it comes to the Marlins.

Of course you'll need to rename and re-design the paper.

With that in mind, I've come up with a makeover that mirrors the paper's new editorial slant.
Click to enlarge.