What if Miami had a real, New York-style tabloid newspaper?

A newspaper run by editors with cojones and who weren't afraid to take shots at those in Miami who deserve it.

A newspaper run by editors with no fear of offending Miami's elite, ruling class.

But most of all, a newspaper with headlines and stories that, in the words of Edna Buchanan, "might cause a reader who is having breakfast with his wife to "spit out his coffee, clutch his chest, and say, 'My God, Martha! Did you read this!'"

Miami needs a paper like that this week.

In a bizarre sidebar to the story of the disabled Carnival Cruise ship, Triumph, an Alabama newspaper reported Wednesday that "Carnival Cruise CEO [Micky Arison was] spotted Tuesday watching a Miami Heat game.

The UK's Mail Online posted a headline that was a little more direct: "Boss of Carnival cruise ship adds insult to misery by going to basketball game as 4,000 suffer aboard 'stinking stricken ship' with urine-soaked carpets and sewage in cabins."

But, as you might expect, the spineless, candy-ass editors at the Miami Herald have have kept news of the Triumph fire and its aftermath off the front pages of the paper.

A strange, inexplicable editorial decision considering that Miami-based Carnival is "the largest, most successful cruise operator in the world."

Or, maybe not so strange when you consider that Carnival buys advertising in the Herald.

That might also explain why there was no mention in the Herald of Arison's insensitive decision to attend Tuesday's Heat game as thousands of his customers suffered on a filthy, stinking ship.

But, imagine for just a minute, that a ballsy, take-no-prisoners, New York-style tabloid editor was running things at the Herald.

Here's how the paper's front page might have looked today.....

Click here to enlarge image.