Gives a whole new meaning to the term "photo shoot."
Click to enlargeGot this in my junk mail folder this morning.
Are there really people dumb enough to fall for this crap?
And even if there are, wouldn't the mistakes in grammar give it away?
Click on photo to enlarge Who's in charge? No one, apparently.
This morning I scanned the Herald's website looking for something stimulating to read.
On most days this is an exercise in futility.
But this morning I found a link to Leonard Pitts' column prominently displayed "above the fold" on the Herald's homepage.
What caught my attention was the paragraph below the headline/link that postulated if Rev. Wright were white he'd probably have his own show on TV and perhaps his own network. Pretty provocative stuff. So I clicked on the link to see what Leonard had to say.
As usual Leonard's column was excellent; in this case a measured, dispassionate repudiation of Rev. Wright's bigotry.
But missing was the part about what if Rev. Wright was white and had a TV show etc. I re-read the column thinking perhaps I'd missed something.
But the paragraph wasn't there.
Confused I looked around and noticed a link on the left hand side of the page: "White politicos have their own pulpit gasbags."
I clicked on it to find a Carl Hiaasen column that in fact contained the paragraph I was looking for.
Whoever put the page together had for some strange reason pasted a graph from Hiaasen's column under the link to Pitt's column.
Inexcusable!
The Herald is in big trouble.
We already know that subscribers are leaving in droves.
What used to be a great newspaper, one of the top 20 in this country, has become a pitiful shadow of its former self.
The daily print publication is a pathetic parody of a newspaper.
Everyone pretty much agrees that the future of journalism is on the Internet.
But is this how the Herald intends to make the transition? With silly mistakes that makes it appear as though a 12 year-old is putting together their website?
I talked to a source at the Herald a few days ago.
What I was told bore out what we're seeing daily from Miami's largest information provider.
Morale is rock bottom or non-existent.
Experienced people are being forced out. The latest to leave according to my source is Marty Merzer, a senior writer at the Herald and a mainstay among Miami journalists.
The website is a disaster that even FEMA couldn't fix.
As with the print edition traffic is down on the website.
There are broken links on a daily basis or links that go to the wrong stories.
The site itself is difficult to navigate. Stuff mysteriously appears and then disappears minutes later and is impossible to find.
Stories are only available for a week or two before they are archived and then the Herald charges users to access them. (Random Pixels tip o' the day: Get a library card and then you can see all of the Herald articles from the past 25 years for free on the library's website!)
There are still some very proficient journalists at the Herald but they are becoming increasingly disenchanted with a newsroom that's top heavy with managers who can't or won't allocate the resources it takes to produce quality journalism.
One source told me: "We have two managers for every employee and half the employees are 12 years old!"
And the state of the website might have something to do with the fact that during the week only two people are responsible for what goes on the website. That's one more than it takes to maintain this blog!
More bad news if you can stand it: It's going to get worse before it gets better!
The only question I have is why any thinking, intelligent adult still spends money to subscribe to this paper.
If you've been keeping up with the local celebrity news then you know that Jennifer Aniston has been here for the last month or two filming "Marley and Me."
The film, no doubt, had a decent budget given the star power of Aniston and co-star Owen Wilson.
Miami has been attracting big time productions for several decades now.
A few that come to mind are "Lenny" with Dustin Hoffman in the 70's and "Scarface" in 1983.
"True Lies" in 1994, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, had a budget of $120 million.
But it wasn't always that way.
In the 50's and 60's films with decidedly lower budgets were filmed in Miami, attracted by the great shooting weather and cheap labor.
One of these was the 1963 slasher classic "Blood Feast," filmed right here in the Magic City! This stinker has "cheap" written all over it.
I remember seeing this in 1963. There was a lot of hype surrounding the film given the violence and the fact that some civic groups in Florida tried to have it banned.
According to Wikipedia the film was "one of the first films to show people dying with their eyes open."
Who knew?
But it's infamous for the scene when "the murderer rips out a young woman's tongue on camera, an effect achieved with fake blood and a sheep's tongue."
Curious? You can see that scene here in the very cheesy trailer for the film. Some of the interiors look like they were filmed in some of Miami's cheaper motels.
Yes, when you see the "Made in Miami" label you know you're in for quality entertainment...most of the time!
