More cuts at the Herald; 19% of workforce to lose jobs

UPDATED @ 2:45pm Some of those cut today include Herald director of photography Luis Rios and business editor Lisa Gibbs. Crime reporter Jose Pagliery has been let go but has been told he can freelance. Marsha Halper a 25 year veteran Broward photographer goes from full-time to part-time. John Van Beekum, a 20 year Herald veteran photographer has been cut. Photo editor Suzy Mast, who ironically, escaped with her job at the last minute during the last round of cuts, has also been laid off.


"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." -- An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre, Feb. 1968
...

Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg sent out a much-anticipated memo this morning outlining yet another round of job cuts and other "expense reductions" at the beleaguered paper.

("Herald executive editor, Anders Gyllenhaal, says in a separate e-mail that the layoffs include 33 full-time and eight part-time newsroom positions. He says some remaining staff will see their hours cut.")

This is the third such announcement in less than a year.

Last June the Herald announced a reduction of 17% of the workforce.

Exactly three months later in September managing editor Anders Gyllenhaal announced another round of staff reductions.

By October of 2008 publisher Landsberg was telling some staffers that further cuts might not be necessary.

Some of the cost saving measures ordered by Landsberg are:

19% of workforce cut.

175 employees will lose jobs.

30 vacant positions eliminated.

Pay cuts for all full-time employees making more than $25,000 a year.

Full-timers will lose an additional one week of pay through unpaid furloughs.

Herald presses will be converted to a 44-inch web format in an effort save $2 million annually in newsprint costs.

Here's the full text of Landsberg's memo:

To: All Employees

From: David Landsberg, Publisher

Subject: Workforce and Wage Reductions

Date: March 11, 2009


Following Monday’s McClatchy Company cost savings announcement, I want to share with you the details for the Miami Herald Media Company. We are announcing plans to reduce our workforce by approximately 19%. About 175 employees will lose their jobs as a result, and we will eliminate another 30 vacant positions, for a total reduction of 205. Reductions will occur in all areas of our operation and at every level in the organization.

Although many of the job eliminations will occur through involuntary layoffs, there also will be opportunities for employees to voluntarily elect a severance package where reductions are occurring in work groups of two or more employees. If enough employees do not take the voluntary option, then the work groups will be reduced either by function or according to least tenure, depending on the workgroup.

Employees affected by this reduction are being notified and provided with information about a transition package. If a voluntary option is being offered to your work group, you will receive written notification with additional information today.

The decisions about where to reduce jobs have been extremely difficult. Please know that we have done everything possible to minimize the impact of layoffs by identifying alternative means of saving expenses, several of which are detailed below.

We will implement pay reductions for all full-time employees making more than $25,000 per year in base salary. For those who earn between $25,000 and $50,000 per year in base pay, the reduction will be 5%. For employees who make more than $50,000 per year in base pay, the reduction will be 10%.

Every employee will receive a letter detailing the impact of the pay reduction in the next few days. These reductions will take effect for the pay period beginning March 23, 2009.

We will also implement a one-week unpaid furlough program. Details on that program, which will begin in April, will be made available in the next two weeks.

Additionally, we are eliminating all 2009 bonuses (MBOs) for everyone in management.

We also are reducing operational expenses in all areas. Among those reductions:

We will convert our presses to a 44-inch web format, which will conserve more than $2 million in newsprint on an annualized basis.

We have leased the sixth floor of One Herald Plaza, and we will consolidate our Dadeland news and advertising operations into other Herald facilities and seek a tenant to lease that office space.

We will cease publication of our International Edition, reducing costs that are now outpacing revenues for that product.

While there will be tightening of news pages on various days, we have worked hard to maintain our newspapers at the quality level our readers have come to expect.

All of these are difficult decisions, especially when it means saying goodbye to so many of our friends and colleagues. But we must make these additional cuts to ensure the viability of our newspapers and to adjust to new competitive and economic realities.

Each of the actions we’re announcing today has been shaped by our commitment to continue to serve readers, advertisers and our community through the vital public service we have provided for more than 100 years. We must keep that mission – and the long view – in our sights. Every day, I hear from readers about the value of the work we do. While forced to make difficult changes, we will not lose focus on continuing to be South Florida’s most trusted source of information.

Again, I want to apologize for the disruption that you have experienced over the last several weeks. We can only respectfully ask, as we have in the past, that you keep your focus and continue to work hard to help our company succeed.

Please contact human resources if you have any questions about the severance program or wage reductions.
Thanks, David.

Pretty words won't save The Herald

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -Pogo


The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts has apparently been burning the midnight oil much like a college freshman studying for a big exam. Or has he?

Back on May 7, I asked him a question via his online chat about the newspaper business. I wanted his opinion on the Herald's declining circulation and asked if he had an opinion as to why the Herald was doing so poorly.

He responded that he "didn't have a head for business" and he "wasn't aware of The Herald 'leading the pack' in circulation loss and have no idea why this would be so."

You can read the full text of my question and his answer here.

That exchange occurred about 6 weeks ago.

Today in his column addressing Monday's job cuts at the Herald, Leonard weighs in with loads of opinions on how the newspaper business can extricate itself from the quagmire it now finds itself mired in. Maybe he's been studying. Or maybe not.

Let me stop here and say that Leonard Pitts is one of the better columnists the Herald has.

It goes without saying that he's a whole lot smarter than I am.

He probably lives in a big fine house on a hill up there in the Washington suburbs and watches all his favorite shows on a large flat screen TV as he munches on lobster newburgh or whatever they eat up there in the Washington suburbs.

He's got himself a Pulitzer Prize too.

I'm sure his salary makes a large dent in the six figure range, as it should, because Leonard does his job very well.

He's a columnist and he gets paid to write his opinions. The way he does that is no different than a lot of other fine columnists.

Leonard strings pretty words together that turn into beautiful sentences. And once he has enough sentences strung together he's got himself a damn fine column. And he gets to keep his job for another week.

The Herald is so proud of Leonard that they have these large billboards on their delivery trucks that say something like: "Leonard Pitts drops pearls of wisdom on your doorstep twice a week." I wonder who came up with that? Anyway, I digress.

Leonard's columns are printed in all the McClatchy papers around the country and posted on the Internet. And then all his loyal readers post comments like: "Oh, Leonard, you're so perspicacious and eloquent. I agree with everything you say."

But in spite of all the money Leonard makes and the praises his employer and readers heap upon him, no one should confuse anything Leonard says with reality. They're just pretty words.

Today's column, is a fine example. Leonard tackles the problems of the newspaper business in general and the Herald in particular.

Of the cuts announced last Monday he writes: "...that means 190 jobs throughout the [Herald's] various departments," will be lost.

I guess he doesn't read his own paper because the Herald's John Dorschner said in a story last Tuesday: "The Miami Herald Media Co. announced plans to reduce its workforce by 250 employees -- 17 percent of its staff."

Ok, so Leonard is only off by 60.

Next Leonard tackles the newspaper and the Internet by saying:

"Maybe we should make our websites not simply online recreations of our papers, but entities in their own right, destination portals for those who want news and views from and about a given city, but also for those who want to find a good doctor in that city, or apply for a job in that city or reach the leaders of that city or research the history of that city. Maybe the goal should be to make ourselves the one indispensable guide to that city."

Well, I guess Leonard doesn't look at his paper's own website.

The Herald launched such a site months ago; www.miami.com . It's a portal to all things Miami. It's not very good compared to other portal site for large cities but at least someone at the Herald saw the need for a site like this and got the ball rolling.

You also need people to maintain a newspaper website and right now the Herald has a grand total of two people doing updates on their site during the day. And a promised redesign of miamiherald.com has yet to happen despite a top level editor's assurances to me 6 months ago that it was in the works.

Next Leonard advises newspapers to "hire away the bright people who figured out how to make Yahoo and Google profitable and ask them to make our sites profitable."

Well, Alex at Miami and Beyond laughs at that and says:

"This one made me laugh. Leonard, you can't afford them. They can buy and sell you between two sips of their lattes, if they were in the habit of throwing money away."

Leonard also says newspapers should require "online readers to pay for the product, just as our other readers do." Rick at South Florida Daily Blog had a answer for Leonard Thursday on his blog:

"How out of touch are old-school journalists with the Internet and the people who use it? Well, I think Leonard Pitts pretty much showed us with that last sentence."

Indeed, Rick.

Had Leonard burned a little more midnight oil he would have learned that one of the most successful and widely read newspaper websites, nytimes.com, scrapped the pay model last year after they decided shutting out millions of readers and putting content behind a pay wall wasn't worth the 225,000 readers and $10 million in revenue. They opted for millions more eyeballs. The LA Times also tried charging readers for its Calendar section online and scrapped it as well.

So what Leonard offered his loyal readers today was 679 very pretty words but a close reading revealed that once again, beauty is only skin deep.

There really wasn't anything that showed me that Leonard, in the six weeks since he dodged my question about the circulation numbers, has paid much attention to the predicament the newspaper business finds itself in.

What the newspaper business really needs Leonard, are fewer pearls of wisdom and more solutions.

Herald publisher to staff; the firing squad is not quite ready

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UPDATED @ 7:00pm A Herald staffer emails Random Pixels to say that Landsberg's memo on staff cuts "could be tomorrow [Wednesday]...so I hear."
...

So there you are yesterday, sitting at your desk at One Herald Plaza, sipping a cup of coffee.

You come in early at 7am because you like the solitude. It gives you time to check your email and read the paper without distractions.

You look up from your computer for a second or two to marvel at the splendor of a new day that's punctuated by the first rays of an early morning sun. The empty fifth floor newsroom is awash in chiaroscuro tones.

Suddenly you're jolted back to reality by a beep that alerts you to an incoming email.

Is this the one that you and your colleagues have been waiting for? The one that will tell you whether or not you'll have a job next week.

You've put things on hold because of the uncertainty; vacation plans, your daughter's wedding, repairs to the house.

While rumors swirled and news of staff reductions and pay cuts at other McClatchy papers crossed the wires; you and the other staffers heard nothing but silence from publisher David Landsberg.

Herald publisher David Landsberg
But here it is, an email from Landsberg.

Is it time to start packing the past 30 years into cardboard file boxes? Or have you escaped once again?

From: Landsberg, David - Miami
Sent: Mon 3/9/2009 8:25 AM
To: .MIA All Herald Users
Subject: McClatchy Announcement
To: All Employees
From: David Landsberg, Publisher
Subject: Expense Reductions
Date: March 9, 2009

On Feb. 5, McClatchy announced plans to further reduce operating expenses as a result of the ongoing and unprecedented economic pressures and revenue declines. Today, McClatchy released additional information about these expense reductions. The press release is available on McClatchy's corporate website.

Here at the Miami Herald Media Company, we have already shared the news about advertising losses that are greater than any of us have ever seen in our history. As the economy continues to decline, so have our revenues.

We know you are anxiously awaiting the details of our expense reduction plans to offset these losses, but the plans aren't quite final. We assure you we are working as quickly as possible to finish this work. We understand how unsettling the last several weeks have been and how announcements by other McClatchy papers increase concerns about the future.

We apologize for the delay but want to make sure we carefully review every option before making final decisions. We anticipate communicating these decisions to you by the end of the week.

Our future success is dependent on the hard work you do every day. We know these repeated announcements and ongoing restructuring are disruptive, but we respectfully ask for your continued focus, even in these difficult circumstances.

Please contact your department manager or human resources if you have any
questions.

Thanks, David.

That's what Herald staffers saw yesterday as they checked their email.

A cynical memo that offered no news, except to say "just wait until Friday!"

And a memo that was peppered with corporate double-speak.

Landsberg can't even bring himself to use the words "job cuts." He calls them "expense reductions."

But he saves the best for last: "Our future success is dependent on the hard work you do every day."

After his next email, which will probably be sent out this Friday, there will be about 50 less people to do that hard work.

That's what I'm hearing. Fifty cuts in a newsroom that's already down to about 240 according to my sources.

No one knows what's going to happen Friday.

But one thing is certain.

David Landsberg will still have a job at the end of the day Friday.

The Herald doesn't bother to cover its own funeral

"The Miami Herald is not going anywhere." -Miami Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal
...

Gyllenhaal testily uttered that line yesterday at a panel discussion with the foreboding title, "Miami: A No-Newspaper Town?," held just a few blocks from One Herald Plaza.

The same Anders Gyllenhaal, by the way, who told Broward New Times blogger Bob Norman last October when asked about further job cuts at the Herald, "I just don't see that happening."

Of course, two weeks ago, we learned that Gyllenhaal's hunch was a little off the mark, as the Herald instituted a third round of staff cuts in less than a year.

At yesterday's discussion Gyllenhaal seemed to blame others for the current state of affairs at the Herald:

"Constant worry about the Herald's longevity isn't helping, he said, citing online speculation that his newspaper is destined for failure.

" 'It hurt us, it hurt our advertising,' Gyllenhaal said. Advertisers are thinking, 'Maybe I shouldn't be advertising with them because they're not going to be around,' he said."

Sounds like Gyllenhaal is blaming Random Pixels and other bloggers for the Herald's current predicament.

We just want to help. Really!

Gyllenhaal's appearance on the panel comes just days after Herald publisher David Landsberg took part in a little damage control of his own.

(Today the publisher of the Charlotte Observer - also a McClatchy paper - posted a letter similar in tone to Landsberg's letter on the Observer's website.)

Meanwhile Miami Monthly publisher Elena Carpenter brought up a point that I've been hammering at for some time. According to the AP story, she "chastised Gyllenhaal for giving away stories, photos and extras such as video for free online. People need to be reminded that good reporting costs money and retains its value among blogs that don't adhere to traditional journalism standards, she said."

Carpenter is right. I strongly believe that when all is said and done and they write the obits for printed newspapers; somewhere in the first few grafs will be the a line about the fact that newspapers hastened their own demise by giving away content for free one day and then trying to charge for it the next.

But former Miami New Times reporter Rebecca Wakefield summed the Herald's problems in one sentence: The Herald's challenge, she said, is surviving "as a general interest publication in a community with no general interest."

(One puzzling side note to yesterday's panel discussion. Despite the fact that it was held in close proximity to the Herald's headquarters; the paper apparently didn't bother to cover it, relying instead on the AP.)

UPDATE: One panel attendee sent this email to Random Pixels:

"funny they had a Herald reporter there, but i have yet to see a story.

"my take is that the reason Anders asked to be on the panel (after he found out the name of it "Miami: A No Newspaper Town?") was to quash the whole notion.

"These guys are running scared bigtime.

"Nothing he said indicated that they have a workable plan to save what's left of the paper...just rearranging the deck chairs so to speak."

Death by a thousand cuts [UPDATED]

UPDATED at 3pm, Thursday:

A newsroom source now tells Random Pixels that Herald publisher David Landsberg said as recently as yesterday that the talked about and anticipated job cuts in January may not be necessary.
...

A few brief notes on the current state of affairs in the newspaper business:

A source at the Herald tells me that despite two rounds of buyouts in the space of three months, some staffers are bracing for more bad news.

Executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal has already told his staff that more cuts in the newsroom may be necessary - as early as January. As many as 10 more staffers may lose their jobs.

The newsroom buzz is that with the previous round of cuts taking a toll on reporters, photographers and support staff, some senior editors may now find their heads on the chopping block.

My source tells me that some of them [editors] are sitting at their desks with "thousand-yard stares. They're shell-shocked."

Some Herald staffers are complaining about the Herald's new website re-design. "While it may look like it's new and improved, all they did was put lipstick on a pig," said one newsroom insider. "They did it on the cheap." Another staffer tells me that the design was mandated by the Herald's parent company McClatchy. The source says that all McClatchy papers will soon have similar looking sites.

Another Herald source tells me that the Herald's Broward bureau in Pembroke Pines has become a ghost town. He reports that many days he's the only person in the once-busy building. "It gives me a creepy feeling," says the staffer.

And here's something that Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal is no doubt paying attention to:

While newspapers will never get back subscribers who have migrated to the web, they're trying desperate measures to hold on to subscribers they still have.

One of those measures is re-design. The Sun-Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel have recently launched re-designed papers.

Tampa Tribune executive editor Janet Coats thought she'd come up with a sure fire way to re-invent her paper. Coats decided that what her readers wanted was a more compact and condensed version of the Tribune. The problem is she never asked the readers what they wanted.

The Tribune rolled out a one section paper back on Oct. 6.

Readers hated it.

Less than a week after launching the slimmed down version of the paper, Coats had to apologize to readers and announce that the Tribune will it resume publishing a multi-section paper.

The Tribune is in a no-win situation. It competes with the St. Petersburg Times for readers. The St. Petersburg Times, which is considered one of the best newspapers in the country, outclasses the inferior Tribune in circulation and and quality. The only way the Tribune can beat the St. Pete Times is to give away a $20 bill with every paper they sell. Giving readers less of a newspaper is not the answer, as editor Coats has painfully learned.

The incident just proves that some people who run newspapers have no idea what readers want.

Merry Christmas; you're fired!

The Miami Herald has pink-slipped another 24 full-time employees...just in time for Christmas.

Broward New Times blogger Bob Norman Lisa Rab reports:

The Miami Herald is cutting 24 jobs throughout the company and reducing the hours of workers involved in printing and delivering the paper, publisher David Landsberg announced in an email this morning.

Seven people will lose their jobs in the Herald newsroom: an assigning editor, two copy editors, two designers, a photo editor, and a part-time librarian. El Nuevo Herald will lose one-and-a-half editing positions, according to Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal. The affected employed were notified this morning, Gyllenhaal wrote in a email to the staff.

For a newsroom of 200 staffers, and a media company with about 900 employees, these cuts are not enormous. But they come after two years of painful job hemorrhaging at the Herald and its competitors, the Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post.

In 2008, the Herald eliminated more than 370 jobs through layoffs and buyouts. This March, 175 more jobs disappeared, followed by 16 more in August."

If there's any good news in all of this it's that no reporters or photographers are included in this round of cuts.

Herald Publisher David Landsberg sees a silver lining. In his memo this morning he wrote, "The move is part of our ongoing effort to ride out this unprecedented period of economic turmoil. While we are seeing some signs of improvement on the horizon, we expect operating conditions to remain challenging through much of 2010."

One Herald staffer sees things a little more realistically, "It's over; this business is finished."

An editor whose department is among those affected says that this is the fourth time in the past year and half that she's been in danger of losing her job.

And another staffer whose job is in jeopardy posted this on her Facebook page:

"In my department, 2 positions are being eliminated. I have the least tenure, so I'm likely out if no other designers step forward for a voluntary buyout. They have until the 14th to opt for one. My last day of work will likely be Jan. 4. As such, I am officially starting my job search today. Hire me. I'm awesome."

In other news, the Circle of Barely Trained Monkeys aka the Miami-Dade County Commission, reminded us yesterday why a strong and viable Miami Herald is essential to this community.

(Over 14,000 U.S. newspaper jobs have disappeared in 2009.)

Thinking about the Herald

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" -Mark Twain
...
I'm sure even at this late hour there are probably a few people in Miami who haven't heard of the latest round of job cuts at the Miami Herald.

For some, there just isn't the emotional attachment to print newspapers that many of us old timers feel.

The Herald has been part of my life since my family first moved to Miami in the latter part of 1958.

I've been reading the Herald longer than just about all of the current Herald employees have been working there.

As a young boy, I sold the Sunday Herald at several busy South Florida Shopping centers.

When the Herald moved into its new building at One Herald Plaza in March of 1963 it marked the occasion with a special four-section edition.

The Herald was proud of its new plant and hired uniformed hostesses to conduct daily tours. At the time the facility was considered to be state of the art in the newspaper industry.

In the 60's and 70's and well into the 80's the Herald was a newspaper that was respected, admired, feared or despised, depending on who you talked to.

Its reach was all-encompassing.

It had dozens of bureaus all over the state. Miami Herald news racks dotted sidewalks from Key West to Florida's panhandle.

In the mid-70's I worked in the advertising composing department. Back then there were so many housing ads that the Sunday real estate section was comprised of four sections to accommodate them all.

In the early 80's, as a freelance photojournalist, I worked alongside many of the Herald's photographers and still call several of them friends.

I've always had a love-hate relationship with the paper and its approach to coverage of some stories. But I continued to read the print edition daily.

So, I'd like to say I'm optimistic about the future of the paper.

I'd like to say the Herald will survive this latest hit.

But I'd be lying.

Even some long-time Herald staffers who, up until a few months ago told me they wanted to end their careers at the Herald, are telling me now, "it's over."

I tell friends in half-jest that newspapers started going downhill when they did away with Linotype machines and the old noisy AP teletype machines.

But what happened today at One Herald Plaza might well be the "last hurrah."

Miami Herald continues to make staff cuts with no end in sight

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Updated 1x below main post.

In October 1998, after the Miami Herald decided to kill off Tropic, the paper's popular Sunday magazine, the New York Times began a story on the magazine's demise with this sentence: "In the most painful of a series of recent belt-tightening moves, The Miami Herald's top editors said yesterday that the newspaper's Sunday feature magazine, Tropic, would close before year's end."

In 2006, the Herald's parent company Knight Ridder, "after years of struggling to grow its readership, profits, and stock price...threw in the towel...[and] accepted an offer of $4.5 billion cash and stock from McClatchy (MNI), a newspaper publisher less than half Knight Ridder's size."

Almost 19 years after the death of Tropic,  and 11 years after the sale of the Herald, they're no longer tightening the belt. Now they're chopping off body parts....something that's been going on for quite some time.

__________________

Miami New Times, April 9, 2008: Miami Herald Cutting Staff via Buyouts

Miami New Times, March 11, 2009: Miami Herald Cuts 175 Jobs, About 50 in Newsroom

__________________

This morning, in an email to the newsroom, Herald managing editor Rick Hirsch announced the paper was letting go two more long-time staffers: "In the next few days, we'll be saying goodbye to two important contributors to the Miami Herald, both gifted storytellers: [dance critic] Jordan Levin and [columnist] Ana Veciana Suarez." 

After reading Hirsch's email, one veteran Herald staffer commented, "Of course, it’s what they didn’t say that’s most interesting."

For instance, the one thing Hirsch didn't mention in his email is that almost no managers or bosses are ever affected by these staff cuts. 

But not all of those leaving the Herald, do so involuntarily. In January, Herald bosses announced that Audra Burch, one of the paper's most talented writers was leaving to join the New York Times.

And last December, Herald investigative reporter Michael Sallah left the paper to become an investigative reporter at Gannett in Washington DC. At the Herald, Sallah was part of a team that looked into irregularities at the Bal Harbour Police Department and government corruption in Opa Locka. Sallah and a team of Herald staffers were finalists for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for their work on the Bal Harbour series.

There are daily indications of the deep trouble now facing the Herald. The paper once employed a staff of more than 30 photographers statewide. But now the Herald and El Nuevo Herald share a combined staff of 7 photographers. A quick check of this morning's "A" section of the paper shows zero staff-produced photographs.

But I did find this full-page ad.

The irony here of course is, that on the same day the Herald publishes a full page ad asking its readers to #SupportRealNews, the managing editor sends out an email announcing the layoffs of two more staffers.


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UPDATE 1x at 7:00 pm, March 29: Two other Herald staffers — sports columnist Linda Robertson and movie critic Rene Rodriguez — were also slated to lose their jobs. But several sources tell me that Robertson will remain at the paper and write some sort of metro column. Rodriguez, I'm told, will become a writer for the business section. See emails below for details on Robertson and Rodriguez.

But the Herald's problems are not just on the news gathering side. After writing this post, I heard from no fewer than three friends who still subscribe to the paper. One is a retired Herald staffer. All three tell me that getting the paper delivered is a hit and miss proposition. Says one: "Of course I haven't had my paper delivered since March 7th.. I've had a range of 'managers' email me and take calls.. I'm about to give up and cancel it... shouldn't be this difficult to drop a paper on a doorstep."

____________

From: Hirsch, Rick
Date: Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 12:07 PM
Subject: Linda Robertson taking on Miami Aggravations
To: MIA Newsroom

Staff:

Linda Robertson, who has distinguished herself as a reporter and narrative writer in our Sports department for many years, is taking on a new beat.

We're calling it Miami Aggravations, a fast-moving daily beat that designed to demystify, explain and shine light on the aspects of South Florida life that perplex and puzzle all of us who live here. It can range from why DOT closes I-95 lanes when the big game is letting out from Dolphin Stadium to the backstory on expensive valet parking cannibalizing the best places you'd normally want to park.

We think this work will strike a nerve with our South Florida audience, driving interest and discussion about what we love and love to hate about living here. We think that Linda, who grew up in South Florida and has spent her journalism career reporting here, is especially well-suited to find the stories this beat demands.

But to do this well, Linda will need your help. She'll be soliciting ideas from the staff as well as from South Floridians at large as she digs in.

Linda will begin this new assignment on April 3, reporting to Jay Ducassi.

Rick and Mindy

Rick Hirsch
Managing Editor

Note to Linda Robertson: Here's an idea for your first column: After more than 100 years in business, why can't the Miami Herald figure out how to get papers delivered on time, AND ON A DAILY BASIS to its loyal subscribers??? How that's for aggravation!
____________
From: Hirsch, Rick
Date: Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 12:08 PM
Subject: Rene Rodriguez to cover real estate
To: MIA Newsroom

Staff:

Starting April 3, Rene Rodriguez will become our full-time real estate reporter on the business desk, filling the position that opened when Nick Nehamas moved to the investigative team.

Rene's a good match for this task, with a reporting background that began on the City Desk (writing obits and covering breaking police news), and has included, in addition to film, covering arts and the business of entertainment for the Business Desk. He's a smooth writer and a fast study.

In looking to fill this job, we wanted someone who reported aggressively and could deliver exclusive, news-breaking reporting on a beat that affects us all, from renter to homeowner to high-end condo gawker. We think Rene will give us the combination of enterprise and quick-hit coverage that enlightens readers and keeps them coming back for more.

The change in Rene's assignment obviously means that he will no longer be working as a film critic. That decision is one of several coverage shifts we've made to reflect what our audience is telling us about the news they value most. Rene has had a remarkable run as a critic, and there may be times when we'll call on his expertise and sourcing to inform our coverage of the movie and entertainment industry in South Florida.

Rene will be closing out some film related work next week before starting his new beat a week from Monday. He will report to Jane Wooldridge.

Rick and Mindy

Rick Hirsch
Managing Editor

Open letter to Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal

...
More than a few Herald insiders have told me that they had to step over the "pools of blood" on the floor while attending yesterday's newsroom announcement of photographer Patrick Farrell's Pulitzer Prize win.

Why?

What your paper left out of the stories today is that one of the journalists instrumental in Farrell's win, director of photography Luis Rios, will leave the Herald forever on Friday.

Rios was a victim of the latest round of Herald job cuts when his position was eliminated by you. Another Herald staffer who helped put together Farrell's Pulitzer entry - photographer John VanBeekum - has also been let go by you.

As someone with more than just a passing knowledge of the inner workings of the paper, I wonder what exactly one has to do to keep his job at your paper?

It looks as though if you work hard and bring honor to the paper you get fired.

But if you sit on your ass, ignore phoned-in news tips and go to a lot of meetings, you get to keep your job.

So please excuse me Anders if I get a little queasy when I read your assurances that the Herald is here to stay. You may believe that but as I look at your face in the video above, your expression tells me something else.

And I wonder why there aren't more people on the fifth floor like Humberto Castelló, who resigned last month from El Nuevo Herald rather than stay and watch the destruction of his paper?

None of this is meant to take away anything from Pat Farrell's stunning work. But as you know, newspapering is a team effort.

I'm saddened to see the departure of part of that team. And sorry that in your eloquent newsroom speech yesterday, you didn't even have the spine to acknowledge their contribution to Farrell's win...or the paper.

Is incompetent 'leadership' killing what's left of the Miami Herald? [UPDATED x1]

Peter principle: (noun) The theory that employees within an organization 
will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted 
to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.

__________

UPDATED x1 below
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For a newspaper, there's no more important job than covering vital issues and stories that affect readers' lives.

In a 1986 letter nominating Herald crime reporter Edna Buchanan for a Pulitzer Prize, an editor wrote, "Edna Buchanan does not write about cops. She writes about people. To the Miami Herald, she is a natural resource and treasure."

On Thursday afternoon, Miami-Dade homicide detectives arrested 17-year-old Jamal Royal Jackson and charged him with murdering 71-year-old Miguel Pilotos last month at an Opa-Locka supermarket.

But yesterday, someone at the Miami Herald decided that Jackson's arrest - one of the day's top stories - wasn't important enough and didn't warrant coverage. This despite the fact that it was the lead story on every newscast in town and was featured all day on the homepage of the Herald's sister publication, el Nuevo Herald.

Apparently, Herald editors have grown weary of assigning reporters to cover crime. The paper hasn't had a full-time cops and crime reporter since it reassigned David Ovalle to the courthouse beat several years ago.

As I wrote last March, but it bears repeating, "To fill that gap, the Herald now copies and pastes crime stories from TV station websites...or, on some days, it just ignores crime stories altogether."

So, what's more important to Herald editors than alerting readers to crime trends that might be occurring in their neighborhoods?

At the Herald it's 1) Cuba, 2) Haiti, 3) George Zimmerman, 4) The World of Dance, and 5) More Cuba. 

To the Herald's leadership, those are important subjects.

Teenage thugs running around your neighborhood shooting people in the face over a cell phone or some jewelry, or shooting someone simply because they "didn't look scared enough...." that's not so important.

But not everyone working at the Herald's new building in Doral thought the story of Jamal Jackson's arrest was one that belonged on page 5B.

Here's how el Nuevo Herald editors played the story on the paper's local front.

And the Herald? The paper buried - on page 5B - an early version of the story copied from CBS4. A version, by the way, that doesn't even mention Jackson's name.

The newspaper that won two Pulitzer Prizes for its
coverage of crime, now cuts and pastes crime stories
from TV station websites. 

It's not the first time that el Nuevo Herald editors have given an important crime story the space it deserves, while their colleagues on the English-language side of the newsroom stick their heads in the sand.

So, one has to assume that Herald editors live in some sort of parallel universe...one where crime is almost non-existent, or at the very least, something unpleasant that one does not talk about in polite company.

Will the mind-set of Herald editors ever change when it comes to crime coverage?

Yes.

When? The first time someone gets shot in the face by some punk, teenage thug over a Rolex or a smartphone in front of their half-million dollar condo on Belle Isle in Miami Beach...the very next day is when you'll see crime get the coverage it deserves in the Herald. That's when the candy-ass Herald editors will begin to take crime seriously. But until that happens, violent crime is someone else's problem.

But there's another reason the Herald shouldn't shy away from this kind of story. The Drudge Report thought it important enough to link to. Any webmaster will tell you that a link from Drudge is worth 50,000 clicks....minimum. The story Drudge chose to link to was CBS4's story....which as of this writing has over 1600 comments.

One doesn't need a PhD in criminal justice to know that there's a small army of teen thugs roaming Miami-Dade County willing to kill for a cell phone or a couple of dollars. But it's something you won't read about in the pages of the Herald. 

At what point in his young life does a 14 or 15-year-old kid decide it's okay to shoot someone in the face for the fun of it? What kind of homes do these kids come from? Is anyone helping them before they get to this point?

Anyone at the Herald want to tackle those very important questions; instead of writing yet another story on soccer in Haiti?

And here's a direct question for Rick Hirsch and Mindy Marqués: Since the Herald's dance critic has her own page on the website, and there's an entire page devoted to George Zimmerman, why not put up a page on your website that contains information that's actually useful to your readership ?

Newspapers like the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times and New Orleans Times Picayune all have pages on their websites devoted to tracking crime in those cities.

Why can't the Herald have the same?

One more question, Rick and Mindy: Can you think of anything more important than giving your readers information that will help keep them safe? Or a cops reporter who also "writes about people."


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UPDATED at 11 am, Sunday: Herald finally gets a story of Jackson's arrest in the Sunday paper...a full 48 hours after the story broke and 24 hours after el Nuevo Herald's story yesterday.

Who wants to be Miami's next police chief?

Miami mayor Tomas Regalado stands behind his man, Chief Miguel Exposito.

Miguel Exposito is learning the hard way that the job of being Miami's top cop is not for anyone who cherishes job security or a stress-free work environment.

In the the year he's been on the job he's also undoubtedly learned that the constant scrutiny and second guessing from the politicians at city hall can be just as oppressive as a Miami summer.

The Miami Herald's Chuck Rabin reported Sunday that Exposito "is the subject of growing speculation about his job security, after a first year that included four fatal shootings by officers, a videotape of police punching a man several times while he's pinned down, a botched attempt to control an unruly crowd and some anti-corruption investigations that fizzled."

Exposito runs a department with a checkered past.

In the fifties Miami cops were accused of being soft on gambling and bookmakers.

In Dec. 1967, Chief Walter Headley, frustrated by a week of violence, gained national attention by threatening to send his cops into high crime areas with police dogs and shotguns.

In the eighties it was hard to tell the drug dealers from the Miami cops.

In the nineties there was more corruption and the high-profile case of cops shooting unarmed suspects and then planting guns and orchestrating cover-ups.

Last August, following four fatal shootings by Miami police over a six-week period, the Herald reported that some wondered "if police under new Chief Miguel Exposito have become overly aggressive."

Miami mayor Tomas Regalado appeared to back Exposito.

"Regalado," the Herald reported, "began showing up at crime scenes with promises to ''take back the streets,'' by flooding those neighborhoods with cops. At one point, he raised eyebrows by challenging the well-armed gangs he believes responsible for several incidents, saying: ''We are going to respond to violence with violence.''

But that was then and this is now. Three months later, Regalado appears to be backing off in his support of the chief.

``It's all on Exposito,'' Mayor Tomás Regalado said, referring to police chief Miguel Exposito and the problems on his watch," the Herald reported Sunday.

If Exposito gets to keep hs job he'll almost certainly be in for more turbulence.

And if he goes, he'll just be the latest in a long line of Miami police chiefs to get swept up in Miami city politics.

In 1988 the Miami Herald compiled a list of 12 police chiefs that had served Miami since 1928. The Herald wrote that "politics played some part in the resignations or firing of eight of them."

CLARENCE DICKSON [first black police chief,] 1985-88. Resigned, saying he was "frustrated with the antics of the City Commission." ["I just didn't want to work for the City Commission anymore," said Dickson. "They didn't like me and I wasn't crazy about them."]

HERBERT BRESLOW, 1984-85. Resigned amid rumors he would be fired. Closely identified with former City Manager Howard Gary, Breslow's main foe was ex-Commissioner Joe Carollo, who didn't like Gary. [According to the Herald: "Breslow was chief less than a year, the shortest tenure ever in that post. He became chief at 2:47 a.m. Jan. 27, 1984, when former City Manager Howard Gary fired Harms. Breslow resigned Jan. 2, 1985, amid rumors he was headed for a similar fate." ]

KENNETH T. HARMS, 1978-84. Fired in a 2:47 a.m. phone call by City Manager Gary, the climax of a long feud between the two. Harms believed Gary was interfering in his department; Gary said the chief didn't follow orders. Gary was fired by commissioners nine months later.

GARLAND P. WATKINS, 1975-78. Unexpectedly resigned to move to Tennessee. He would not elaborate on his reasons for leaving and denied reports of a rift with City Manager Joseph Grassie. Watkins had been unhappy about forced layoffs and budget cuts.

BERNARD L. GARMIRE, 1969-74. Resigned under pressure after a series of City Commission inquiries and a Dade grand jury report criticized morale in the police department. Garmire's resignation followed a year of confrontation with Mayor Maurice Ferre.

WALTER E. HEADLEY, 1948-68. Died in office. He had a running battle with Mayors Abe Abronovitz and Robert King High, but the Florida Supreme Court, in a lawsuit involving Headley, ruled he could not be fired unless specific charges were brought up.

FRANK MITCHELL, 1946-48. Resigned after City Manager R.G. Danner was ousted by the City Commission. "I refuse to stay and see it torn down," he said of his department.

CHARLES O. NELSON, 1944-46. Forced to resign by City Manager Danner, who was not pleased with gambling in the city. Danner wanted the police department to eliminate all gambling.

HOWARD LESLIE QUIGG, 1921-28 and 1937-44. Twice fired; in 1928 after a grand jury indictment in a police shooting and in 1944 after he refused to follow City Manager A.B. Curry's order to quell a strike by Miami Transit bus drivers.

JOHN B. ROWLAND, 1936-37. Forced out of office by city administrators who wanted to replace Rowland with Quigg . Rowland was named a deputy sheriff.

GUY C. REEVE, 1928-33 and S.D. McCREARY, 1933-36,, also were police chiefs. Existing records do not show why they left.

In the 22 years since that list was compiled by the Herald, eight more have headed the Miami police department.

PERRY ANDERSON Jr., 1988-1991.

CALVIN ROSS, 1991-1994.

DONALD WARSHAW, 1994 -1998. Resigned to become Miami city manager.

WILLIAM O'BRIEN, 1998 - 2000. Resigned April 28, 2000 in the wake of the political fallout over the seizure of Elian Gonzalez. ``I refuse to be chief of police when someone as divisive and destructive as Joe Carollo is mayor,'' O'Brien said.

RAUL MARTINEZ, 2000 - 2003. Martinez, the Herald reported at the time, "was one of several targets in a failed 1980s federal corruption probe of Miami Police that included allegations he helped destroy evidence against drug smugglers, shared bribes, and skimmed cash and drugs from seizures, according to FBI documents."

"Several Miami Police Department veterans and federal law enforcement agents expressed surprise at Martinez 's appointment last week, noting that it was well known Martinez had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a federal grand jury. in 1984," reported the Herald.

Two and a half years later, Martinez resigned as chief. From the Herald: "His resignation came just two days after a Herald series that documented dozens of questionable shootings involving Miami police officers over the last decade."

Martinez was replaced by outsider John Timoney, who had gained a reputation as a tough cop on the mean streets of Philadelphia and New York. Timoney took over reins of the department in Jan. 2003.

In interviews with the Herald Timoney "referred to himself repeatedly as an expert on the police use of 'deadly physical force.'"

"He said some Miami officers have been involved in 'too many' deadly police shootings during the past decade, adding that officers constantly involved in shootings should be reassigned 'for their own good, and for the good of the public.' "

But despite the fact that the department under Timoney went almost two years without an officer firing a gun, his tenure was not without controversy.

In 2007 he came under fire after it was learned that he had been given free use of a Lexus.

But that paled in comparison to charges that his department had trampled the rights of demonstrators during the FTAA demonstrations in 2003.

Timoney lasted almost 6 years.

In Nov. 2009, "Timoney announced his resignation just as [newly elected mayor Tomas] Regalado stood among hundreds of supporters on the dais at City Hall for his swearing-in," wrote Rabin.

So, will Exposito stay or go?

Exposito, who is 56, has been with the department for 36 years. At some point he may just decide that he's had enough - and like Clarence Dickson in 1988 or Bill O'Brien in 2000 - tell the suits at city hall to "take this job and shove it."

If that happens, the city will start a search for his successor.

But before anyone decides they'd like to be the next Miami police chief, they'd do well to read up on some history.

Goodbyes at the Herald

Some 50 Miami Herald journalists - victims of the latest round of job cuts - said their final goodbyes yesterday.

Bob Norman has the farewell memo sent out to the newsroom by Senior Editor Mindy Marques.

A few names jumped out at me.

One being that of Georgia Tasker.

If some one's keeping a list of South Florida journalism icons, Georgia must be pretty close to the top.

She's been at the Herald for 40 years and has been the garden writer since 1979, writing elegantly about South Florida's gardens, ecology and all things green.

Another departure is that of Luis Rios, the Herald's director of photography.

Rios had only been at the Herald for 6 years, but his impact was felt last Monday when the Herald won yet another Pulitzer Prize for photography.

former Miami Herald director of photography Luis Rios
Knowledgeable insiders say it was Rios who prodded photographer Patrick Farrell to return to Haiti three times after his initial visit to that hurricane-ravaged country in September.

And it was also Rios - along with other photo editors - who fought with squeamish and vacillating higher ups, to get some of Farrell's more horrific pictures in the paper.

The resulting images shot by Farrell in his four trips earned him - and the Herald - a Pulitzer.

Rios's award? The loss of his job.

But fret not Herald readers; the paper still has a dance critic!

More job cuts, furloughs announced at Miami Herald

Less than four months ago Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg announced the elimination of 15 jobs company wide at the Miami Herald.

Today, Landsberg announced he's cutting another another 12 positions.

In an email Monday, Herald Publisher David Landsberg told staff that the company’s efforts to develop new revenue streams aren’t enough to offset prolonged revenue declines.

Landsberg said 13 jobs companywide will be eliminated and about 20 other vacant positions won’t be filled. It wasn’t clear how many of those jobs were in the newsrooms of the Herald and the Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald.

Also, all remaining full-time employees will be required to take a weeklong furlough without pay between September and the end of the year.

The company has already laid off more than 200 employees since 2009. It has also made significant cuts to save money, instituted news-sharing with other South Florida newspapers, reduced the physical size of its newspapers, consolidated sections, and raised prices for subscribers and newsstand buyers in an effort to find an economic balance. Remaining staff have endured pay cuts and furloughs.

In an email to staffers, executive editor Mindy Marques said the newsroom would suffer a "loss of 4.5 existing vacancies, three full-time positions, one part-time position and a reduction in hours for two positions."

Recent voluntary departures from the paper include tech writer Bridget Carey and staff writers Rob Barry, Robert Samuels, Jaweed Kaleem and James Burnett.

More So. Fla. newspaper woes

It's been a rough year for South Florida's daily newspapers.

The Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald have all cut hundreds of jobs in an effort to stem losses due in part to declining readership and ad revenue.

The Palm Beach Post recently cut 300 jobs in the paper's Production, Mailroom and Transportation departments after announcing that the paper will now be printed at the Sun-Sentinel's Deerfield Beach printing plant.

And we learned yesterday that the Herald - which has already been hit by two rounds of job cuts - may be up for sale by parent company McClatchy.

Now comes word that the privately-held Tribune Company - which owns the Sun-Sentinel - "has hired bankruptcy advisers as the ailing newspaper company faces a potential bankruptcy filing," according to a post on the New York Times website.

All three South Florida newspaper now have content sharing arrangements in what was once one of Florida's most competitive newspaper markets.

Earlier this year the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald entered into a distribution deal in which each paper now delivers one another's products in their respective counties.

Readers of the Herald have noticed for months the effect that the belt-tightening and job cuts at the paper have had on both the quality and quantity of news produced by what was once one of the Southeast's most prestigious, powerful and influential information sources.

Look for more cost-saving agreements and consolidation of resources between the three papers in the months to come. The bosses at all three publications undoubtedly are finally coming to the realization that their hopes for survival are now inextricably linked.

Sarasota Herald Tribune finds the state's dirtiest cop right here in South Florida

Click here to enlarge. 

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Sunday printed the first story of a nine part series that's going to be Topic "A" for discussion at at least one South Florida newspaper on Monday. Guaranteed.

Titled "Unfit for Duty," the Herald-Tribune series will examine over the remaining 8 days, "how Florida police officers ... stay on the job despite multiple complaints, crimes."

(Last October, in a similar series, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigated "Milwaukee police officers who have been found guilty of various infractions. [A] front-page package kicked off a huge, three-part look at police discipline.")

In part one, of the Herald-Tribune series, reporters Anthony Cormier and Matthew Doig, take an in-depth look at the record of Opa Locka police Sgt. German Roque, who is, unarguably Florida's dirtiest cop.

German Bosque's personnel file looks more like a rap sheet than a résumé.

In two decades, the Opa-Locka Police Department opened 40 internal affairs cases on Bosque. Sixteen of them were for battery or excessive force.

[Read Bosque's 64-page IA file by clicking here.]

Fired five times and arrested three, he was charged with stealing a car, trying to board an airplane with a loaded gun and driving with a suspended license.

Internal Affairs investigations found that Bosque split a man's lip with a head butt. He opened another man's head with a leg sweep and takedown. He spit in the face of a drunken, stumbling arrestee. One time, he smacked a juvenile so hard the boy's face was red and swollen the next day.

Bosque has been caught defying direct orders, lying to supervisors and falsifying police reports. Off duty, he was accused by women of domestic violence and stalking. During inspections, the agency found a counterfeit $20 bill, cocaine and crack pipes in his patrol car.

Still, Bosque has kept his badge.
[...]
In a computer analysis of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's discipline cases, the Herald-Tribune found Bosque's certificate had been jeopardized due to misconduct more than any other working officer.

During an August interview in Opa-Locka, Bosque lit up with excitement when he heard that he led the state in discipline cases.

"I can't believe that," he said. "I'm not trying to smile. I just ... damn!"

A high-level staff member with the FDLE's Bureau of Officer Standards had a different reaction. He first said it wasn't possible for an officer to get in trouble that many times and still be certified.

Then he pulled Bosque's records.

His response: "Holy shit."

The Herald-Tribune story is already eliciting reaction from South Florida journalists.

After reading it, one veteran newspaper reporter wrote, "That cop's record is off the wall. I've seen a few bad jackets, but nothing like that."

One Miami Herald reporter wrote on Facebook, "If even half of what was in this officer's file is true, there is no way he should be an officer. In any part of the country. Keeping him on the force leads to stories like these that contribute to citizens mistrust of police."

If you're a Miami Herald reader, by now you're probably asking yourself, "Why didn't the Herald do this story?"

While staff cuts have left the Herald with a greatly reduced staff, the paper is still doing great work.

Bosque's file however, is available on the Internet for anyone to see.

But, it's no surprise that the Herald-Tribune is out front on this story.

Last March, Yahoo! News reported the Sarasota Herald-Tribune was the "hottest place to land a journalism job."  Matthew Doig, one of the writers of the Bosque story, had posted a much-talked about listing for an investigative reporter.

If you're the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you're our kind of sicko.

A month later, the 95,000 circulation Herald-Tribune gained more attention by winning its first Pulitzer Prize ever.

Then, last September, the St. Petersburg Times hired away Chris Davis, an editor and reporter at Sarasota Herald-Tribune who headed up the team that won the Pulitzer.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see which Florida newspaper will fire the next shot in the Great Florida Newspaper Investigative Reporting Wars.

This is going to be interesting.

_______________________

As a part of their series, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has posted a searchable FDLE database that lists officers, complaints and disciplinary actions.

Update on Herald buyouts and job cuts

According to Herald managing editor Anders Gyllenhaal's memo last Tuesday, about 200 Herald editorial staffers were offered voluntary buyouts in an effort to pare 23 newsroom positions.

The way it's been explained to me, if enough of those 200 step forward and take the buyout, then anyone who didn't accept or anyone who wasn't eligible, won't lose their jobs. However, if the goal of 23 isn't reached then some people - probably those with the least seniority - will be let go.

The deadline to decide on the voluntary offer was today. The company will make a decision on accepting them by this Friday.

A newsroom staffer who attended one of the departmental meetings last Wednesday when options were discussed said people in his department were "in shock." After the presentation his department head asked if anyone had any questions. He was greeted by complete silence according to my source.

Some staffers already know that the axe is about to fall and are making plans to leave.

One bit of information that hasn't been reported is that Gyllenhaal was heard to say that 10 more staff cuts may be necessary in January.

But before then another piece of potentially bad news is looming on the horizon for the Herald. In the next month or so circulation numbers for U.S. newspapers will be released. Figures for the last reporting period ending in March 2008 showed the Herald's "daily circulation falling 11.7 percent to 240,233 copies, down from 272,192 copies at the end of March 2007." Barring a miracle the Herald is probably looking at a similar dismal decline in readership.

Also the very important holiday advertising season is approaching fast for newspaper ad people. Ad execs are hoping that they can make up for a very bad year between now and Christmas in spite of the economy.

The next few months are very important for everyone at the Herald and newspapers everywhere.

Is Huffington Post Miami guilty of theft?

Arianna Huffington is most famous for launching a website that posts thousands of stories a week, most of them written by people who don't get a dime for their work.

Much of what appears on HuffPost is written by bloggers who write for no pay. The fact that thousands will see their scribblings is apparently all the compensation they desire.

And then there's the serious stuff. Huffington Post "borrows" or "aggregates" - hundreds, perhaps thousands of stories a week from mainstream hard news websites.

Here's how it works: A newspaper pays a reporter to write a story. The reporter's story appears on the paper's website. Huffington Post then comes along and rewrites the story - adding no original reporting of its own - and posts the story on its site with a link to the original newspaper story.

It's a formula that's made Arianna Huffington a very wealthy woman.

Last February, AOL bought The Huffington Post for $315 million. The news didn't escape the attention of HuffPost's unpaid bloggers.

Arianna Huffington once boasted that "HuffPost [has] 148 full-time editors, writers, and reporters engaged in the serious, old-fashioned work of traditional journalism."

Last Nov. 30, Huffington announced the rollout of HuffPost Miami.

Huffington told her readers that HuffPost Miami would, "dig deeper in an effort to tell the stories of all the people who make up this unique city -- one that is a combustible blend of the old and the new, the glittery and the grimy, the transient and the entrenched. Our coverage will include the struggles that are familiar to cities all across the country but that have hit Miami particularly hard."

So, how's that working out? Let's check up on HuffPost Miami and see how they're practicing "the serious, old-fashioned work of traditional journalism."

For starters, Random Pixels has learned that HuffPost Miami has a staff of two. A third paid staffer has yet to be hired.

Maybe I'm naive, but where I come from it's a little hard to "tell the stories of all the people who make up this unique city" with a staff of just two or three.

So, what does the staff of HuffPost Miami do?

They're doing what made Arianna rich ... which ain't even close to "serious, traditional journalism", unless, of course you got your journalism degree from San Quentin or Raiford.

The HuffPost Miami staff is hard at work, busily stealing borrowing cutting and pasting aggregating stories they find on Miami's news sites.

And some in local media circles are starting to notice.

Today on Facebook, Miami Herald intern Jon Silman wrote, "The dream of any journalist? Why, Huffpost aggregation, of course. Thanks for the (sort of) link guys."

What Silman was referring to was HuffPost Miami's wholesale cut-and-paste job of his story on the family of a woman killed in a crash that won an almost $9 million judgment against Luis Cruz-Govin, the teen driver who caused the crash.

Instead of summing up the story in a few paragraphs and then linking to the Herald story, HuffPost Miami staffer Amanda McCorquodale rewrote Silman's story, cutting and pasting key details and elements from the story.

McCorquodale tries and fails to cover up her literary larceny with some shady sleight of hand that wouldn't fool Stevie Wonder.

Silman writes about a "partially consumed" bottle of cough syrup found in Cruz-Govin's car. In McCorquodale's story it becomes a "half-empty" bottle of cough syrup. Nice try Amanda.

Here are more examples:

From the Herald story: Myriam del Socorro Lopez was a passenger in a car driven by her husband, travelling eastbound on Bird Road, when Luis Cruz-Govin, 17 at the time, was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic in his father’s Subaru.

From the HuffPost story: In 2008, Myriam del Socorro Lopez was in the car with her husband on Bird Road when 17-year-old Luis Cruz-Govin, speeding and weaving, crashed into their vehicle. Lopez died on the scene.
______

From the Herald story: “The (defendant) was clearly a chronic texter,” Goldfarb said, citing the 127 texts Cruz-Govin sent on the day of the accident.

From the HuffPost story: Not only was Cruz-Govin speeding, according to the Herald, he was a habitual texter. On the day of the accident, records show he sent 127 texts, the Herald reports.
______

From the Herald story: According to the complaint, there was marijuana and cocaine in the Subaru, and a partially consumed bottle of Delsym cough syrup.

From the HuffPost story: Police also found marijuana and cocaine in [Cruz-Govin's] car as well as a half-empty bottle of cough syrup.

In another Herald story posted on the paper's website Monday evening, veteran staffer Andres Viglucci wrote about the Dade Heritage Trust's efforts to have the Miami Herald building declared a historic landmark.

By 9am Tuesday, Janie Campbell, "founding editor" of HuffPost Miami had copied and regurgitated Viglucci's story all over HuffPost Miami's homepage.

In her story, Campbell cuts and pastes entire quotes and chunks from Viglucci's story:

From the Herald story: In a statement to The Herald, Christian Goode, president of Genting’s Resorts World Miami subsidiary, called the Herald building “an affront to smart urban planning’’ because it blocks views of and public access to Biscayne Bay.

From the HuffPost story: Genting, [...] immediately responded with a statement declaring the One Herald Plaza "an affront to smart urban planning." (NOTE: Here Campbell attempted to change the phrase "the Herald building" in Viglucci's story to "One Herald Plaza" but neglected to edit out the word "the." Busted!)
______

From the Herald story: “It may be an uphill a battle, but it’s a worthwhile undertaking,’’ said Heritage Trust chief executive Becky Roper Matkov after the group’s board voted to proceed with the application, which is now being drafted. “I’m sure we will have a lot of opposition from monied interests. That hasn’t stopped us before.’’

From the HuffPost story: “I’m sure we will have a lot of opposition from monied interests," Matkov told the Herald, who are rent-free tenants in the building until 2013. "That hasn’t stopped us before."
______

From the Herald story: “There’s just one issue: Does it meet the criteria?’’ said historian Arva Moore Parks, former chairwoman of the city’s planning board, who supports the designation. “Then you have to follow the law.’’

From the HuffPost story: Historian Arva Moore Parks, former chairwoman of the city's planning board, told the Herald, "There's just one issue: Does it meet the criteria? Then you have to follow the law."

Random Pixels contacted Campbell today to get her side of the story. She declined to say anything on the record until she could get an OK from her bosses in New York.

Random Pixels also reached out to Herald managing editor Rick Hirsch this afternoon.

By phone, Hirsch declined to comment except to say, "I'll say what I have to say directly to the Huffington Post. There are some things we'll be discussing soon."

Others at the Herald agreed to talk with me on the condition I not use their names.

Of Huffington Post Miami's practices, one long-time Herald reporter told me, "Sure they link to our stories, but who's going to click through after they've read the entire story on the Huffington Post?"

Another Herald journalist was a little more direct: "We knew this was going to happen. The crop of people they hired couldn't get hired at the Herald," adding, "If you can't find an original story in this town on your own, then you ain't a journalist."

Carlos Alvarez: Still struggling with the truth

Who has the toughest job in South Florida?

Take a minute to ponder the answer.

Give up?

Well, the person with the toughest job in South Florida is any journalist trying to get a straight answer from Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez.

Alvarez doesn't talk to the press all that often. There's a reason why.

A former cop, Alvarez often has trouble getting his facts straight.

Today, it was Michael Putney's turn to try and get a simple answer from the mayor to a relatively simple question: Why are Miami-Dade transit workers, who are being paid by the county, working on behalf of you in your bid to defeat the recall?

(Click here to see Putney make Alvarez squirm like a robbery suspect under interrogation!)

First he says it's against county policy for anyone on county time to engage in political activity. But he never says why 12 bus drivers are violating that policy and denies knowing anything about it.

Putney tries a second and then a third time to ask the same question as Alvarez blankly stares off into space.

This time he gets this: "I don't know, You're gonna have to talk to the [transit] director. I didn't make that decision."

If you're experiencing Déjà vu right about now, you're probably not alone.

We've been through this before with Alvarez.

In 2009, the Miami Herald reported that Alvarez's chief of staff Denis Morales, moonlighted as a consultant in Panama while collecting "more than $200,000 annually in his county job. He and [several fellow] officers worked as consultants for the Panamanian National Police. The work was done through Protection Strategies Inc., an Arlington, Va. firm."

Yep, Alvarez's chief of staff was working a second job while collecting a fat county paycheck. Anyone starting to see a pattern here?

In 2010 the Miami-Dade Inspector General issued a report on Morales' moonlighting.

From a June 24, 2010 Herald story on the report:

Former mayoral chief of staff Denis Morales and several high-ranking Miami-Dade police officers regularly flouted county rules involving outside employment and abused their positions of power while earning more than $400,000 moonlighting as police consultants in Panama, according to a Miami-Dade Inspector General draft report obtained by The Miami Herald.

The report said then-Police Institute Director Bernardo Gonzalez never obtained authorization for outside employment from 2007 to 2009 -- yet made more than $250,000 from the work. In his role as the director of MDPD's training institute, Gonzalez was entrusted with training police recruits.

The high-ranking officials routinely ignored a county policy banning more than 20 hours of outside employment per week, the draft report said.

''The fact that within three years, a small group of County employees made over $400,000 in outside income, should have raised a bright red flag regarding their activities,'' reads the 30-page OIG report.
[...]
Morales, Gonzalez and Maj. Ariel Artime obtained at least 10 firstclass ticket upgrades to travel to the Central American country from 2007 to 2009, the report found. In one case, they demanded an upgrade from an American Airlines ticket agent even though a Miami-Dade police directive a month earlier banned such solicitations.

From 2007 through 2009, Morales and MDPD officials took at least 40 trips to Panama in connection with their work as paid consultants. Morales' outside employment request forms in 2007, 2008 and 2009 had been approved by Alvarez . ''The manipulation by Mr. Morales and the MDPD officials of the outside employment request and reporting process should have been detected by routine scrutiny,'' the investigators add.

The mayor's office did not return calls.

The report concluded that ''outside employment by County employees, regardless of rank, is a privilege, not a right, and such employment should only be authorized after due consideration.''
[...]
Alvarez had handed Morales a double-digit raise in March 2009, weeks after the mayor's speech foreshadowing deep budget cuts and layoffs. Morales' annual salary went from $185,484 to $206,783, and the raise was backdated to Sept. 21, 2008, resulting in a March 8 paycheck of $17,281.

When details of the pay increase emerged in August, Alvarez justified it by citing Morales' ''added responsibility and authority.''

The day that raise kicked in - March 8 - was also the day Morales returned from seven days of paid leave, for which he received $5,566 in salary from county taxpayers.

And like he did today under Putney's questioning, in 2009 when the Herald revealed Morales' double dipping, the mayor flip-flopped like a freshly-caught mullet.

From the June 2010 Herald story:

The mayor initially defended Morales' consulting work.

After The Herald's report, Alvarez halted Morales' outside work in Panama and directed that he use vacation time for a week he spent in the Central American country in March working the second job. For the trip, Morales took his regular salary from county taxpayers for five days even though he was also being paid by the outside firm. Instead of using vacation time, county officials said, Morales granted himself paid leave.

In January [2010], Alvarez demoted Morales to sergeant, reducing his pay to $77,492, not including pay incentives.

Here's Miami Herald reporter Matt Haggman in Dec. 2009 talking about how he learned of Morales' outside employment. Listen at the 1:50 mark (and again at 5"10) as Haggman talks about Alvarez giving two versions of the story on Morales' moonlighting.