In a nutshell, the post was about the failure of the Herald to cover any of the 137 shootings and 39 homicides that occurred last year in what Miami-Dade Police call the Northside District. (In case you missed it, you can read it by clicking here.)
"To my knowledge, we never have, nor has any paper I'm aware of, covered every killing in a major metro area," the reporter wrote back.
His response led me to believe that he never read my entire post. But I answered: "They're not covering ANY!!!!!"
To which he responded, "Ask the crime reporter. I'm the ________ writer. I don't make assignments or editorial decisions."
Translation: "Not my problem, dude."
So, if you're on a ship and the ship is headed for an iceberg but the captain doesn't see the iceberg, do you try to get his attention?
Judging from this reporter's response, that's someone else's job.
Note to Herald staffers: Now might be a good time to get reacquainted with the route to your lifeboat station.
So he rises to the defense, on illogical grounds, and then hands off? Sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteHere's the problem: a bean counter publisher, an invisible editor, an understaffed newsroom, rookie reporters lacking guidance and conformist editors trying to hold on to their pensions. There's more focus on survival than on covering news.
ReplyDeleteThe unfortunate Malaysian airliner disappearance was buried on page 19 - so there.
ReplyDelete