Sun-Sentinel Reporter Meltdown: The Video
BY BUDDY NEVINS
South Florida reporter Marci Shatzman needs to take a chill pill.
Shatzman this week violated one of the major rules of journalism: Don’t embarrass your boss.
Baited by a Palm Beach County political figure who was criticizing journalists, Shatzman stormed out a meeting. Shouting threats about cutting off future coverage.
Oooops.
Someone had a cell phone camera, which Shatzman should have anticipated in today’s world.
The video – a link is below – quickly made the round on the Internet.
This is bad news for the Sun-Sentinel, even though Shatzman doesn’t work for the newspaper per se. She works for the Forum newspaper group, a chain of free weeklies owned by the Sun-Sentinel.
Worse in the Sun-Sentinel’s eyes, it was reprinted by JimRomenesko.com, which is viewed in every newsroom in the country because of its inside scoops on the media. None of the mucky-mucks at the Sun-Sentinel like to see the company’s name mentioned negatively in Romenesko.
Marci, you were invited to the political forum as a guest, not as one of the participants.
Don’t let them get to you. Ignore it.
Take a lesson from me: During my career I listened to numerous idiots. Some were mouth-breathing, knuckle dragging nitwits who clearly didn’t know what they were talking about. (And some of those were editors, but that’s another column.) I tried to just smile and take notes.
I didn’t let them get to me because they were potential sources. And , as ill-informed as they were, their opinion was as important as mine to the newspaper.
But most of all, they were Sun-Sentinel readers and customers!
So Marci, I say this with all due respect, in the future: Cool it.
Here is Marci’s YouTube video
September 13th, 2013 at 1:01 pm
This no more than other reporters do regularly in print. Isn’t that worse?
September 13th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Buddy,
Andre Fladell is a not a “right-wing political figure.” Fladell is a Democrat.
FROM BUDDY:
Thanks for clearing that up. I reworked it.
September 13th, 2013 at 1:45 pm
This fool of a woman — seemingly quite full of herself — is a disgrace to competent reporters and journalists coast to coast.
Her job is to show up where assigned, listen and observe, and later to file her copy for an editor to review for possible publication, assuming she’s capable of writing in complete sentences. She is an observer. Not a participant.
And as someone who works for a dipsy-doodle pub like the Forum, she would do well to refrain from loudly announcing herself as “The Press.”
This over-the-hill dummy who ought to know better deserves no second chances after a performance like that. She needs to be sacked.
September 13th, 2013 at 1:47 pm
I’m sitting next to Fladell in the video. I spoke after him. I disagreed with his remarks in a civil and polite manner. Too bad Marci didn’t stick around to find that out.
September 13th, 2013 at 6:19 pm
give me a nickel for every bozo who insulted me and i’d be rich… wait a second, i am rich …. hmmmm … maybe what goes around comes around …
FROM BUDDY: Tom Lubart is the former political writer for the Sun-Sentinel. He left the paper in the 1970s and eventually was a producer at ABC and on local NYC television stations.
September 13th, 2013 at 8:55 pm
I saw the headline and held my breath hoping Brittany had finally been Baker Acted, but not yet.
September 14th, 2013 at 12:41 am
Lubart ?
September 14th, 2013 at 7:42 am
Buddy,
The sell out of journalistic ethics is at the very heart of the culture of corruption.
Extraordinary protections are given to the press under our constitution, not as a gift but as a necessary investment in the factual awareness of our people, without which no democracy can properly exist.
The press is that one business that must operate with total and complete integrity, in a world that is decidedly grey, in order to allow truth to shine so that the darkness is contained by the illumination that only truth can generate. It fails today to do that job. It does so intentionally and any reporter, blogger or journalist that disagrees with that comment is in need of psychiatric assistance. They are in denial.
We live in an era in which the press has never had less credibility. They have prostituted the quality and ethics of their own craft and profession in favor of profit. The new strategic goal of journalism is profitable sensationalism not informing the public. Nothing is more corrupt.
The tactic of choice is snarky, cynical, rude, sensationalist, propagandist writing that doesn’t really care about the truth — “this is what we do” being the common excuse to blur the line between truthful writing — but rather dedicates itself to inventing news that does not exist, reporting intentional half truth, adding slant for extra zip in a story, disregarding the difference between news reporting and opinion.
It is sloppy. It is unprofessional and unethical. It is insulting. It is corrupt.
“Writers” today often call sources with stories already written in their heads. Already discussed and approved by their editors. They don’t seek the truth of the story when they call, they just want a sound bite or two to prop up the false angle they’ve already decided to write. What kind of journalism, what kind of respect can something that corrupt possibly command. They know what they’re writing is a lie and they write or report it anyway.
In other words, they are the news makers now. More precisely, they are the news inventors. Not the news reporters. But the news inventors and makers. It is killing our democracy in one of the very few ways such a death possible. Absence of truth.
Pick up any newspaper, listen to most any newscast and you will see examples of this all the time. Veterans like Nevins will say it was always that way. I totally disagree. Media coverage used to be more fair, you didn’t have to ask for fairness, you didn’t have to work to ensure the basic truth got out.
It has never been as easy as it is today to have lies printed in newspapers or uttered on TV about matters important to how people think about society and their government.
That is corrupt and it goes far to explain why – oddly enough, in the age of information – Americans have never been so ill informed by those whose role in our society is to just tell the truth. Our media has robbed themselves of what matters most to them as well. Credibility.
It’s admirable that guys like Nevins who care would object to that statement, it just seems so horrible to them to believe. But the only thing that can bring back the public’s trust in government is good government. And likewise, the only thing that can bring back the public’s trust in journalism is good journalism.
People know the goods when they see them. Journalism has become twice, heck ten times more disappointing than government. Both need to shape up and it starts with people demanding just that. Good service from government, truthful and ethical reporting from the press.
Peace,
Angelo
FROM BUDDY:
When I write that news coverage has a history of being “snarky, cynical, rude, sensationalist,(and) propagandist,” I am correct. The difference today is the delivery.
The Internet gives anybody the ability to comment on anything. Twitter is one of the most influential sources of news in the world, all in 140 words. And it will not stop there. The world of information is changing very, very fast.
Years ago we had publishers who determined what their community read. In some towns, the major newspaper also controlled the biggest radio station and a TV station. If the publisher didn’t like you, forget getting a fair shake.
When I started at the Fort Lauderdale paper in the early 1970s, I was told that we don’t do stories about murders in the black community. At another newspaper I worked at, we weren’t allowed to write anything criticizing Richard Nixon. Is that the balanced reporting you remember, Angelo?
I grew up amid the turbulent tabloid newspaper world of New York City. My father was involved in the media. The newspaper world in New York was “snarky, cynical, rude, sensationalist,(and) propagandist” everyday as papers struggled for an audience.
Let’s not forget to mention Hearst, who helped pioneer “Yellow Journalism” more than a century ago. Of the New York Graphic that was so sensational it was nicknamed the PornoGraphic. Or the play and movie “Front Page,” which is a somewhat accurate portrayal of the shenanigans practiced by “journalists” during the Depression. Or the supermarket tabloids. Or the NY Post.
The Main Stream media is desperately struggling for an audience today against the onslaught of the Internet.
Local TV news is riding to oblivion as its audience ages. Just check out the ads on TV news, largely aimed at seniors, to see how their audience is dying.
Local newspapers like the Sun-Sentinel lost more than half of its ad revenue and circulation in just a few years. For instance, the very profitable classified sections have largely migrated to Craigslist and other such sites. The staffs have been cut, new reporters have been hired who have little experience and reporters are given almost no time and little space for in-depth coverage of anything.
TV and newspapers reach for the cheap and sensational to battle the Internet. Anything that might draw an audience while spending the least possible: The ambush interview where a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question passes for good journalism. Crime stories, which are largely reprints of police news releases. Tons of consumer news featuring information that anyone but a moron would already know. Stories so short they say nothing.
Have these methods been successful? Have newspapers and local TV stopped the bleeding? Just ask yourself when is the last time your kids read a Main Street newspaper or watched local TV news?
All is not glum, Angelo. The good thing about the Internet world is if the Sun-Sentinel or TV news are not providing what you want, there is always another place to get information. Join thousands of others– turn off the TV and cancel that subscription.
September 14th, 2013 at 11:58 am
Buddy, epic journalism failure goes back a lot farther than that!
~~~~~
http://www.herbmuseum.ca/node/1578
The war fury that led to the Spanish American war in 1898 was ignited and fanned by William Randolph Hearst through his nationwide newspaper chains, marking the beginnings of “yellow journalism” as a force in American politics.
In the 1920s and 30s, Hearst’s newspaper chain ran the deliberate new yellow journalism campaign to have hemp outlawed. From 1916 to 1937, as an example, the story of a car accident in which a marijuana cigarette was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related car accidents (which outnumbered marijuana-connected accidents by more than 1000 to 1) made only the back pages.
The same theme of marijuana-related car accidents was burned into the minds of Americans over and over again (1936- 1938) by showing marijuana related car-accident headlines in movies such as Reefer Madness and Marijuana- Assassin of Youth.
Bigotry and Apartheid
Starting with the 1889 Spanish American War, the Hearst newspapers had denounced Spaniards, Mexican-Americans and Latinos.
After the seizure of 800,000 acres of Hearst’s prime Mexican timberland by the “marihuana” [sic] smoking army of Pancho Villa, these slurs intensified.
Non-stop for the next three decades, Hearst painted the picture of the lazy pot-smoking Mexican- still one of our most insidious prejudices. He also did a similar racist smear campaign against the “Yellow Peril” of the Chinese.
Hearst papers from 1910 to 1920 would say that the majority of Negroes raping white women could be traced directly to cocaine. This continued for 10 years until Hearst decided it was not cocaine crazed Negroes raping white women- it was now marijuana crazed Negroes raping white women…
September 14th, 2013 at 3:57 pm
Buddy,
It it a question if magnitude. Things not being perfect in the past in no way condones the magnitude of journalistic professional malfeasance today which totally explains why the media is no longer respected and holds scant little public credibility. That was never more true than today. And that fact stabs at the heart of our society.
Angelo
September 14th, 2013 at 10:13 pm
Just like Hearst’s left slanted yellow journalism, today’s so called newspapers peddle their lies, distortions and cover-ups. But Democrats no longer have a monopoly on the information business. Thank God for the internet, talk radio and the occasional honest paper that keeps us informed of the truth.
September 15th, 2013 at 8:06 am
If the suggestion is let’s all cancel our newspaper subscriptions and instead turn to the internet to get our information, then this nation is truly fucked.
FROM BUDDY:
Why? What is the difference how information is delivered? Is the content of the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal, both of which I receive on the Internet, any different on an iPad from the print version. The answer is “No.”
September 15th, 2013 at 10:14 am
Buddy you’re a great guy but in fairness you consistently miss this point and may stand too close to it to realize.
It is well established that newspapers are professionally unreliable and have lost the credibility of the public. That is the price they pay for being the whores they have become. Internet “news” is even less reliable because it follows no rules to ensure credibility.
Buddy may stand too close to this problem to realize the seriousness involved. There is no news source in America anymore that rational thinking adults can trust.
Fox has an ax to grind, so does CNN and MSNBC. They’ve become propagandists for hire. Newspapers slant and spin news to where it isn’t even true. Blogs are not reliable news sources.
Where does one go anymore to be reliably informed?
September 15th, 2013 at 10:47 am
Thought is was Brittany too. Her time will come…hopefully sooner than later. She takes quotes out of context and irresponsibly and knowingly places the quotes in a context to sell newspapers without caring about lives she is affecting by her wrongdoing.
FROM BUDDY:
When I worked with Brittany I found her to be an outstanding journalist.
September 15th, 2013 at 5:26 pm
@13 – Go to http://www.theguardian.com/us
September 16th, 2013 at 11:11 am
There are crazy things that happen in journalism. There is a small ethnic newspaper in South Fl. There is a journalist there who wrote scathing articles about an incumbent. Articles sourced by the campaign even. The challenger won that campaign. That “reporter” then took a job with that candidate. He still remains on the newspaper payroll.
How is that for “ethical journalism” Mr. Castillo? I am certain you will not respond to this. Why am I certain? The Agency is BSO. The Reporter is Elgin Jones and the Candidate is now Sheriff Scott Israel.
September 16th, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Watching:
Journalists take jobs in government all the time as countless examples would indicate. The question you do not ask is the more profound one.
Were the stories you categorize as scathing true or were they untrue? No one suggests that scathing stories not be written but simply that every story written should be true. The objective reporting of truth is what damages the credibility of the press.
Angelo
September 17th, 2013 at 9:43 am
Commissioner Castillo,
With all due respect, that’s a crock of excrement. When a journalist uses his platform to assist in a political campaign and then accepts a job from that candidate. It is morally bankrupt. There are no two ways to look at it.
I know why you’re upset with “the media.” Chinn ratted you out for showing up at 10 and leaving at 3. Certainly that is within your purview. You also have other responsibilities to the Sheriff that do not include “office hours.” What exactly was untrue about those key card records?
Makes sense to me.
I am sure you’ve adjusted your schedule accordingly so that the key cards show you are there earlier and leave later.
All I am saying is you are a member of the “Scott Israel Brain Trust” and those hands aren’t clean either.
FROM BUDDY:
This writer mentions a TV report on Angelo Castillo.
Castillo is very able to defend himself. I will comment on the story.
The TV report showed Castillo didn’t use his key card to enter the BSO office from 9 to 5 every day.
It was a good story, but it didn’t go far enough. If I was still an editor, I would have kicked it back.
What Castillo was doing the rest of the time? This is important since high ranking professionals usually aren’t tied to a desk.
Was he working from home? Was he working at another location?
Wrongdoing wasn’t proved.
September 17th, 2013 at 10:20 am
I remember some years ago, it was the mid 80’s, and channel 7 had hired some guy named Joel Cheatwood, who was going to take over the stations news department and revolutionize their news coverage. They started producing a local show that was similar to the “Inside Edition” type things we see now. I could not wait for the first show. I was looking forward to seeing some real in-depth coverage of the south Florida news scene. Cheatwood & Co. had made the local radio talk show circuit touting their new show. The first show that took to the airwaves had the graphic headline “Is Elvis Alive?”
Back around the mid 80’s is when real journalism started taking a crap. The talent pool has been diluted. It’s like when pro sports expands. Once you keep adding more teams, the talent is spread more thinly. There will always be the Yankees and the Red Sox. But then there will also be The Marlins and The Astros. The same holds true in any industry, including the news business. The talent pool is getting thinner and thinner. There’s not a lot of real journalist left.
FROM BUDDY:
What you left out is that Channel 7 has been immensely successful. It racks up great ratings and has, I believe, more time devoted to news than any other station.
Local TV news in this market is largely akin to a tabloid newspaper — lots of crime news (Easy to cover and makes great visuals.), consumer reports and entertainment buzz. It has worked for Channel 7, but they are scrambling for a smaller and smaller audience.
September 17th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Once they lost the NBC affiliation, they had to go with expanded tabloid news. They’re running close to 70 hours a week of news. Can anyone run that much news without sensationalizing it? I’ve no doubt they have good news ratings.I don’t watch them and I’ve never been asked to fill out a viewer diary. One of these days, the FCC and broadcasters are going to figure out a way to accurately measure viewership.
September 17th, 2013 at 6:30 pm
That can’t be Angelo Castillo posting above. He limited his words to only two paragraphs.
Buddy, why not post a link to that story on Castillo you mentioned? As far as not using his key card, most security conscious firms I know fire people for that.
Concerning Elgin Jones, he may be a talented, entertaining writer but he cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Years ago, Elgin was largely conservative until his publisher reminded him that he was a Black man writing for a Black Democrat readership. Presto chango, Elgin drinks the Kool Aid and starts his racist rants against the man. What kind of journalistic ethics allows him to work for the Sheriff AND write for his racist fish wrapper?
September 18th, 2013 at 7:22 am
What makes it racist? Is it because of a different point of view?
September 18th, 2013 at 7:59 am
Either the reporter told the truth or he didn’t tell the truth. A reporter’s motivations or lack thereof are irrelevant so long as the stories printing are true and professionally presented.
That is the point that Castillo makes and he’s totally correct. Jones wrote about numerous involvements of Lamberti and BSO in unsavory matters. Those stories were never disputed on the merits of the facts reported.
We see too much untruth, half truth, sloppy innuendo in disguise of truth. It cheats the public and devalues journalism. Reporters have no right to be defensive when ordinary citizens object to what is going on in the press today and they are in denial to ignore that reality.
September 18th, 2013 at 8:34 am
Dear Watching,
My hands are totally clean. I have nothing at all to hide and have not changed my work patterns one bit nor do I intend to. Not sure where your hands have been but mine are just fine.
Nobody, absolutely nobody who knows me would ever say I milk a job much less my current one. Ask around. People will tell you. I’m a workaholic who rarely misses a day at work or vacations. Admittedly, I’ve been that way since my teens and frankly it is a fault that I have difficulty disconnecting with my work.
I’m working almost all the time and put in tons of hours. And I love it. More important than the hours I put into my work is the WORK I put into my HOURS — a quintessentially executive characteristic — which explains much about the progress throughout my career. Which in turn explains why I am a salaried, rather than hourly employee. On call 24/7 and paid on a salary that stretches that time frame without overtime.
Norman knew all this. He was told. In writing. He ignored those facts and intentionally told another story aiming to hurt someone’s character with innuendo. He does a lot of that, writing stories that portray facts differently than they objectively truly are. These are intentional lie, many of them malicious in fact, which is evidence of his corruption.
No lie can redefine a known person. You can scream a lie from the highest mountain but for those who know better it’s seen for the lie it is. Angelo Castillo not going to work is a lie that nobody believes. Yet Norman thought he could sell it. And at the end of his piece, he make reference to “nobody has yet filed to run against him.” Revealing his true agenda, motivated for whatever reason.
I repeat — Norman was repeatedly told in writing — swipe cards are not timekeeping systems. Employee’s hold doors for one another, press elevator buttons for one another, and never ever swipe to leave a building. Nor is there any need to swipe an elevator to go to the lobby and out the door. You could be at the office until very late at night and have the exact same swipe record as somebody who left at 3 pm on the same day. He was told that I am a salaried executive, not an hourly employee.
Didn’t care. Didn’t matter.
Norman who was following a “tip” from a disgruntled and discredited former employee who misinformed Norman before causing him to apologize and recant other misstatements he made on the air.
Still, Norman ran with the story because he loves to report innuendo. He’s become a bully that way behind his camera.
It makes him feel powerful and then he chuckles about it with others. As if he was some kind of king.
THIS abuse of power is core of corruption. Norman has become the beast that he hunts.
He now plays a central role in the culture of corruption he set out to expose. That applies to him and every other reporter that sells out their craft.
And please notice — I have no fear whatsoever in saying so. When you live a clean life, you fear no bully. There’s no reason to.
Bob Norman has become a fraud because he has sold out his professional standards just to make his quota of stories irrespective of whether they are true. He abuses his power by reporting stories he knows to be false, intentionally and maliciously spreading innuendo rather than fact. He has political ambitions perhaps not for himself but for how he wants certain things done and when he doesn’t see that he uses his power to try to influence the decisions of others. All of that is corruption for a news reporter.
I once had high hopes for Norman and even rooted for him. Sadly those hopes seem to have been misplaced. He really does need to shape up and snap back into the mold of an objective reporter.
Angelo
September 18th, 2013 at 10:31 am
Now THAT is the real Angelo Castillo. Why write one sentence when ten will do. BTW, great job ignoring the Elgin Jones issue.
September 18th, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Sam:
Elgin Jones is a respected reporter who wrote truthful and compelling stories about an administration at BSO that was unpopular. You have not disputed that fact with substance. This is a post about lack of credibility in the press, not about credible journalism. You seem very confused and there’s no point you made that is being ducked. Elgin wrote truthful stories.
So there is no Elgin Jones “issue” though it appears you have a jones for Elgin, and perhaps your own political agenda explains that problem.
Angelo
September 18th, 2013 at 8:17 pm
Angelo,
Why don’t you follow Sheriff Israel’s BSO policy and shut your mouth! For God’s sake, at the very least, can you at least clear all your postings with the PIO.
Geeeez, what a self absorbed Jack Ass!
September 19th, 2013 at 1:16 am
My Dear Angelo,
Sorry, no confusion here about Elgin Jones ethics. I never disputed any truth about what he wrote since I long ago stopped reading his screed. My point, which you are deftly tap dancing around, is that I believe he played up to the Israel campaign to get a nice paycheck from the new administration. I believe that the campaign offered him a job if he would get on board the hate Lamberti train. Bad journalistic ethics. I believe that holding a job with the Sheriff’s Dept and still trying to look objective while writing for his paper is also bad journalistic ethics. Even a High School Journalism student can see that, but my guess is that you can’t.
You piss and moan about Bob Norman, but you see nothing wrong with having your own in house newspaper reporter. Take the log out of your own eye before you look at the speck in another’s.
September 20th, 2013 at 7:28 am
Sam,
I’m not dancing around your “point” I’m telling you that your point is hollow. Here are the rules of journalistic ethics. They are the actual rules, in contrast to what you or anybody else might “believe.”
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
You can’t violate these rules ever by telling the truth. You cannot play up to someone by reporting the truth. Even you agree that Jones is a truthful reporter, so you are left with no point to make. Only lies told by reporters are unethical.
Further, it is unethical for any reporter to not expose the unethical acts of other reporters. That’s how the rules are enforced — the profession it supposed to enforce the rules upon themselves. This very rarely happens which proves that the profession has become corrupt. They protect instead of expose each other’s lies.
Under these rules of ethics, you cannot be an ethical reporter and allow any other news report that fails to follow the rules go unexposed.
People who don’t even know the rules sense that the media is no longer credible. It hurts democracy, it is bad for our society, and it gives me absolutely no pleasure to say so. But it’s true and I see nothing being done about it.
Angelo
September 20th, 2013 at 7:33 am
….therefore, when a citizen comes into a crowded room and is asked to speak.
And has something critical to say about the press.
Some half-crazed reporter has NO business walking out and creating a scene as if they were entitled to play the victim. They are not the victim. They are the perpetrator and deserve to be exposed.
How dare that reporter treat that man with such disrespect when everything he was saying was true?
Angelo
September 20th, 2013 at 9:44 am
Angelo,
Thanks for doing that research in finding the journalists ethics. Too bad you didn’t bother to read it. Here is a cut and paste of one of the paragraphs. See anything in there that applies to your fellow BSO employee, Elgin Jones?
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.
Journalists should:
—Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
— Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
— Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
— Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
— Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
— Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
— Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
I know that it is your tactic to flood the thread with your verbose nonsense, but just because nobody likes to read your endless diatribes doesn’t mean you get to ignore what I say if you are going to comment on what I say. I think you are having trouble with your reading comprehension. I never admitted to Elgin Jones’ being a truthful writer. I just did not dispute it. There is a big difference. I have no intention of doing any fact checking on his articles, especially since I know he is an unethical writer, (thanks to your research).
Now that you have pointed out that a journalist must expose another journalists ethical lapses, and that your provided link proves Elgin Jones to be unethical, are you going to challenge Buddy to call him out?
FROM BUDDY:
Your list is admirable. Unfortunately, some local TV stations and the Sun-Sentinel no longer adheres to the following:
“–Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
— Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.”
The Sun-Sentinel followed those maxims under editors Earl Maucker and Gene Cryer. They were real journalists. I know of stories where thousands of dollars in advertising was pulled from the paper. Cryer and Maucker stood by the reporters and the stories.
I also know that times have changed at the Sun-Sentinel, in particular. Coverage today is sometimes tailored that the power structure, i.e. the tiny unrepresentative downtown Fort Lauderdale business community, and advertisers are not offended. I know examples. Some examples have have ended up on blogs and in the New Times.
I hear that some local TV might be even worse.
September 20th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Sham, congratulations for nailing Castillo so beautifully. I think he’ll get a big RED LIGHT from the voters when his current term expires, and I’m sure there will be plenty of CAMERAS there to capture his face as he receives his pink slip. Maybe he’ll file a big LAWSUIT after he loses!
September 20th, 2013 at 3:35 pm
Buddy, I’ll just revise one of your sentences slightly to arrive at another pointed observation:
City Commission voting today is sometimes tailored so that the power structure, i.e. the tiny unrepresentative downtown Fort Lauderdale business community, and developers are not offended.
Unfortunately, I can’t point to any time in the past when this wasn’t true. It’s not like the Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners have ever really cared what the 99% think.
As long as the City Commissioners are using their Deluxe Kneepads during each and every conversation with the 1%, and casting each and every vote according to the interests of the 1%, they think they’re doing everything right.
When the 99% submit their petitions, the City Commissioners just laugh and pass these petitions with their thousands of signatures directly to the 1% for use as toilet paper.
The City Commissioners must have cheered Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s explanation that “democracy is a train that you take to your destination, and then you get off.” They would just add that as soon as you get off, you put on your Deluxe Kneepads and begin servicing the 1%.
There must be a better way.
September 20th, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Sam,
Sorry, but you don’t seem to understand how to interpret rules. Reported truth is never a basis for an ethical dilemma, real or perceived, with any rules of ethics including those that are supposed to govern journalism. Only lies lead to ethical difficulty.
Further, reporters are allowed work at other jobs even if they once reported about those employers. It happens all the time and has always has. That in itself is not a basis for ethical conflict.
This is a post about the widely held and increasingly justified view that reporters lacking credibility because they don’t follow standards. Few dispute that fact, and then some get angry at meetings when outspoken citizens say so.
You just don’t seem to get it and perhaps you just don’t want to. And as to the haters out there, your own political agenda screams out very clearly. It amuses me actually. Regards,
Angelo
September 21st, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Angelo,
You are so full of it, your eyes are brown. I was merely following the rules that you set forth. Now you are taking them back because you’re hypocrisy is laid bare. You can choose to have a double standard all you want, but I know what Elgin Jones is and so does anybody who cares to look at the facts.
As a public servant you should be wary of calling people haters. Disliking political payoffs, cushy appointments and hypocrites does not a “hater” make. It is a little telling about your personality that you are amused by your constituent’s concerns.
September 21st, 2013 at 8:27 pm
I see that Angelo Castillo has placed himself firmly within the “Stacy Ritter” category of ethics rules “interpretation”.
Angelo Castillo has incredible difficulty with reading comprehension where ethics rules are concerned. He is unfit for public service.
Resign now, Castillo. You are a disgrace to South Florida.
September 22nd, 2013 at 9:47 am
Sham and Ha,
Thank you. I will grant you the last word on the subject because I think it settles the issue better than I ever could. Only one thing is left unsaid and I will dispense with that in this way.
I deeply regret your pain at losing the Sheriff’s race. Your pain is impossible to overlook, I know that race meant something important to you and hope your pain eases with time, alternatively, that you find ways to carry it with greater dignity.
We on the other side don’t regret the choices we made for a better community, our choices were never personal, and for sure we do not hate you. Actually, we wish you well even when you don’t feel the same way about us. Because how you feel about us doesn’t matter much except that it does draw out our empathy.
Enjoy your weekend.
Angelo
September 22nd, 2013 at 11:35 pm
I voted for Israel because Lamberti was even worse, as I already stated in prior BrowardBeat posts. So that’s both false and a red herring.
Resign, Castillo. Take your verbosity and go write novels or something. You aren’t fit for public office.
September 22nd, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Typical hypocrisy. Say I have the last word then proceed to bloviate your nonsense. You have a serious emotional, psychological and personality disorder.
Guess what Angelo? Your boss Scott is reading this and wishes you were a little more circumspect in your public ramblings. Your constituents are hanging their heads in embarrassment.
September 24th, 2013 at 8:00 am
Buddy do you think the newspaper will discipline the reporter in some way for her behavior? I also agree that the Lamberti people have become sore losers and thats a clear turn off. Your boss lost get over it.
FROM BUDDY:
I was told by three sources inside the Sun-Sentinel last week that little if anything was done.