We have noted how letters to the editor of the Miami Herald often do a better job than editors or editorial board members in delineating stories of importance to the newspaper’s subscribers.
Another example appears in the “Glut of condos” letter in today’s paper.
The Herald has been noticeably reticent in reporting about the conversion of property it owns adjacent to One Herald Plaza into yet another multi-hundred million dollar windfall, or, how building a tunnel under what is now 195 (the bridge by the Herald) at more than $1 billion in public expense would dramatically increase its own property value.
No one likes to live next to a highway, right?
We give the paper credit, at least, for printing a letter to the editor that calls into question the issue: “It’s particularly disturbing that institutions such as the Miami Herald and Mercy Hospital are contributing to this disaster by providing land for developers to replace needed open space with vertical sardine cans stuffed with people.”
It is an inelegant point but important, none the less.
A significant portion of the purchase price by McClatchy of Knight Ridder is accounted for by land now used as parking lots and which might, someday, be another condo in the sky.
Miami Dade county taxpayers are increasingly restive about overdevelopment and its costs. Miami Herald readers are also restive about erratic reporting on who benefits and who gains from condo mania and suburban sprawl in Everglades wetlands.
For example, instead of hard hitting investigation of who owns land near Krome Avenue in West Miami Dade at the edge of the Everglades, the Herald prints a puff story about a powerful lobbyist turned developer of wetlands who “deeply cares” for the environment. Miami lobbyist/angler shows his wild side
The article concludes, “I think for the most part everyone would give us an ‘A’ for our efforts.”
Not us. Not by a long shot.
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