Michael Putney wrote a good editorial on the importance of paying attention to Charter Review, on today's opinion page in The Miami Herald. But why did he, and the editors apparently, feel the need to add the caveat that the subject matter is boring to readers?
The business model for newspapers, competing with the internet or TV with sound bites, is not working. That much is clear.
The implication of feeling the need to qualify the short attention span of readers on Charter Review is that the subject is just not interesting enough, or too complex, or somehow outside the interest of paid subscribers. I think that's an error of judgment.
Obviously, this blog takes a different view: our readers take a very close look at the politics that define so much of our lives, and who exactly, is doing the defining.
Along those lines, my criticism of Mr. Putney's column is his choice not to name names of the obstructionists, like Miguel Degrandy--who is single-handedly carrying the torch of the status quo on the Charter Review Commission, or, to identify the interests that he is defending from change.
These subject not only belong in the open, they long to be written in a way that actually elevates the audience of paid readers of The Miami Herald. Ana Menendez tried to do that, today, in her column on Robert Pinsky. But that treatment--that elevation of readers and their understanding--should be what drives The Miami Herald, without caveat.
6 comments:
I think by the results of many of the elections yesterday, one can see that Miamians are pretty stupid.
Why did he keep coming back to the, "Stay with me here, folks?" Don't insult us. If we're reading it, it's because we interested in it. And we can keep up with you.
Do you bother to read Herald stories before you criticize them?
You wrote:
"... my criticism of Mr. Putney's column is his choice not to name names of the obstructionists, like Miguel Degrandy--who is single-handedly carrying the torch of the status quo on the Charter Review Commission..."
Putney wrote:
"Thirteen task force members were appointed by county commissioners and two of them, lawyers Miguel de Grandy and Jorge Luis Lopez, are extremely successful Miami-Dade lobbyists. At the meeting I attended they pretty much framed the issues and drove the discussion. Not surprisingly, both argue against any substantive charter changes."
OK, point taken. It's the "not surprisingly" piece: why should Eyeonmiami be the forum where the "not surprisingly" is made clear?
I mean, either you are patronizing your readers, or, you are not!
And if you are not patronizing your readers, then lay it out ...
It is "not surprising" to Michael Putney, because he knows exactly how deformed our representative democracy is-- so why doesn't the Herald come out and say it, is the point I was trying to make, however clumsily.
Michael Putney is talking about the charter review task force, however, elsewhere in the paper today, the commission was totally ignoring its existance, voting on things that the Charter Review Task Force is considering! Murray Greeenberg is right. They are wasting their time.
Lobbyist and hateful Miguel De Grandy is manipulating and undermining the whole review process. Natacha picked her boy well...lap dog, whatever you want to call him.
what, you ask, is a MEGO? Safire defined it as a
''Mine Eyes Glaze Over'' story
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