Miami Herald Ombudsman Takes on Quality/Quantity of Herald Reporting and Hiaasen takes on Elections Department. By Geniusofdespair

Miami Herald Ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos in a refreshing self-analysis of Herald Reporting (he does work for the Herald) said there has been: Inadequate coverage of Miami-Dade School Board-Rudy Crew saga. Right on target he reported:

“After Crew barely survived a vote last month on his tenure, reporter Matthew Pinzur brought some needed perspective to what at least Crew's weakened status means. Calling it a ''dark soap opera that has polarized the community and shoved educational issues off stage.'' Pinzur writes: ''The most vital question is whether the heady politics that produced Monday's 5-4 vote will color every future policy debate of Crew's tenure.'' It might be possible, others say, but Pinzur himself concludes: ``Navigating such narrow political waters can be exhaustingly time-consuming and require a level of compromise and tongue-biting that Crew has rarely shown.''

Now that is good analysis. Readers should have had more of that.”

Thanks Ed, you are on target with that one! Ed also muses on whether things would be different for Rudy Crew had the reporting been better, i.e. Not just focusing on the political aspect of the fray.

In another good Editorial today: Another vote fiasco in . . . guess where, Carl Hiaasen take the elections department in Palm Beach to task. They have lost thousands of ballots in a close election for a judge race during the August 26th primary. It was found out during the mandatory recount:

“One little problem: 3,478 ballots had disappeared between the election and the retabulation.”

Carl ponders what this will mean for the upcoming presidential election:

“So a cloud of culpability hangs over Florida. What happened here in 2000 put George W. Bush in the White House, and it all started in Palm Beach County.

Two months isn't enough time for those knuckleheads to figure out how to count and recount in an orderly way. Only about 12 percent of the county's 804,000 registered voters went to the polls on Aug. 26. Almost two weeks later, the scavenger hunt for their ballots drags on.”

As you can see: I am not the only one calling Floridians “Knuckleheads.”