All Miami Herald hands were on deck for the investigative series, "Innocents Lost"; chronicling the misery of hundreds of children lost within the tragedy of bankrupt families and inadequate state supervision.
The series was a good turn for the Herald; a newspaper that once summoned its investigative energies as a regular feature of its work and now does occasionally.
What jumps out from the series is the newspaper's reticence to highlight the political undercurrents that forced slashed budgets and the GOP meme of "personal responsibility". We know where this all started, but the Herald won't track back -- or hasn't, yet.
Perhaps I'm jumping ahead. Maybe the Herald is preparing to launch an investigation along these lines: the political origins of abandoning neglected children to miserable deaths. But when Fred Grimm writes, "Apparently, DCF’s favorite tool for dealing with abusive, drug-addled or neglectful parents has been to persuade them to sign “safety plans,” promising to do better" yet fails to put that nonsense in its political context, red flags ought to go up.
Anyhow, they do here.
The series was a good turn for the Herald; a newspaper that once summoned its investigative energies as a regular feature of its work and now does occasionally.
What jumps out from the series is the newspaper's reticence to highlight the political undercurrents that forced slashed budgets and the GOP meme of "personal responsibility". We know where this all started, but the Herald won't track back -- or hasn't, yet.
Perhaps I'm jumping ahead. Maybe the Herald is preparing to launch an investigation along these lines: the political origins of abandoning neglected children to miserable deaths. But when Fred Grimm writes, "Apparently, DCF’s favorite tool for dealing with abusive, drug-addled or neglectful parents has been to persuade them to sign “safety plans,” promising to do better" yet fails to put that nonsense in its political context, red flags ought to go up.
Anyhow, they do here.
7 comments:
Bingo.
Here's what conservative ideologues do best: defund and disable government services to a point where they can't function efficiently and then point to these services and note how government can't do anything right.
You might think that Florida's majority party would cringe at this report. Quite the contrary. The GOP loves this kind of reporting that spotlights problems with government services but doesn't go the extra miles to investigate the politics that drive the situation.
Exactly.
This was a series crafted, first and foremost as the Miami Herald's entry into the Pultizer Prize contest. They only expend this kind of money and manpower to do this, and only do so the burnish their tarnished reputation.
My impression was that I was glad the Herald Editors authorized such thorough research and I was appalled at the incompetence of DCF employees. Really? DCF staff and executives are that clueless? I sure would like to see the Herald put that kind of research and manpower into uncovering corruption in politics.
Anon on March 24th...
Mission accomplished for Florida's GOP. Now they the can "consolidate" services and contract out to their cronies in the private sector because we all know how the private sector outperforms the public sector all the time. Right?
Floridians are so predictable. And it's exactly why we have a governor named Rick Scott.
Just as a reminder, a video from 2011 as to the draconian cuts to DCF proposed by Gov. Scott:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/latest-videos?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5644135
What is the value any kind of prize when weighted against the loss of life of these children, and potentially the loss of life of many more to come?
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