Al Jazeera puts Big Sugar/ Fanjul billionaires in spotlight ... by gimleteye

"A sweet deal: The royal family of cane benefits from political giving
by Amy Bracken @brackenamy July 23, 2015 5:00AM ET
The sugar barons of America, the Fanjul brothers, have a cozy relationship with the US government"

This report is an excellent analysis of information and perspective that Eye On Miami also spotlights: the super-sized influence of Big Sugar on domestic politics.

Big Sugar is one of Florida's fattest sacred cows; its influence is pervasive.

The Al Jazeera report begins with a state department official despairing over the horrendous work conditions imposed by the Fanjuls in the Dominican Republic. The Fanjuls are the largest landowners in the DR, including the resort where countless U.S. politicians have been lured by Fanjul private jet, Casa de Campo: "The Resort That Shame Forgot" in the words of Dominican author Junot Diaz.

245 Acre shooting facility.

Big Sugar imposed an indelible stain on Miami, over decades, and it is unconscionable that sugarcane continues to enjoy a kind of mythic, exalted status here. How much suffering and political skullduggery is masked by the spoonfuls of sugar dosed into cafecitos throughout the city?

In terms of new information, the Al Jazeera report documents for the first time the extent to which Fanjul manipulation of US Farm policy, through the sugar subsidy, accrues to the advantage of the family plantation production in the Dominican Republic.

The report closely tracks the human suffering disclosed in the important documentary film, "Sugar Babies", pulled under mysterious circumstances in 2008 from the Miami International Film Festival, without explanation or any protest by the festival's supporter; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation whose wealth derives from the Miami Herald and other newspapers, that otherwise supports journalistic freedom and independence.

Al Jazeera also makes a fair effort to document political contributions by Fanjul billionaires, but here a caveat is in order; campaign finance reporting loopholes are so wide, that there is no way of knowing exactly how many millions of dollars are funneled by the Fanjuls into American politics into other channels, like dark money super PACs.

That one has to go all the way to the Mideast to find media ownership willing to take on Big Sugar billionaires in Florida says a lot about the industry's influence in Florida and Washington, D.C. and a good reason to pay attention to AlJazeera.

US Business leaders shifting on climate change; the GOP won't be far behind … by gimleteye

It's been 20 years since I started clamoring on climate change. Miami hasn't been a friendly environment on the topic. The failure of the Miami Herald to even report the issue in the early years helped drive me in the direction of writing this blog.

One of the common sense issues -- not requiring anyone to be a scientist -- is that our industrial supply chain related to food production and distribution -- is the weakest link although it appears today, durable as Fort Knox.

Along this line, it is major news to read that the CEO of the nation's largest agribusiness, Cargill, is willing to state on the record for the New York Times that he is preparing his corporation for climate change.

There is a difference between businesses, whose leaders are mostly Republican, making adjustments for climate change and governments. For governments to "adapt" means doing something -- regulations -- and that is exactly what the GOP is sworn to fight to the bitter end.

In the past year, a number of leading Republicans have begun to softly pivot from outright denial. Florida Senator Marco Rubio for example, who still has not met with prominent Florida climate scientists, now says, "I'm not a scientist"; in other words, climate change may be happening but there is nothing we can do about it.

It's hubris that got us into this massive mess, and it's hubris that continues to believe that US business can "make adjustments" to business models without major contractions. Although US business -- represented by the US Chamber of Commerce or in state, its kin, Associated Industries of Florida -- don't calculate social costs, when climate change gathers momentum, you can count on those who have built their own hardened silos to run for them, lickety split.

The Democrats have a chance to pin the costs of climate change denial on the GOP in the next election cycle. Let's see if they are smart enough to do it effectively, or if a candidate like Jeb Bush emerges to convince Americans that he is very compassionate about the costs of climate change, in which case the nation will continue chugging along toward the climate change cliff.

And by the way, for a terrific symbol of the failure of US business to drive climate change adaptation in time to be effective; consider the MacArthur Foundation, whose fortune was gathered from huge holdings in Florida real estate, now helping fund the Risky Business Project (read the full NY Times story, below) but never gave a cent to environmental protection groups in Florida. That just about says it all …

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT

Climate Change’s Bottom Line
By BURT HELMJAN. 31, 2015


The members of the Risky Business Project are presenting research to business groups that highlights how the effects of climate change, like increased flooding, as in the streets of Queens, N.Y., could hurt business and the economy.

It was 8 degrees in Minneapolis on a recent January day, and out on Interstate 394, snow whipped against the windshields of drivers on their morning commutes. But inside the offices of Cargill, the food conglomerate, Greg Page, the company’s executive chairman, felt compelled to talk about global warming.

“It would be irresponsible not to contemplate it,” Mr. Page said, bundled up in a wool sport coat layered over a zip-up sweater. “I’m 63 years old, and I’ve grown up in the upper latitudes. I’ve seen too much change to presume we might not get more.”

Disbelief greets Knight Foundation's $20K to plagiarizer ... by gimleteye

It's ricocheting around the world of philanthropy.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy notes with highlights, the Knight Foundation's $20K payment for a speech at a journalism conference to a former New Yorker reporter, Jonah Lehrer, "caught out using work by others without attribution and fabricating quotes."

"Knight Pays Plagiarizer Jonah Lehrer $20,000 for Speech" hit like a lead balloon in the non-profit world where that amount represents a hefty percentage of most do-good'ers annual wages.

The Foundation defended its honorarium testily: it hoped to help attendees become "more savvy about developing the promise and minimizing the perils of journalism projects." Umm. Really?

At first, I thought ... well, banks hire ex-crooks help boost their security. Internet firms hire former hackers to harden networks against violations.

But then I remembered how the Knight Foundation funded the 2008 Miami Film Festival that, the day before the festival began, yanked a film ("Sugar Babies", check our archives) critical of the Dominican Republic farms owned by the Fanjul billionaires.

The Fanjul's Dominican property was in the news recently as the alleged site of a for-hire assignation between US Senator Bob Menendez and an underaged prostitute, calling to question the entire relationship of Congressmen and the Dominican Republic's Fanjuls.

One would think the Foundation would be interested in the conditions of virtual slavery, shown in the film, at the Fanjul's Dominican operations. The Foundation never rebuked the festival, offered its regrets, or issued any comment about the censorship at the heart of one of Miami's signature high society events it funded.

Censorship of journalism and marginalization of journalists is at the heart of the Knight Foundation mission, and in the context of the Foundation's failure to penalize even one of its most important local grantees -- and most visible -- is the appropriate context to consider the hiring of a plagiarizer to speak at a Foundation event for $20K.

These lapses should raise other questions. For example, how does one first describe then justify the relationship between the Foundation's board of directors (Cesar Alvarez, then chairman, is managing partner at Greenberg Traurig, the law firm that did more than any other law firm in South Florida to guarantee the suburban sprawl that mars the region) and a Miami Herald that has been quiet, complacent -- dormant is the word -- on the circumstances leading up to the worst housing crash since the Great Depression. The political origins and financial arrangements -- for example, the failed bank called US Century -- never crossed the lens of Miami Herald readers.

The reformed Lehrer, no longer presumably a plagiarist, might have had some observations if he were asked. But no one is asking. In Miami, no one ever asks because prevailing wisdom in high society circles -- except for a few intrepid journalists-- is along the lines, some stones have to be left unturned.

Greenberg Traurig ... scandal, again ... by gimleteye

The big downtown Miami law firm Greenberg Traurig was caught up in another scandal (Jack Abramoff, Marvin Rosen, HABDI), as reported by The Miami Herald, including a rare appearance by managing partner Cesar Alvarez to apologize to a federal court for "failing to turn over key financial records on its clients to investors fleeced by Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein".

Failing to disclose records as required by law also infects government. It has become routine for public records requests made to government agencies and offices, to routinely "edit" and "excise" records that could be damaging to its case/s in legal proceedings. Alvarez, of Greenberg Traurig, was formerly chairman of the board of the Knight Foundation whose website states, "We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged."

Informed and engaged, so long as the result isn't marred by information and engagement, up to and including the selective admission of records as required by law.

Miami Herald Ombudsman roars: woaaa! stop the presses! by gimleteye

I can't resist an ill-informed comment on the Sunday editorial page of The Miami Herald. "When a partner goes too far, who is responsible" asks the Herald ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, of the Herald program that is feeling its way to online alliances with non-traditional suppliers of news, "as an innovative way to aggregate community information across South Florida into one site for readers and advertisers." So far, so good.

But now comes the rub; "Herald editors are finding themselves entangled with the owners of (some) whose ethics are challenged by readers." Hmmm. I'd never thought of that possibility: except as it might be applied to the ethics of Miami Herald editors and executives.

The Herald's example: Community Newspapers, a free advertiser supported give-away in twelve breath-taking editions owned by Michael Miller. Apparently readers have complained to the Herald, of the Herald's deigning to affiliate with such low merchandise. To wit, Michael Miller is a self-aggrandizing businessman whose primary interest is to increase the value of his property in South Miami-- where a density increase would be good for his net worth. A reader writes: "His goal is simply, to change the zoning governing height and density of commercial property that he owns on 62nd Avenue in South Miami." The ethicist Herald concludes, "... at least in his South Miami paper, (Miller) goes too far. The Herald should reign him in, or cut him off." En garde!

Wow. The Miami Herald dares not affiliate the fantastic power of its online readership with lesser organs that sully the good name of newspapers! Dilute the truth that readers expect? Never!

But wait. Wasn't there something about Miami Herald property adjacent to One Herald Square, figuring into the profits of Miami Herald shareholders and executives compensated on ROI and other deliverables that don't come in plastic wrap. Something about a parking lot and the plan by Greenberg Traurig attorney/developer Pedro Martin; was it a bankable promise for $190 million to turn that parking lot into a condo tower. And wasn't there something about the deal collapsing in the muck of the financial crash, skittering away on McClatchy's awful balance sheet. And what about the top guns at Greenberg Traurig playing footsie with Herald executives-- chasing Hodding Carter off to the sunset and installing Alberto Ibarguen at the Knight Foundation-- and what about the Herald's failure to report out the condo boom for what it was: rooted in fraudulent finance and speculation that contributed to keeping the greater Miami public in the dark about all the other excess, including the excess of executive compensation tied to profits based on... well, speculation? Yes the pot gets to call the kettle, black. Or is that politically incorrect to say so, or, does anyone remember anything anymore?

Mr. Ombudsman, I'm not a great fan of Community Newspapers. It is a trifle with the bite of a blind fourteen year old retriever. The scores it settles are not even the scores that count. But honestly, to see the debate on online affiliation carried out on the wings of the Herald's own sins of omission and taking to task a newspaperman for shamelessly shilling his own property value: well, sir, that is too much! Consider yourself served, by Eyeonmiami!


Posted on Mon, Jan. 04, 2010
Miami Herald land deal is extended

Miami Herald Staff Report

McClatchy Co., the parent of The Miami Herald Media Co., said it has extended the deadline of the contract to sell property surrounding The Miami Herald's bayfront property to Jan. 19. The contract to sell 10 acres of parking lots to developer Mark Siffin was set to expire Dec. 31.

In exchange for more time, the contract termination fee has been raised to $7 million from $6 million if the buyer doesn't close the transaction. The buyer also may pay McClatchy an additional nonrefundable deposit of $6 million by Jan. 19 to extend the agreement to Jan. 31, 2011.

The deal was first reached in March 2005 at the peak of South Florida's real estate boom. At the time, Knight Ridder, the Herald's previous owner, agreed to sell the surface parking lots and the Boulevard Shops on Biscayne Boulevard to a group led by Miami developer Pedro Martin for $190 million.

Martin's group later agreed to flip most of the 10 acres to Siffin for at least $230 million, though the price to McClatchy would remain at $190 million. McClatchy acquired Knight Ridder in June 2006.

Siffin has approval from Miami officials to build a big-box shopping center called City Square on the parking lot site and also planned to build a parking garagefor the nearby performing arts center.

McClatchy, which has been hit hard by the bleak advertising environment, planned to use the proceeds of the sale to reduce debt.

In 2008, when the contract was set to expire, McClatchy agreed to give the developer more time to complete the deal rather than to put the real estate up for sale again in a depressed market.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/01/04/v-print/1408640/miami-herald-land-deal-is-extended.html#ixzz0oqErrBci

Tomorrow, watch "Sugar Babies" highly critical of Fanjul farming interests in the Domincan Republic: the film that was banned in Miami! by gimleteye

They banned the film from the Miami International Film Festival and, oddly, the showing of "Sugar Babies" tomorrow night at the University of Miami is not even listed on the Bill Cosford Film Center website. It could be the result of UM officials fearing the influence of Fanjul family sugar interests: Alfie Fanjul is a trustee of the University of Miami.

The Fanjuls, whose sugar farms in the Dominican Republic are featured in the film, project their influence through profits generated by US Farm Bill provisions that make sugar production in the US among the most profitable agricultural enterprises in the world. They are now, for example, at the center of the effort to propel the "true" conservative Marco Rubio over Gov. Charlie Crist in the primary battle for Republican candidate for the US Senate in Florida. Why would the Fanjuls be against Crist? Because he initiated a bold plan to convert vast sections of land owned by US Sugar-- a Fanjul competitor, sort of-- into lands required for Everglades restoration.

You can show your support for freedom of speech by attending the screening of "Sugar Babies" on Thursday, November 12 at the University of Miami Bill Cosford Film Center at 7:00PM. Eyeonmiami noted the withdrawal of the film, at the last minute, from the 2008 Miami International Film Festival by festival organizers. Subsequently, the festival producer resigned. It is a tale the mainstream press has failed to pick up, despite the fact that in 2009, the practices highlighted in the film were officially condemned by US policy: "In September 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor included sugarcane from the Dominican Republic on its list of products believed to be made from forced child labor. The announcement came after numerous screenings of The Sugar Babies before members of Congress and representatives from the departments of Labor, State, and Justice as well as the Office for Human Trafficking."

Here is the Human Rights Foundation press release: click 'read more' (You can also type "Sugar Babies" in the search field of this blog for additional commentary.)


HRF’s The Sugar Babies at the University of Miami

MIAMI (November 6, 2009) – The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami will screen The Sugar Babies on Thursday, November 12, as part of its Latin American Film Series. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Amy Serrano. On November 13, Serrano will also lead a round table discussion about the film and the current situation of Haitian laborers in the Dominican Republic.

The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers in the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic is an award-winning, feature-length documentary that explores the human costs of sugar production in the Caribbean island. With gripping field testimonies and hidden camera footage obtained during 18 months of documentation, the film also features interviews with Ambassador of Haiti to the United States Raymond Joseph, then-U.S. Department of State Ambassador John Miller from the Office of Human Trafficking, and a number of other experts and activists.

The film has received much critical acclaim and, in 2008, a segment of the Spanish-language show “Maria Elvira Live” featuring The Sugar Babies won an Emmy award. The show included a discussion of the documentary and its impact with Serrano, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission Armando Valladares, and Human Rights Foundation President Thor Halvorssen.

In September 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor included sugarcane from the Dominican Republic on its list of products believed to be made from forced child labor. The announcement came after numerous screenings of The Sugar Babies before members of Congress and representatives from the departments of Labor, State, and Justice as well as the Office for Human Trafficking.

The film has stirred controversy and exposed the inhumane practices of the Dominican sugarcane industry to such an extent that the Fanjul and Vicini families – owners of the largest sugar companies in the Dominican Republic, including the Domino Sugar brand – have tried to silence Serrano and others connected to the film. Their attempts have included removing the film from festivals, a bribery scandal involving a Dominican diplomat in Miami, and a series of other intimidation tactics that forced Serrano to relocate from her home in Florida to Louisiana. The 99-minute documentary is in Spanish, Creole, French and English. The Sugar Babies was produced through Siren Studios in association with the Hope, Courage, and Justice Project and the Human Rights Foundation.

HRF is an international nonpartisan organization devoted to defending human rights in the Americas. It centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries; HRF’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. HRF does not support nor condone violence. HRF’s International Council includes former prisoners of conscience Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Ramón J. Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu.

Contact:
Thor Halvorssen, Human Rights Foundation, (212) 246.8486, info@thehrf.org

For more information regarding the upcoming film screening at the University of Miami please click here. to acquire film or learn more about it, visit www.sugarbabiesfilm.com

Lite News for a Heavy Time: is it even possible to know what the Miami Herald is thinking? by gimleteye

Sunday's top of the fold story: "Train thief took a 120-ton joy ride" is still bugging me. Perhaps Herald executives commissioned a public opinion poll showing people are attracted like bees to pollen by train stories, and, joy rides. Any how, the depression zeitgeist is lite news for a heavy time. (click 'read more')
I would have been looking for another kind of story of joy rides. One of enough consequence to compel readers to pick up the newspaper. For instance: how Herald advertisers from the production home building industry took the nation on a joy ride, urged on by local bankers feeding financial derivatives tied to mortgages, making millions at every slice and dice along the way, destroying wetlands and drinking water aquifers, before crashing the economy into a wall, climbing out of the car and running away from the scene of the crime.

Of the MBA's who were driving the train, the New York Times reports, "It's so obvious that something big has failed," said Angel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. "We can look the other way but come on. The CEO's of those companies, those are people we used to brag about. We cannot say, "Well it wasn't our fault" when there is such a systemic, wide-spread failure of leadership." (Is it Time to Retrain B-Schools, New York Times, March 15, 2009)

The comment echoed something I had just read in a fantastic account of wrack and ruin of Florida's environment, "Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss." The writers report an internal email of one National Park Service official representing the Everglades against the predatory practices of rock miners in the Lake Belt region of West Miami Dade, "Florida is in a state of cannibalism, eating itself to increase its infrastructure."

Isn't it interesting the the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, built by the Herald fortune and supervised by successive Miami Herald retired publishers, has never funded journalism to this effect: how to assess the cannibalism masked as Chamber of Commerce values? Talk about joy rides.

The Fanjuls, The Miami Herald and the Everglades ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald appears to have scooped the state's newspapers on this morning's report that Florida Crystals, owned by the Fanjul family, is a bidder for 180,000 acres of US Sugar lands pending land swap deals with the State of Florida.

As an educated guess, the story was slipped to the Herald by the Fanjul's long-time public relations consultant for South Florida; Wragg and Casas. Joanna Wragg is a former Miami Herald executive and, while at the Herald, the final word on the paper's coverage of the sugar industry and its pollution of the Everglades. It is Wragg's influence at the Herald that accounts for the slim record of critical, in-depth analyses of Big Sugar's influence on Florida's politics, water supply, and natural environment; lagging its competitors including the Palm Beach Post, the Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune, and the St. Pete Times. All have done a better job allocating coverage in the newspaper to environmental crimes.

Why? The aversion by Herald executives fit with the paper's long-time squeamishness assessing blame for the pollution of the Everglades. Over time, its fears grew into institutional policy; fearing offending advertisers tied to the development industry tied to Big Sugar. The original fault lines occurred in relations between Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, and the paper's publishers. For decades, Mas Canosa -- whose businesses included supplying farm equipment to the Everglades Agricultural Area-- was a nail in the foot of the Herald.

Over time-- and through the attrition of keen editorial observers like Martha Musgrove-- the Herald view of sugar dissolved into lazy eye syndrome. Whatever happened to the Everglades is all just part of the costs of growth. (Although it is hard to square that simple equation with the reasons why the paper failed to denounce the Miami International Film Festival for pulling, at the last minute from last year's schedule, a film documentary called 'Sugar Babies' because of its harshly critical view of Fanjul sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. The Film Festival is partly funded by the Knight Foundation, whose own mission is to support free, independent journalism. That presumably would also extend to film documentaries. Alberto Ibarguen, former Herald publisher, is president of the $2 billion foundation.)

The Fanjuls, in other words, need a media outlet for its side of the story on what could be the most significant land purchase in modern Florida history. Indeed, the Fanjuls had been mentioned, recently, as a possible buyer of The Miami Herald from the dwindling resources of McClatchy. The only reason for the Fanjuls to buy the Herald would be if another buyer emerged who could not be counted on to print all the news that fits its business model. (click 'read more')


Posted on Sun, Feb. 22, 2009
Sugar shift: Rival seeks a cut in deal

BY CURTIS MORGAN AND MARY ELLEN KLAS
If you can't beat them, buy them.
That sums up the emerging dual strategy of Florida Crystals, the most formidable foe of Gov. Charlie Crist's controversial land deal with rival grower U.S. Sugar.

At the same time its lobbyists and lawyers are working to derail the $1.34 billion proposal, Florida Crystals is quietly stepping up negotiations to cut itself in.

Florida's two largest sugar growers acknowledged they met last week in Clewiston to explore a deal for U.S. Sugar's high-tech mill and other assests. Crystals executives and lobbyists also have discussed land swaps with the Crist administration and pressed for contract revisions if Crystals acquires the mill, possibly including land leases that could extend for decades.

The move surprised even Crystals' industry allies.

Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, which co-owns refineries with Crystals, said the company disclosed its interests only in the past week.

''We don't know what they're doing yet,'' Miedema said. ``We don't know if it's good, bad or ugly.''

State negotiators and water managers declined to discuss details or gauge the seriousness of the overtures.

But Eric Eickenberg, Crist's chief of staff, said talks were progressing with ''multiple partners,'' including Florida Crystals, with the primary goal of securing the best swath of land for restoring linkage between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

''The first order of business was negotiating with U.S. Sugar,'' Eickenberg told The Miami Herald. ``Now, this is the second phase.''

That next phase will prove critical to the fate of Crist's landmark bid to buy 180,000 acres of sugar fields and citrus groves that environmentalists say are key to resolving the Everglades' water supply and pollution problems.

IMPROVING THE ODDS?

Cutting in Florida Crystals, second to U.S. Sugar in size but equal in political clout, could improve the dicey odds of closing a deal under attack from lawmakers, the Miccosukee Tribe and other Glades farmers and businesses. Critics contend the land sale is designed more to bail out debt-ridden U.S. Sugar than to save the Everglades.

Executives from both companies confirmed Crystals entered formal bidding in the waning weeks of a 60-day ''go shop'' period ending Monday. During that 60-day window, U.S. Sugar was required under corporate law to solicit offers.

Citing a confidentially agreement, executives would not say how much of U.S. Sugar's sprawling agricultural empire might be on the table. In addition to its lands and mill, the company owns a citrus-processing plant, 200 miles of railway and 12,000-plus pieces of equipment.

Robert Coker, a U.S. Sugar vice president, called the interest from the company's rival ''ironic'' given the ''aggressive opposition'' Crystals lobbyists have expressed to lawmakers.

''At some point,'' he said, ''they need to figure out what road they want to go down.''

Gaston Cantens, a vice president for Florida Crystals, said the company remains opposed to the purchase but is planning for contingencies.

''The current deal as it stands, where U.S. Sugar cashes out and continues farming, it's not something we can live with,'' he said. ``It's not just us. Every other farmer in this region is at risk.''

Other growers argue that a provision allowing U.S. Sugar to lease back its fields for seven years or more at $50 an acre -- a quarter of market rates -- will hurt their businesses.

DOUBLE-DEALING

Crystals has gone to court to challenge plans by the South Florida Water Management District to bankroll the deal with bonds and to Tallahassee to make its case to lawmakers. But it also has simultaneously been working on Plan B. In November, it hired the Tallahassee lobbying firm Southern Strategy Group with specific marching orders, Cantens said.

''The reason we hired them was to help us make a deal, not to kill a deal,'' he said.

The cooperative's Miedema called it ''smart business'' for a company to cover its options, though smaller growers had been kept out of the loop. The cooperative, which includes 48 growers farming 60,000 acres, intended to meet with Crystals to discuss plans, she said.

''God is not making any more land,'' she said. ''If there is going to be some sort of shakeout of land, you would want to put yourself in the best position.''

Making a deal could serve the purposes of both Crystals, controlled by the influential Fanjul family, and the governor.

With U.S. Sugar's mill and adequate acreage to feed it, Crystals would dominate the regional market. And as owner of prime tracts for Everglades restoration, it could make profitable swaps for a sizable chunk of its rival's fertile fields.

For the Crist administration, struggling to protect a landmark deal that would cement the governor's ''green'' image, giving Crystals a vested interest could help ease job concerns in the Glades and quiet the deal's most powerful critic.

U.S. Sugar's Coker said several parties had signed confidentiality agreements to explore purchases of parts or all of the company during the go-shop period.

NOTHING IN STONE

Though the window closes Monday, Coker said, ''there won't be any letting go of doves and angels blowing horns.'' Any decision, he said, will take weeks and the company retains the option of accepting offers deemed superior to the state's up until water managers receive court approval to seek bonds.

Though Florida Crystals is now formally in the mix, another potentially pivotal player apparently isn't -- The Lawrence Group, a Tennessee-based concern that has twice made unsuccessful runs at U.S. Sugar. Coker said the Lawrence Group had submitted only nonbinding offers and rejected several drafts of confidentiality agreements.

Ron Book, a Miami-based lobbyist hired by the Lawrence Group, said U.S. Sugar has frustrated efforts by insisting on clauses forbidding the company from making a bid directly to shareholders, rather than its board.

Book said he was skeptical about the extent of Florida Crystal's interest and insisted The Lawrence Group could make a better, cheaper deal with the state.

Despite being shut out of the ''go shop,'' Book said, ``I'm very confident we are going to own the company.''

Financial collapse and the housing market crash: hell to pay ... by gimleteye

In May, 2005 The Miami Herald printed a guest editorial by one of Miami's Growth Machine advocates, Willy Bermello; "Build them and they will come".

"Lately," Bermello wrote, "There has been more written about the "condo bubble" than the weapons of mass destruction during the Iraq war. There is a relationship in both phenomena: If you say it often enough, you actually start believing it, and soon enough you're on your way toward a self-fulfilling prophecy." (Bermello is past president of the Latin Builders Association; the powerful lobbying organization in Florida's most populous county.)

Now we gaze at the wreckage caused by Mr. Bermello's nonsense. But why has the mainstream press been so far behind this story?

The "free market" took a dollar of home or condo mortgage and created from it 80 dollars of imaginary value; showering a blizzard of fees, commissions, and compensation to an elite group of builders and developers and greasing the wheels of a Ponzi scheme for which no one is going to jail but we will pay for.

It is not as though there were no critics. But they were denied a voice by the mainstream press. And still are. It was impolitic or impolite to ask hard questions of the underlying financial arrangements of the housing boom and apparently nothing has changed.

Back when the housing bubble was inflating, the mainstream media-- like The Miami Herald-- did not let a whiff of diverse opinion against the boom and its impacts in its editorial pages, unless it was one of Jim Morin's cartoons. It is still going on.

There is plenty of company in the mainstream press for the Herald's failure to connect the dots for ordinary readers.

This is not a matter of complexity, of not wanting to bog down a newspaper's pages with arcane and esoteric finance. It is simple: the Wall Street game on derivative debt depended on all the smaller gears meshing and working together; linking the zoning decisions of the lowliest county commission majorities, for instance, to the originators of mortgages, furniture warehouses, and the whole supply chain of campaign contributions that pushed forward an anti-regulatory fever and despicable imprisonment of the public good by higher and higher walls meant to separate people from their government. (The constituency that "knew" what was going on, better than any other: those "community activists" that the Rudy Giuliani skewered for blood sport in his speech at the GOP convention.)

And it is still going on, at the Herald. Only a few weeks ago, the entrenched political and economic elite-- represented by a planned suburban development outside the Urban Development Boundary called Parkland-- asked for and received a meeting with Herald executives, without reporters. Ed Easton, Jeb's golfing partner, Segio Pino, Willy Bermello's LBA buddy, Armand Guerra, a real estate speculator, and Tony Seijas, Lennar's local executive; these represent the local development machine that ground up farmland, open space, and the public interest through platted subdivisions built mainly because they could be financed through derivatives and now exist as toxic waste in some distant investor's portfolio. And, the point should not be lost: you and I as taxpayers are now bailing them out.

Over the weekend, a St. Pete Times journalist wrote his own mea culpa: one that the paid subscribers of The Miami Herald also are waiting for. Business writer Robert Trigaux acknowledges: "A watchdog media was about as effective as a three-legged chihuahua. When we warned things were too hot as home prices soared, the real estate industry complained we were killing the golden goose. When we've since documented the dramatic price declines, the real estate industry complains we are flogging an already cooked goose."

It happens all the time in Miami: a story either overtly or deemed to be negative to the real estate industry elicits howls of complaint from advertisers from the building lobby. Whenever criticism was leveled during the boom, its big guns were on the phone to the publisher-- then, Alberto Ibarguen: Armando Codina, or Adolfo Henriques or the chairman of John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Greenberg Traurig managing partner, Cesar Alvarez (and now, Ibarguen's boss.)

(This a parallel question: how could the nation's premier charitable foundations-- charged with promoting independent journalism and analyzing the economy, completely miss the origins of the nation's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and who will hold their board of directors accountable?)

Trigaux, of the St. Pete Times, concludes, "Either way, the press did a sorry job of explaining what was happening."

At The Miami Herald, the sorry job is still going on.The newspaper's editorial board is refusing to support the outstanding series by the I-Team (investigative team) on mortgage fraud in Florida. The multi-part series, that involved significant investigative resources, documents how more than 10,000 convicted felons were allowed by state regulators to originate or sell mortgages, even after some had been convicted of fraud. It lead to the resignation of the head of the state's regulatory agency for licensing.

The point the Herald is avoiding, or, expects its readers to extrapolate for themselves how the entire regulatory structure in the State of Florida suffered under and is still dominated by so-called conservatives who sold the public interest to the highest bidder, unlocked the cells, and let the loonies run the nut house; all to service low-cost growth, growth that now blooms as toxic waste at the heart of a world-wide credit crisis.

It is not such hard work connecting the dots between the absence of regulation and the anti-regulatory culture that prevailed during the terms of former Governor Jeb Bush, but the newspapers did not want to do it. If they wanted to, they would have rushed to back-up the "Borrowers Betrayed" series with equal measures of thought and consideration of the facts.

The same way that Jeb believed the solution to pollution was dilution-- in other words, writing regulations to minimize the appearance of risk to the environment and public health-- clearly characterizes the credit crisis.

Why won't the Herald make the clear link for its readers: that the Republican status quo never saw a regulation hindering development that they couldn't find a way to cut and trim to the fit of predetermined outcomes. Or, how Florida was the test tube Karl Rove and Grover Norquist intended-- based on the elimination of regulations to free self-interest and mobilize the economy for campaign contributors long before George W. Bush became president?

What is holding the Herald back from finishing the job started by the I-Team? Why do Herald executives meet with the pushers of suburban sprawl-- the executives of Parkland like Lennar and board directors of US Century Bank-- but not also meet with community activists struggling to protect the Urban Development Boundary? Maybe it is because the community activists are not rich enough. Maybe it is because they don't give to The United Way or the YMCA. Maybe it is because they don't rub shoulders at downtown events at the Performing Arts Center, or, its salons.

Really: we are in a fix because the entire constellation of interests who caused our financial panic are still in power, still working to make a solution along the old lines that created the problem in the first place.

Bermello ended his May, 2005 editorial: "The bubble is not latex but stainless steel." In light of the unfolding disaster Mr. Bermello's point of view inflamed, nothing I have to say in response is printable for polite company.

"Sugar Babies", the Fanjuls, Miami International Film Festival, and the Knight Foundation ... by gimleteye

The controversial film documentary, Sugar Babies, will never play at Casa de Campo-- the resort in the Dominican Republic built by the Fanjuls, Florida's sugar barons.

The subject of the documentary is the miserable working conditions and hopelessness of farm workers on Fanjul plantations in the DR.

The documentary had been scheduled to play at the Miami International Film Festival, but was yanked for some unaccounted for reason by Festival staff just days before the festival commencement.

Last week, the film garnered the award for best documentary by the Delray Beach Film Festival. In a press statement, Festival Director Dr. Michael Posner said, "The audience got to see the ongoing atrocities that still exist in the world today."


That would not be true for the audience in Miami, especially the audience inclined to rub shoulders with the politically influential Fanjuls like former Presidents, Senators and Congressmen who accept the friendship and contributions of Big Sugar and, sometimes, hospitality and courtesy at Casa de Campo.

I have argued that the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, based in Miami, should terminate its funding of the Film Festival because of the censorship implicit in the cancelation of "Sugar Babies". Alberto Ibarguen, president of the Foundation, is the former publisher of The Miami Herald.

According to an online interview, since the 1950's the Knight Foundation has invested more than $300 million to advance quality and freedom of expression worldwide. It has a vital interest in seeing journalism survive in whatever form it takes."

So long, apparently, as it doesn't offend Big Sugar.


We will continue to raise the question, on Eyeonmiami. There are certain civic values that are destroyed when a film in the United States is suppressed in order to protect a cosseted and insulated economic elite. This should certainly rise to the threshold of Knight Foundation interest. At the very least, to continue its funding of the popular Miami event, the Knight Foundation should insist that the festival either account for the withdrawal of the film for the schedule or screen "Sugar Babies" as the opening documentary feature next year.

"Sugar Babies": Miami Herald stories we'd really, really like to hear more about... by gimleteye

"International Film Festival is looking for a new director" reads the headline in today's B section, reminding that eyeonmiami "outed" the film festival for first inviting, then withdrawing only days before the scheduled viewing, a film documentary on worker exploitation at Miami's super-rich Fanjul sugar operations in the Dominican Republic.

"Sugar Babies" was never shown at the the Miami International Film Festival. I wrote that the Knight Foundation should withdraw its financial support of the festival-- in light of the fact that freedom of expression is central to the foundation's mission. I also noted how the Herald has gone "lite" on Big Sugar for many, many years. I believe that there is a conflict of interest at the board level of the Knight Foundation inhibiting a clear answer to this issue: and represents a black mark on independent journalism right here, in Miami, for a project funded by the Knight Foundation.

According to today's Herald report, the current director was "shown the door by Miami Dade College for unspecified reasons."

This is a big deal. Did Herald reporters just reprint the Miami Dade College (sponsoring organization of the film festival) press statement, or-- given the controversy-- did they probe film festival board members? "De Bokay (the fired director) did not respond to repeated interview requests from The Miami Herald." Someone should.

The Miami Herald owes its readers a full explanation, on this story. Nothing else will do.

Why you can't trust The Miami Herald, by gimleteye

A month ago, I wrote that Big Sugar may have used its muscle to suppress the showing of a documentary film at the Miami International Film Festival--closing today. The film, depicting abject conditions for workers and children at the Dominican Republican sugar plantation owned by the uber-wealthy, socialite Fanjul family, had been invited to appear at The Miami International Film Festival.

Just days before the festival was to begin, without adequate explanation, the invitation was withdrawn by festival organizers.

On Saturday, the Associated Press reported the story. The film maker, Amy Serrano, alerted interested readers in an email. She wrote, "It looks like this story will emerge in Sunday's Miami Herald."

Well, so far as I can tell, it didn't. The fact that it didn't is worth comment.

The story did appear as an AP feed on the Saturday edition of The Miami Herald website. But it did not appear in either day's print edition. That's a shame, but an understandable one.

There are long-standing ties from Big Sugar to the The Herald front office and backroom: Joanna Wragg was an associate editor of The Miami Herald for many years, before consulting to the industry that continues to pollute so much of the Everglades.

In light of today's editorial by The Miami Herald publisher, Anders Gyllenhaal, "Website comments provide a forum for vital debate", what is one to say about the city's only daily newspaper?

Gyllenhaal professes gratitude for public participation in the Herald website and its own blogs, that have received "hundreds of thousands of readers... posting comments or following along at the end of online stories..." Shelley Acoca, The Herald's editor devoted to reader exchange says, "This community really benefits from the discussion, particularly on things where we don't agree with each other... we have so many people who've come from places where freedom of expression isn't allowed."

Yes, some people have come from the Dominican Republican, for instance, where criticism of private industries, like the Fanjul's, puts people in danger. Some people, in Miami, who read the Herald might be interested to understand why the paper, itself, stopped itself from printing a story from its print pages that it printed online.

In context of top Herald executives professing to embrace free speech, this issue should rise to the level of interest for The Columbia Journalism Review, Media Matters, or 60 Minutes.

The former publisher of The Miami Herald, Alberto Ibarguen, is chair of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation--a multibillion dollar non-profit that invests in advancing free speech, independent journalism throughout the world and also is a major sponsor of The Miami International Film Festival.

The Knight Foundation should withdraw its funding of the film festival because of the events surrounding the festival's rejection of Sugar Babies, tantamount to a violation of the foundation's core principles.

The Herald decision not to report or to print in its print edition the AP story about Big Sugar, the Miami International Film Festival, and Amy Serrano's film, contradicts the Herald's own publisher when he writes: "It's all the more important that we find a way to provide a place at the center of the community for all kinds of opinion."

The problem is: that is not the Miami Herald.

Anders Gyllenhaal can be reached at: andersg@miamiherald.com