Oscar Corral the Miami Herald reporter that authored a controversial article about journalists moonlighting for Radio/TV Marti less than one year ago, has found himself in a bit of hot water. He was arrested for soliciting a prostitute on Friday night but word didn't come out in the media until the Herald itself reported it this morning.
The Marti Moonlighters scandal that shook out of Corral's September 2006 article ultimately led ultimately to the resignation of MHMC's publisher and the ignominious exit of its embattled executive editor.
Interestingly Corral had been keeping a low profile for several months and had been moved off the Cuban exile beat, Herald Watch believes his sources dried up and refused to talk to him based on his reputation as a muck raker.
Then a couple of weeks ago the SunPost's Rebecca Wakefield did a piece about Corral that included an interview. Corral tried to portray himself as someone who had been charged with an impossible task: covering Cuban exiles without inflaming public sentiment. Now he's charged with something altogether different.
The Herald article does not say the gender of the would-be prostitute he attempted to solicit, and it would be unfair to speculate.
Herald Watch wonders though, who knew about this arrest and when they knew it. It seems like this should have hit the electronic media Saturday and the Herald on Sunday morning, but instead we get a story with very few details three mornings after the arrest?
This is, once again, a case of the Herald's coverage of itself lacking transparency. One must ask how much importance and how much space the paper would have given this story if instead of Corral it had been a reporter from El Nuevo Herald, the paper's Spanish language sister whose reporters MHMC gladly threw overboard after Corral's reporting last year (only to have to hire them back when they completed the full investigation). Or God forbid it had been an exile leader? I'm sure the coverage would have been quite different.
Interestingly, after his arrest Corral did find time to post a note on his all but abandoned blog about a report Wolf Blitzer did yesterday on TV Marti and how it's reportedly a waste of taxpayer money. It seems that Corral relieves his stress by stirring up emotions in the exile community, that is when he's not having sex with prostitutes of undetermined gender in the low rent parts of Miami.
H/T: Babalu
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Bad boys, bad boys...
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10 comments:
This is a pretty sketchy and incomplete story at this point. There's always the danger of jumping to premature conclusions. Presumably, the full story will be forthcoming. Obviously it sounds bad, but we should wait for a clearer picture before assuming too much.
I do note, however, the absence of a "mug shot" type photo of the accused, which is a consideration that was not extended to those accused in Corral's notorious 9/06 article. Also, I had a hard time finding the brief, very inconspicuous item in the print version of the Herald (page 3B).
I seriously doubt such discretion or reticence would have applied if the accused were a Nuevo Herald journalist known as as an anti-Castro "hardliner," let alone somebody like Armando Perez-Roura (aka the king of the "Chihuahuas" in some quarters).
This is a pretty sketchy and incomplete story at this point. There's always the danger of jumping to premature conclusions.
You could have said the same thing last September when Corral did his hatchet job his fellow journalists.
My guess is the Herald printed this because they didn't want other papers to beat them to the punch. The story is burried in the paper and he even got a chance to state his innocence. It's a far cry from the treatment the Radio Marti journalists received.
This brings me back to the best use for the herald... GREAT POOPER SCOOPER!
My guess is the Herald printed this because it didn't want another paper to beat them to the punch. He also got special consideration. The story is small, burried in (3B), and he was allowed to state his innocence. That's a far cry from the "courtecies" extended to the Radio Marti journalists.
This issue was the breakfast of champions at Radio Mambi this morning. Also, the Herlad is paying mucho $$$ to Radio Mambi begging for subscribers. Gotta love it! Poetic justice!
It seems that Corral relieves his stress by stirring up emotions in the exile community, that is when he's not having sex with prostitutes of undetermined gender in the low rent parts of Miami.
Hopefully, Oscar's civil attorney is reading this beautiful piece of slander.
And, yeah, it's copied.
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Are you kidding me? Slander for what part of that statement? Was he not arrested for soliciting a prostitute? At the time I wrote that the gender of the prostitute was undetermined. Now it seems that it was indeed a female. Or is it that he doesn't stir up emotions in the exile community? That can hardly be false. Maybe it's the citizens of the Flagami area that will sue me for insulting their neighborhood?
ROFL.
He hasn't been convicted yet, Einstein. Or maybe you have other proof that he, in fact, engages in "sex with prostitutes of undetermined gender in the low rent parts of Miami."
How long have you been blogging?
Keep laughing...and keep hoping that he get's convicted.
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Do you know what the barriers are to getting a slander judgment?
Why don't you stick to what you're good at, nothing I can think of, and leave the blogging here to me.
Hard to print a mug shot that doesn't exist. He was cited on the scene but not taken into custody - it basically works like a traffic ticket, with a "notice to appear."
I wasn't talking about an official mug shot, but a "mug shot" TYPE of photo, like the ones in the 9/06 Corral article of the Nuevo Herald journalists that were fired (and eventually rehired).
By the way, I can find nothing further on this story in the Wed (8/8) Miami Herald, and Nuevo Herald has only published a simple translation of the brief note that ran in the 8/7 Miami Herald.
The cautious restraint, especially by Nuevo Herald, may be the classy and proper thing to do, but such restraint is a far cry from how Corral's 9/06 story was handled. The contrast is unlikely to be lost on those interested in the matter.
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