Friday, November 02, 2007

Double Standard

An industry colleague of mine was arrested Sunday morning. A detailed account appeared in Joan Fleischman's "Talk of Our Town" column:

POLICE REPORT

Coral Gables police arrested Michelle Zubizarreta, chief administrative officer of Zubi Advertising, on a DUI charge.

Zubizarreta, 40, got into an accident in the 1800 block of LeJeune Road at 1:14 a.m. Sunday. The woman driving the other car had a ''large bruise on her right leg,'' says the arrest report, which does not identify that driver. Police ticketed Zubizarreta for allegedly running a stop sign.

Officer Kevin Selent says Zubizarreta ''kept stumbling'' and performed poorly on a roadside sobriety test. She refused to submit to a breath-alcohol test, court records show. Cops had her '06 BMW towed.

En route to CGPD, Selent says, ''she was moving around in the back seat.'' He asked why. ''You will see, I'm going to show you,''' the report says. When she stepped out of the police car, 'her left breast was exposed . . . She told me, `Told you. You need to help me put my shirt up.' '' He obliged -- with another cop present.

''She wasn't flashing the officer,'' says her attorney, Robert Reiff. Zubizarreta, dressed in a halter top, had undergone liposuction a few days earlier and was wearing a compression girdle. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and she squirmed from discomfort, causing her top to slip, Reiff says. No court date set.
Interesting that the Herald has no compunction about embarrassing a prominent member of the business community but provided a terse detail-free account of the arrest of one of its "star reporters" when he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why on earth would it be found appropriate, let alone necessary, to say anything about any "flashing" breast or liposuction surgery? What does that have to do with the accident or the DUI arrest? What is this, some tabloid story about Paris Hilton getting busted again?

As for the obvious double standard on display, so what else is new? Oh, yeah, this makes me want to go right out and help prop up the Herald's sagging circulation, all right.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like the Herald ombudsman should look into the propriety of this story, assuming he can tear himself away from writing about Turkey.

Anonymous said...

Is it standard Herald policy to report like this on every DUI arrest? If it is, I'd be surprised, since I can't imagine there's sufficient reader demand for such coverage. If it isn't standard policy, why was this particular case singled out for such exposure? On what basis?

Anonymous said...

If your family member was hurt, or even killed because of a drunk driver, it would matter to you. She has been on the wrong path for a very long time and should consider herself extremely fortunate she didn't kill someone - this time. Would you be defending her if she would have gotten behind the wheel, drunk, and potentially killed someone you love. She should think of this as a warning to stop drinking and getting behind the wheel. Who cares what the details are in the article, she should be ashamed! Shame on those of you that are defending a drunk driver. You are, what is defined as, an enabler. If you really care, you should tell her to stop being so irresponsible!

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Nobody is excusing her or saying the Herald shouldn't cover her arrest. But why the salacious details about her flashing a boobie? They just wanted to embarrass her. And when their own reporter gets busted they minimize the potentially embarrassing details. That's a double standard and it's not ethical.

By the way Corral could kill his wife if were to contract HIV from a prostitute and spread it to her. His behavior is irresponsible too.