State Legislator takes Herald to task

Yesterday, Herald Watch was copied on an email from State Representative Eddy Gonzalez to the Editors of the Miami Herald. In it Gonzalez takes issue with an article penned by Mary Ellen Klas.

Here's the Gonzalez email in its entirety:

Dear Editor:

Allow me to clarify some erroneous information published in your article titled "FOR-PROFIT TUTORS COULD GET BREAK" on May 2, 2008.

The Miami Herald and particularly Mary Ellen Klas seemed to emphasize a nonexistent political motivation behind my sponsoring the House version of Senate Bill 1414, which overwhelmingly passed the House 114-3 and the Senate 32-5. Absent from her article was any mention of the legislation's, background, purpose, or intent, which were made clear by the press release my office submitted yesterday upon the bill's passage.

I personally sponsored the House bill and drafted the amendment to its Senate counterpart. Senate Bill 1414 in no way gives an unfair break to Student Educational Service (SES) providers--providers that offer tutoring services. The bill merely requires Miami-Dade County Public Schools to charge such companies for the time they actually use the classrooms. I made this clear to Mary Ellen Klas in a conversation with her, but this was not reflected in her article. Instead, what I found was a bunch of innuendo and accusations of political machinations that have nothing to do with this piece of good, bipartisan legislation.

I take my public service seriously, and to imply that a political feud, especially one that took place well before I ever even entered the Legislature, motivated me to file this or any legislation is absurd. This was a bill to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires districts to treat providers equally. Once again, the Miami-Dade County School District has chosen politics over facts, which is not surprising from a district that employs 700 administrative personnel earning more than $100,000 in annual salaries and has paid large sums of money for ads in The Miami Herald every year.

Regardless, I filed that piece of legislation to address the unfair treatment of SES companies by the Miami-Dade County Public School District. Here are the facts: The district charges SES providers $156 per three hours (even if 1 hour is used they are forced to pay for 3) for one classroom, while others receive waivers and pay nothing. This is unfair. I never mentioned non-profits so that the School Board would not have to charge them the hourly rate but could actually charge them less or nothing at all. SES Providers offer tutoring to low-income children, and the district should not gouge them when they only use such facilities for an hour at a time. Broward County, for example, charges their providers a flat fee of $100 per year per classroom. My amendment simply requires a level playing field for providers using the facilities, which carries no additional cost to the district or its taxpayers, as providers only utilize school facilities while school staff is in the building. The district does not bring additional staff for tutoring time.

If the Superintendent feels that the hourly rate is not enough to cover cost, the School Board has the authority to increase its hourly rates. But to have different fees and minimum usage requirements for different providers is unfair, and I am proud that the Legislature made the right decision in addressing this issue in a bipartisan manner.

Rep. Eddy Gonzalez

Here's the Herald article Gonzalez is referring to:

EDUCATION
For-profit tutors could get break
Miami-Dade schools will be forced to give tutoring companies a better rate to rent classroom space under legislation going to the governor.

By MARY ELLEN KLAS
meklas@MiamiHerald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- Companies that tutor kids in low-performing Miami-Dade schools will get a special break under an amendment tucked into a bill to grade the effectiveness of federally financed tutoring.

The Senate voted 32-5 Thursday for the bill that requires the Miami-Dade school district to lower the fee they charge tutoring companies that use school space for after-school tutoring services under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The district now charges a three-hour minimum fee to anyone who wants to rent school space and uses the money to cover the cost of paying for the electricity, maintenance and custodial services. But tutoring companies say they only need the space for an hour a day.

Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, a Hialeah Republican, put a last-minute amendment onto a bill by Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. The Senate agreed, despite strong opposition from the school district and five other Miami-Dade legislators, and sent it to the governor.

''This only impacts Miami-Dade County,'' said Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican. ``The school district now in essence is forced to rent that space to these providers.''

The fight is overshadowed by politics and the still-simmering fight between supporters of former Dade school board member Frank Bolaños and Sen. Alex Villalobos, the Miami Republican whom Bolaños attempted to unseat in 2006.

One of the most active tutoring companies in the district, Florida Education Leadership Council, is owned by Manny Riera, a supporter of Gonzalez and Diaz de la Portilla. His business partner in the tutoring company, Alex Rizo, signed up to be the write-in candidate against Villalobos, closing the Republican primary to Democratic voters and making it more difficult for Villalobos to defeat Bolaños.

Villalobos, along with Sens. Rudy Garcia, a Miami Republican, Gwen Margolis, a Miami Beach Democrat, Nan Rich, a Weston Democrat and Frederica Wilson, a Miami Gardens Democrat, voted against the bill. Opponents blasted the measure as a legislative attempt to micro-manage school district policy.

Rich criticized the sponsors for giving the break to the for-profit tutoring companies but not nonprofit groups that also rent space for other activities, such as Boys and Girls Clubs. ''Why would we be giving a benefit to this particular group of providers that is not available to other entities that rent from the school?'' she asked.

Diaz de la Portilla responded that ``these providers are unique in the sense they are the ones that are tutoring our children.''

School district lobbyist Ron Book said the rate was designed to cover the district's costs.

''We turn on the lights and hire the staff whether they rent it for one hour or three hours,'' he said. ``I don't know how you have a for-profit get a better rate than everybody else. The school district is not in business to lose money. ''

Herald Watch in the Herald. UPDATED

So they did publish my letter in the Herald (at least online, I'm going to have to check the printed version). They published it among a group of letters in response to the Ombudsman's first two columns about illegal immigration. This is a bit odd since my letter had nothing to do with illegal immigration but was merely a suggestion to the Ombudsman about a subject I'd like to see him tackle.

First of all I'm surprised that they published it. Though my site meter reveals that I have several readers at 1 Herald Plaza, I'm quite sure that they are not part of an admiration society. Also, I'm surprised they would print it because their modus operandi is to close the book on their scandals and move on. But still the issue I raised remains.

Will the Ombudsman look into the Corral arrest and why the reporting was so minimal? Will he come out and say the obvious, that the Herald would have covered the arrest of one Corral's subjects in the exile community much differently than it did Corral's case.

Secondly, I should note that the editing of my letter was much more benign than it has been in the past as I have shown with another letter I wrote over a year ago (before I started this blog) and a letter recently written by Paul Crespo. They even failed to note fact that I had omitted an important word ("not") in the second to last sentence. Click image to enlarge.


UPDATE: I've been monitoring my site meter all day and I wasn't noticing any hits coming from the letters section of Herald.com. Well, it turns out that they omitted a period in the URL for this blog. Instead of http://HeraldWatch.Blogspot.com they published http://HeraldWatchblogspot.com. Interesting.

Herald Watch in the Herald?

I have been contacted by the Miami Herald about the letter I sent to the new Ombudsman. They usually contact the authors of letters when they intend to print them to verify that the writer is a real person and lives in South Florida. I was told that my letter would run tomorrow (Sunday) if they decide to go with it. I am unsure if it will be accompanied by a response from the Ombudsman or not. It sounded as if it simply was simply going to appear in the letters section. In any case, since the Herald doesn't have a very good track record on letters to the editor, I have decided to post my unedited letter here. Please note the typo I made in my original email which I have corrected by adding the word "not" in brackets below.

Dear Mr. Schumacher Matos,

One of the things that has concerned me in the past is how the Herald covers itself and its own scandals. As you probably know, one year ago an investigative piece was published by the Herald that many including Clark Hoyt, your predecessor of sorts, found lacking in terms of accuracy and balance. The piece questioned the journalistic integrity of several journalists of Cuban origin. Three of them were employed by El Nuevo Herald.

But when that article's author, Oscar Corral, was recently arrested for soliciting a prostitute, the Herald buried a short, unsigned, police blotter item in the paper several days after the fact. Similarly the Herald came to the defense of Ana Veciana Suarez, a Miami Herald columnist, when she lied during jury selection in federal court, by omitting several facts pertinent to her case. It seems that the Miami Herald had no compunction about throwing its El Nuevo Herald colleagues to the wolves while going out its way to protect its own.

But forgetting the double standard, Oscar Corral had become quite the public figure in his own right as a result of his many articles which rightly or wrongly were perceived by many as hatchet jobs against the anti-Castro exile community. Did his arrest not merit more substantial coverage? One can only imagine the type of coverage the Herald would have dedicated had it been a leader of that exile community and [not] Corral who was busted.

It seems to me the Herald's coverage of itself should be at the top of the list of topics for its new ombudsman.

Most sincerely,

Henry Louis Gomez
Editor: http://HeraldWatch.blogspot.com

It's like deja vu all over again

I mentioned the other day that one of the reasons for starting Herald Watch was in response to a letter I wrote the Herald editors which they butchered and published. That letter was about the intentional blurring of statistics from the City of Miami which were used to make a point about all of greater Miami. The Herald's point was about how bad things are here in south Florida. Later Herald Watch exposed how Herald Columnist Ana Menendez was guilty of the same sort of statistical manipulation.

Well they are up their old tricks at 1 Herald Plaza. Robert from 26th Parallel has a very cogent analysis of the last bit of selective interpretation of demographic statistics in the local fish wrap.

The point here is that if you look at the Census numbers BEFORE reading the article, you would have noticed a bigger change: the number of 40-59 year old Hispanics moving TO Miami-Dade.

33, 27 and 29 percent increase in those between 40-44 years, 45-49 and 50 to 54 years of age, respectively. That a big jump folks. I'm surprised (well, OK, I'm not) that the Herald barely mentioned those numbers next to the 17 percent of 20-24 and 25-29 year olds that moved out. A brief sentence suggesting that "Hispanics and blacks who bought homes long ago or are nearing retirement age may be choosing to stay put for financial reasons" lacks depth. It's lame...

Let's face it, the Herald has been trying to promote the so-called Miami exodus-in-the-making since last year when they started writing stories about people getting the heck outta Miami. That's fine, they should. But they should also talk to the 40 and 50 year olds who are moving IN to provide the rest of the story. Isn't that what journalists should do?

Yes Robert, that is what they are supposed to do.

Herald Letters Butchery

One of the reasons I started this blog was because the Herald printed a letter I sent the editors. Well it was actually a version of my letter that stripped out the main point which was that the Herald was guilty of manipulating facts to promote an agenda.

Well here's a recent example of creative editing letters submitted to the Herald. The letter in question was authored by Paul Crespo who was implicated in a story written by Oscar Corral, the Miami Herald reporter that was recently arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Crespo is also a former editorial contributor to the Herald. I had previously posted a copy of the letter as it was originally emailed to the Herald. Today a much shorter and sanitized version of the letter appeared at Herald.com.

First of all if you click the opinions link on the Herald.com home page you will never know this letter was published because it was posted among a group of letters under the headline "Bonds sets record". For this reason it was only after an anonymous reader posted a comment here at Herald Watch that I learned they had published "the letter."

But what did they publish? The answer is a much shorter and less powerful letter. The parts that were ommitted were the parts that cast the Herald in the most unfavorable light and a call for Corral's firing.

Below is a marked up version of Crespo's original letter showing what the Herald changed. Click on it to enlarge.

As you can see what made it into the paper was less than half (40%) of Crespo's 383-word original letter. Of course newspapers edit letters all the time for space but I think we can all agree that this is a special case. Paul Crespo is not just a reader, he's a person who once contributed to the Herald and was subsequently wronged by the reporter in question and the Herald as an institution. The Herald had an obligation to its readers to present Crespo's comments in their entirety. It did not live up to that obligation.

The problem, beyond the readers not being able to see Crespo's complete thoughts, is that the by publishing a shorter sanitized version and hiding it among other reader letters the Herald leaves readers with the impression that it's is not afraid to publish criticisms of itself, when in reality its very sensitive of them.

This is precisely the reason for this blog. As long as things like this continue to be acceptable at 1 Herald Plaza I'll have plenty of material to blog about.

By the way, it's also a reminder that I need reader input to make this blog better. Many eyes are better than two. If you know of something going on at the Herald that would be of interest to Herald Watch readers email me.

Creative Editing of Letters to The Herald

All newspapers disclaim the fact that they will edit letters for length and it only makes sense that they would correct any typos or grammatical mistakes. The Herald's policy is here. But what if the paper edits out one of the main points of the letter?

Submitted for your examination is the letter I sent The Herald on Sept. 3 about an editorial they published regarding recent census bureau statistics that place Miami as the the 3rd poorest city in the country:

From: conductor@trenblindado.com
Subject: Miami's Poverty
Date: September 3, 2006 3:41:49 AM EDT
To: HeraldEd@herald.com

Dear editors,

I would caution the Herald to be more precise in its description of Miami as "third-worst in the nation among major cities in the level of poverty" ("Despite boom, high poverty rate persists", 9/1/2006). While the statistic is true, it only true about the City of Miami, not the county. According to the Census Bureau The City of Miami's population of 386,417 accounts for only 16% of the county's 2.376 million residents. The real news is that Miami-Dade county's most famous municipality (the one with which it share's its name) has become a stepping stone community. The City of Miami has long been a first stop for recent arrivals from Latin America. When Miami residents prosper they tend to move out to the other cities and villages or to unincorporated parts of the county. Certainly The City of Miami's poverty needs to be taken seriously but mischaracterizing the statistics is not constructive.

Henry Louis Gomez
XXXXX SW xxxth Street
Unincorporated Miami-Dade County, FL 331xx
305-XXX-XXXX

The Herald published my letter on September 8th, but they edited it. Here's the letter as published:

Poor in Miami

The Sept. 1 story Despite boom, high poverty rate persists describes Miami as ''third-worst in the nation among major cities in the level of poverty.'' This is only true about the city of Miami, not Miami-Dade County.

The real news is that the county's most famous municipality has become a stepping-stone community.

Miami long has been the first stop for recent arrivals from Latin America. When Miami residents prosper, they tend to move to other cities and villages or to unincorporated neighborhoods of the county.

HENRY LOUIS GOMEZ, Miami

Now they can claim that they edited it for length and they can argue that the main point of my letter was preserved. But the main point wasn't about how the City of Miami is a stepping-stone community; it was about how The Herald purposely blurred the distinction between the City's poverty level and that of the county. They used the words "Miami" and "South Florida" interchangeably throughout the editorial and I called them out on that, something Herald readers will never know because they didn't publish that aspect of the letter.

They even edited the city where I live to say "Miami" where I purposely had written "Unincorporated Miami-Dade County" in an effort to emphasize that I don't live in the 3rd poorest city in the country.

The fact is that editorial board at the Herald used the census bureau statistics to advocate specific policy measures such as a higher minimum wage and better education. The merits of the minimum wage and ideas on how best to improve education should be discussed in their own right and not as part of a flawed argument that we live in a "poor" area.

This recent personal encounter with The Herald is not the reason that I decided to create this blog, but is one of the factors that got me to thinking about the paper's influence in our community and that perhaps some ordinary citizens should start scrutinizing the paper a little more closely.