Cloudy Vision
How Miami’s Daily Newspaper Covers the News Has Become the News

One source described “a culture of appeasement” that entered the organization when Díaz assumed the top position last year.

By Rebecca Wakefield

Leave it to the axe-wielding Jesús Díaz Jr. to exit his job as publisher of the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald franchise with another lesson in how not to handle public relations.

Díaz's resignation and mea-Doh! letter in the aftermath of the Radio/TV Martí scandal presented an oddly perfect complement to the news that the Herald and other newspapers were too squeamish to write about Congressman Mark Foley's creepy cyberwooing of high school boys, even though they had evidence of it for nearly a year.

Going back a few weeks, the Herald's Oscar Corral wrote a story about how a number of local journalists, including three on staff or contributing to El Nuevo Herald, had accepted payments from the U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting to appear on Martí shows. The three were fired immediately.

The story was great because it revealed once again the complicated moral reasoning that occurs in Miami when it comes to the Cuba issue and the even more complicated scatology that often accompanies media self-examination. For hard-line Cubans, the issue is very simple. Fidel Castro is a ruthless, murderous dictator who took over and all but destroyed a country. Anything that can be done to harm his cause is good.

For journalism purists, the issue is equally straightforward. It is ethically and practically wrong to accept payment from an entity you cover. That goes double for propaganda agencies of the government.

If the journalists in question had appeared on the shows without payment, and their editors had been careful to note the affiliation where appropriate, there would have been no scandal.

But Herald and El Herald management, in the form of Díaz and Executive Editors Tom Fiedler and Humberto Castelló, opted to ignore the situation, pretend shock when forced to acknowledge it, and then sacrifice the writers to the prevailing sensibilities of the greater journalistic community. Later, it turned out that at least some in management did know, and that at least one freelancer’s contract with the Martís was actually written about in both papers some four years ago.

All this exposed just how weaselly and mealy-mouthed Fiedler and Castelló and some of their lieutenants have become, and that standards are way different for the Herald’s English and Spanish versions – and thus for how management sees the Miami community at large. Ugh. The paper has had its ethics guidelines posted on its Web site for more than two years. Among the many don’ts are these: “Staff members may not enter into business or financial relationships with news sources. Members should not give gifts or take other actions that could raise questions about the Herald’s impartiality. Staffers should not freelance for individuals or institutions they cover or make editorial decisions on them.”

On Tuesday, Díaz revealed that an internal review found six more El Nuevo Herald reporters had accepted money from the government for their contributions, with the likely knowledge and approval of superiors. He decided to give everybody amnesty and make future policy on the issue clear and consistent. No doubt the drop in circulation following the firings helped make that decision a little easier. Correctly (and no doubt with the active encouragement of parent company McClatchy), Díaz also decided that “the events of the past three weeks have created an environment that no longer allows me to lead our newspapers.”

Díaz, unlike suave predecessor Alberto Ibarguen, has a reputation as a man who makes up his mind fast. One source described “a culture of appeasement” that entered the organization when Díaz assumed the top position last year, which resulted in some pretty significant management blind spots.

Former Herald columnist Jim DeFede proclaimed his satisfaction (complete with “Hallelujah Chorus”) with this week’s events on his morning radio show Tuesday. As usual, he minced words. “Jesús Díaz, a blight if ever there was one on journalism in this community – unqualified to be publisher of the Miami Herald, a bean counter, an accountant, someone who wouldn’t know what journalism is if it smacked him in the face.…” You get the idea. DeFede (summarily, some say unfairly, fired by Díaz 14 months ago for a judgment lapse) is not a fan, calling him “quick draw McGraw,” a man who “likes to take people out and summarily execute them without getting all the facts.”

But you gotta love that Carl Hiaasen. Having the balls to challenge Díaz’s order not to run his column critical of the firings is what caused Díaz to realize his journalism career was going to be short. He didn’t like being second-guessed, so he picked up his glass jaw and went home.

On the question of why several newspapers didn’t out Congressman Mark Foley long before ABC News did, the issue is murkier. It all depends on timing, the quality of the evidence and whether sources were willing to talk. Sometimes, it's better to err on the side of caution, or so the convention goes.

A few years ago, there was a story about a prominent educational figure I chose not to write. The story involved an official at a college whose banker boyfriend had stolen a considerable sum of money from the account of a South American client. The man was caught and went to jail. The college official bailed him out. The man was later under house arrest, with an ankle monitor, at the official’s home.

I was pursuing an allegation that the bail money, and possibly some money paid back to the bank, came from college funds the official controlled. The reason I did not write the story, ultimately, was that I couldn't determine at the time whether the money had come from school funds, or the official's private funds. Without that critical piece of evidence, I felt uncomfortable outing the educator because his status as a gay man was not publicly known.

Another example is the decision of local media, including the Herald and the New Times, to not write about the criminal background of the son of county Mayor Carlos Alvarez while he was running for office. Alvarez’s son was convicted of a number of brutal rapes when he was a teenager. But Alvarez himself, a former county police director, is widely considered an honorable man. I remember some of the debate among local journalists about whether to report his son’s transgressions, knowing that it would be unfairly used against Alvarez by his political opponents. In the end, it didn’t get written about during the race.

So I get that sometimes these issues are difficult to parse. But now that we all know how creeeepy Foley is as the scandal unfolds, Fiedler’s explanation for why the Herald didn’t move on the e-mails —“too ambiguous” — seems, well, “too convenient.”

Comments? E-mail wakefield@miamisunpost.com.