Legal Commentary

The Miami Herald is Boring

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether the Miami Herald has a financial future. They keep firing folks and shrinking the paper. Not surprisingly, more and more people are not buying it any more, which means less money from a shrinking pool of advertisers which means…

What’s most amazing about all this is that Herald keeps shooting itself in the foot by publishing a pretty boring newspaper. That’s especially odd in this town, where there is so much scope for some good muckraking journalism, as demonstrated by feisty local blogs like Eye on Miami.

I’ve suggested before that the Herald could radically up its game by hiring some local bloggers, or licensing their content. But not only is the Herald not interested in that, it’s erring in the other direction.

Consider EYE ON MIAMI: Miami Herald redacts Associated Press article highlighting our blog … by gimleteye:

On Sunday, the Herald reprinted the AP story on foreclosures in Homestead whose original version appeared in many newspapers around the nation and featured our blog. The lengthy national story by former Miami New Times and St. Pete Times journalist Tamara Lush featured the foreclosure crisis and included the view we expound here, on Eyeonmiami. The Herald version on the weekend, printed in the Neighbors section, redacted the AP segment of the story that featured Eyeonmiami and, specifically, my views of the crisis.

I suspect local pique: the unwillingness newspapers often have to acknowledge the work of competitors. The Herald will need to get over that, big time, if it wants to flourish.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on April 06, 2009 (boomark / email).