A Long Day - And An Awakening

Today didn't turn out like I expected. I spent most of my off-day catching up on work stuff, and to top it off, the starter in my car crapped out and I had to take it in to the dealer. After fixing the starter and doing all the other maintenance stuff I should have done 20,000 miles ago, I'll end up paying more than my mortgage. Oh well, it had to get done sooner or later.

I managed to find time to follow the latest involving the Marti Moonlighters, and the more I read, the more I feel that the Herald really botched this whole thing. I initially came out defending the Herald for following their ethical codes while feeling a little uneasy about it. However when word got out that the Herald knew about this for at least four years, I started to question the Herald's decision. My eyes started to open.

Oscar Corral's hatchet job on journalists such as Carlos Alberto Montaner who don't even work for the paper really put a bad taste in my mouth. Then came the reluctance of the Miami Herald to publish articles and letters written by the others implicated in the controversy, all this while El Nuevo Herald published them immediately. This all points to a newspaper who claims to be ethically correct, yet refuses to acknowledge its own mistakes and does not publish the rebuttals of all the moonlighters (they did slip Montaner's letter through the cracks - three days later). Instead of having an open, unbiased discussion about the ethics involved in the case - certainly good arguments can be made on both sides - they get on their high horse and proclaim themselves to be kings. That's what happens when you're the only game in town.

I won't cite particular posts as they are too many, but you can find these and more at the following blogs:

- Babalu Blog (in particular, check out Fontova's post).
- Cuban-American Pundits
- Herald Watch

A big part of me wants to cancel my subscription. Actually, it's something I've been thinking about for a while now. Still, I don't know what I'm going to do. Reading the paper first thing in the morning while having breakfast is a ritual of mine, something I've done for most of my adult life. These things are hard to break. Also, I consider it a civic duty to stay informed as to what's going on in my community. The Herald does this for me, if flawed most of the time.

Then again, my blood pressure could stand being a few points lower if it means I don't have to read articles from Ana Menendez and Leonard Pitts that have at times made me almost choke on my breakfast.