FYI: The retraction in The Palm Beach Post for readers who only get the print edition.

If you’re short on time scroll down for the retraction below.

Remember the mobile home park story in the Post last year that made such a big splash? Well, there are a few problems with the reporting of that story. It’s because of reporting like this that some newspapers have what’s called an ombudsman, or “public editor”. From Wikipedia:

The job of the public editor is to supervise the implementation of proper journalism ethics at a newspaper, and to identify and examine critical errors or omissions, and to act as a liaison to the public. They do this primarily through a regular feature on a newspaper's editorial page.

The retraction was only available for the Post’s online readers and never made it into the print edition, which is ironic, because it was in the print edition where most of their readers saw the story in the first place. To see this for yourself, use this link to see the story in the Post by Kevin Thompson (click on image to enlarge).

Remember when the reporter, Kevin Thompson, first reported this story and City officials, the Sheriff, and many others dropped everything they were doing to go there and help?

The Palm Beach Mobile Home Park in the City of Lake Worth, just east of the Park of Commerce, has had issues for many years now. Here is a link to a blog post last February but the problems go back much further than that. For example, here’s another blog post from 2010 during a prior City administration which touched on drainage and flooding problems in that area of the City.

It’s crucially important to remember this mobile home park is private property, including the roads, owned and managed by a company responsible for addressing the issues there. Everyone, including myself, wishes the best for every resident there. However, the City already has its hands full maintaining and fixing our own public infrastructure and to finally after many years get the Park of Commerce to contribute to our City’s tax base like it should have been doing all along—tax money that could have been fixing our potholes.

Also note the City was never part of a “forced relocation” of those residents, as was reported by CBS12/WPEC. All this is another good example why you need to be skeptical of the local news media where ratings and selling newspapers, for some, not all, takes a back seat to the truth, the facts, and yes, political objectives.

Feel the urge to write a Letter to the Editor? It’s actually very easy: Use this link.