Remember when Lake Worth’s city manager called a Post news article “egregious” and “incompetent”?

Are you surprised The Palm Beach Post is up for sale? You shouldn’t be. It’s a terrible newspaper and has been for many years now.

There are very good veteran reporters still there and they’ll be picked up by Pulitzer Prize winning papers like the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times. One of my hopes was both the Herald and the Times would open satellite news offices here in Palm Beach County and start a local section. The last thing we need is another newspaper in this County without any serious competition. 

Anyhow, were you one of those who used to subscribe to The Palm Beach Post print edition? Remember that letter from the Post’s “Director of Audience” (see below) earlier this year? The very next day cancelled that subscription for newspaper delivery and suspect so did a lot of other people too.

If you are surprised about the Post being up for sale, below is a blog post from 6 months ago titled:

“More newsroom cuts at the Post and they raised
the price for delivery too. Is that paper ‘Worth’
it any more?”

“In Your Community”?

Has the quality of reporting gotten any better here in the City of Lake Worth? What if you live in Greenacres? What about news reporting from Palm Springs, Lake Clarke Shores or most anywhere else in Central Palm Beach County?

Below is an excerpt from a letter sent two weeks ago by the Post’s “Director of Audience”. Interestingly, this letter comes just as the last of the Snowbirds left to return home. Take a few moments today and respond with “Dear Audience Director”. Send an email to: msasser@pbpost.com


“The cost to you has gone up as the newspaper industry adjusts to change. Therefore, we need to make adjustments to our delivery rates.”

Click on image below to read the message from the “Director of Audience”:

Dear “Audience Director”: Is it the fault of Code Enforcement in the City of Lake Worth for delays in the renovation of our historic Gulfstream Hotel? That’s what your beat reporter, Kevin Thompson, reported in your newspaper.

Now you want more money? “Thank you again for being a loyal subscriber. We appreciate your readership.”

Where is the Post reporting about the Blueway Trail project? Or the renewable energy project using wave energy from the Gulfstream Current off the coast of Lake Worth? Any comment to City Manager Michael Bornstein calling one of your news reports, “egregious” and “incompetent”? And now you want how much more money to have your print edition delivered here into the City of Lake Worth?

Here’s the latest news from Jose Lambiet, “EXCLUSIVE — Axe Falls On Palm Beach Post: 10 Workers Escorted Out, Publisher Gets Fancy New House!”, an excerpt:

     It’s tough to get exact numbers these days: The Atlanta-based owners of the Post hide behind its status as a private company to avoid reporting things like personnel cuts — never mind that the paper has plastered labor cuts in other companies on the front page.
     I’m told by sources inside that the 10 unlucky ones got called into the offices of supervisors about noon then were escorted out without being able to clean up their desks.
     “They used the excuse that the advertising folks who were canned didn’t make their quotas of sales,” the source said. “Very few people manage to make their numbers.
     “Business people in the community are no fools. They know advertising in the Post no longer gets results. The news content is so weak that nobody’s reading. It’s like to trying to sell shit.”

Don’t forget: guess who prints the Post newspaper? The Sun Sentinel in Broward County. And it’s also never been explained why the Post shut down their Tallahassee Bureau and let two veteran reporters go (including John Kennedy) last December.

But do you remember what the big news was last December here in the little City of Lake Worth? A small chocolate shop, Hoffman’s Chocolate, went out of business and it wasn’t because of a “lack of business” as reported by the beat reporter.

“The news content is so weak that nobody’s reading.”