Attended an ethics seminar yesterday...

I am a member of the board of directors of the Palm Beach County Planning Congress and the group had it's 5th Annual Ethics Seminar yesterday.  The group is made up of urban planners and members of like-professions throughout Palm Beach County.  However, yesterday's event drew a crowd of over 100 people which included representation from some Treasure Coast counties, and some folks from Broward and Dade counties as well.  Many topics were covered, but there was one in particular that I thought would be good to share in this forum.

But first, I stumbled on an example of the reach of this blog yesterday and it was heartening to realize that the words here are not going out to an empty theater...quite the contrary.  One of the presenters was Frank Schnidman, LL.M., Esq.  He is Director of the Center for Urban Redevelopment Education, Florida Atlantic University, Fort Lauderdale.  He essentially opened the seminar by pointing out examples of public corruption in the south Florida region.  He brought a copy of the current day's Miami Herald with him and, as an exercise, went through it and identified at least eight articles that were dealing with current examples of all types of public misdoings.  After his presentation, during the lunch break, he introduced himself to me as we had never formally met.  He said that in the class he teaches on urban redevelopment, one of the on-going assignments is to request that this students go out and find articles on redevelopment, print them out and bring them to class to share and discuss.  He said that he is very familiar with my blog, as many students bring in things that I write here - he says it happens "a lot."  So, it was gratifying to hear that what I say here is being used in an academic setting, and not just reverberating in our little hamlet..

The next session dealt with "Informing the Public about Ethics and Public Corruption: The Role of the Old and the New Media."  The moderator of the panel was C.B. Hanif, a refugee of The Palm Beach Post - former Editorial Writer and Ombudsman.  You can check out his blog by clicking here.

The panelists were an assortment of "new media" types with diverse backgrounds, two with roots in the "old media"world.  In no particular order, one of the panelists was Dan Christensen, former investigative reporter with The Miami Herald & The Daily Business Review. He is now known as a political blogger and he runs The Broward Bulldog.  It is a 501c3 non-profit organization whose public purpose is to cover what is not being covered by traditional media outlets - with a great focus on the actions of local governments in Broward County.  He suggests that this sort of organization represents the "wave of the future" in the world of informational media.  His blog is a member of the Investigative News Network which establishes standards for "watchdog" sorts of publications so that they adhere to and maintain certain journalistic standards.

Another panelist was Al Crespo, a political blogger who runs the The Crespo-Gram Report.  He covers the rough and tumble world of Miami-Dade government.  It turns out that the came to do this line of work somewhat by accident and notorious for being an ex-con.  He has a bank robbery on his resume.  He pulls no punches with his blog and people that are outraged by the content of blogs in Lake Worth should check out his to see what exactly is possible with this medium.  Lake Worth blogs are tame in comparison.

Lastly, Mary Kate Leming shared her experiences as editor of The Coastal Star whose turf includes the barrier island communities from South Palm Beach to Boca Raton.  She is another refugee from The Palm Beach Post.  Her publication is a monthly printed newspaper that doesn't rely a great deal on a web-presence.  It is a for-profit model that sells traditional advertising to pay the bills.  She lamented that during her coverage of the goings-on of the ten or so local governments she rarely if ever sees any reporters from traditional media outlets.

That was the universal sentiment of the panel.  The "Fourth Estate" has pretty much abandoned its watchdog role.  We can have all the sunshine in the form of the Sunshine Law, but if a tree falls in the forest, no one is going to know if it made a noise or not if no one is there to hear it.  In order to keep government accountable, we are more and more having to rely on sources such as these, and the one you are reading now, in order to get the real lowdown on what is going on.

I posed a question about how can we expose the lack the legitimacy of the traditional media in the eye of the public.  If they aren't sending reporters to cover local meetings or don't have people with the expertise to cover the happenings of local government, then why are they in the business of endorsing candidates?  When they do endorse a candidate, they immediately become part of that candidate/elected official's PR department.  Dan Christensen commented that this was a good question and one that needs to be asked more.  He reminded that the traditional media outlets in Broward endorsed Sheriff Ken Jenne.

And, by the way, Sheryl Steckler, Palm Beach County, Inspector General attended and presented as part of another session.  She gave a presentation on the duties of her office and some of the items they have been involved with to date.  She talked about the Lake Worth casino project and how the city was calling it a rehabilitation project, when it really was not, which had all sorts of code implications.  She said that they were able to correct the situation and the process was initiated by someone present in the audience.

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