Thursday, January 29, 2015

A map to find our Cultural Plaza? City Hall? City Annex? E.R. Bradley's? Don't use this one!

[UPDATE 1/30/15: Margaret Menge's map is still wrong! After 3 editions? Read yesterdays update below and original article.]

[Tomorrow (1/30/15) is the big day for Margaret Menge. Will the errors on her map be fixed? The full page map at the back page of her paper? This was originally published on 1/21 so she's had a full week to fix the errors. From my article last week:]

Margaret Menge is the editor and self-proclaimed top 'journalist' for the Lake Worth Tribune. As such she, or anyone in that position, is responsible for every article, photo and map she publishes. If the first edition is a reflection of the editions to follow, it is clear that the need for another community newspaper is questionable. The leading front page article was baseless, her crime blotter was littered with errors, her 'personal story' laced with embellishments and obfuscations (Do we really need to know all about what happened in Cornwall, NY and Key West, FL? Maybe we do!). I would have loved to attend Dennis Dorsey's Holiday party on December 27th. Tell us what went on there! Were people there communicating in colloquial Latin?

And we find the map of the little City of Lake Worth, a community she has "come to know well"...is also wrong.

The readers of my blog are very detail-oriented. The image below was submitted by a gentle reader and is from the last page of Margaret Menge's Tribune. This is a photo of the 'legend' by Alex Hall that Ms. Menge approved for publishing:
Note: Black box = Cultural Plaza; A = City Hall; C = City Hall Annex.
Here is an image of what was published in the Tribune, approved by Tribune editor Margaret Menge:
If you were a tourist and using this map how would you locate the Cultural Plaza? You wouldn't be able to. The 'A' which shows where City Hall is, isn't City Hall, this is the Cultural Plaza. The 'C' isn't the City Hall Annex, this is City Hall. The 'black box' indicating the location of the Cultural Plaza? There is no 'black box' on the map. The type is so small for both letters, that one almost needs a microscope to discern that there is even a letter in these places. Suggestion here: Lake Worth has a concentration of business and public places within the downtown. Perhaps a "pull out", magnified detail section of just the downtown would be a better idea? Then one just has to be mindful of the details.
E.R. Bradley's Beach Club located at "17th Ave N."? Huh? No South Dixie Hwy? One single page and 12 errors. On one single page approved by the paper's editor.  These were being distributed at our lovely, new Community Information Center in the City Hall Annex, itself mislabeled on the map. Woe to the tourist who tries to interpret such a thing.

Domine, ut videam? Lord, let us see if we really need another newspaper in Lake Worth. Let us see who and how this new organ of "information" came to be. Let us see the finances. Let us see the reason.