The Other Blogger accuses me of powers I do not possess...

Kevin D. Thompson is the new beat reporter here in Lake Worth for The Palm Beach Post. He's being warned, apparently, about me and my supposed history of kicking the Post's reporters out of town. I really should be honored having so much power! This goes back to the hand-wringing and hysteria when I pointed out again and again the errors in Chris Persaud's news reports. Chris Persaud was the last reporter, prior to Kevin Thompson, the Post assigned to Lake Worth. There was a time when we had no coverage by our local paper of record, and they found a way to endorse the wrong candidates in this past election. Editorial board member Stacy Singer admitted that she was hesitant about that endorse since they had no one on the ground here in Lake Worth

Ultimately what sealed the fate of Mr. Persaud was when he borrowed (there is a "P" word I am trying to remember; you know, when you use someone else's words and don't give them credit) a news story from the Associated Press. You can read about that here.

Before I continue, here are the other Post reporters we had in the City in recent memory that I "ran out of town":

• Lona O'Connor (she took the Post buyout and retired; she wasn't here long prior to retirement but while reporting on the City did excellent work [maybe we'll review some of her past articles soon])
• Eliot Kleinberg (he attended, I think, one City Commission meeting; I'm not a mind-reader but think he concluded rightfully it was unfair to both him and the City to continue. Really now, he is the West Palm beat reporter, writes a history column, writes books, and has a blog too. How much can you ask of one person?)
• Willy Howard (you could fairly say Willy Howard, who I referred to as "Press Release Willy") and I had some issues. Chiefly being the lapdog of then Commissioner Mulvehill and former City Manager Stanton. However, whenever we ran into each other we were cordial and respectful. I think Willy Howard would be greatly offended at the notion I "ran him out of town". He, like Lona O'Connor, took the Post buyout and retired. And I'm happy to report he now contributes on occasion for The Coastal Star.

A little history is in order now: The Post buyout several years ago, of which many employees took advantage of (if recall correctly) was a one-time offer over a short period of time. It was take it or leave it. The papers editor at the time, Randy Schultz, eventually took the buyout also.

As you can see, the notion I ran any Post reporters "out of town" is absurd.

Now back to Chris Persaud.

He had a number of corrections printed in the Post due to his mis-reporting. And he's known as probably one of the few reporters in U.S. history to have a correction and then a correction to the correction. He called me one day asking for Herman Robinson's phone number. He had mistakenly referred to Mr. Robinson as a "developer" in one of his reports which is absurd. (Mr. Robinson is retired and does work as a contractor, the "Mr. Fix-It" variety; not exactly what you would call a 'developer'.)

The obvious question comes to mind: why would a 'reporter' do a news report about a man and not talk to him in person first? I gave Mr. Persaud the phone number and a correction was made. Note that any reporter can call half the people in Lake Worth and get Herman Robinson's phone number in about two minutes. Or less.

Obviously there are some in this City who still harbor hard feelings about Mr. Persaud's exit from the Lake Worth scene. All I did was correct the errors he made; nothing more and nothing less. Which begs another question: was I supposed to just ignore factual errors in The Palm Beach Post, the areas paper of record? Or any other paper for that matter. And it turns out that he was an intern and was there temporarily anyway.