Lake Worth Beach City Limits: Analysis, discussion, and unanimous result from KABAB, to the question:

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Analysis, discussion, and unanimous result from KABAB, to the question:

“Is The Palm Beach Post news blackout about the Blueway Trail project still in place?”

The answer is below.

The two questions to KABAB were simple ones:

“Did the article published in the print edition of the Post on Monday, October 9th provide enough detail or ‘news’ to end the news blackout?”
“Does this regional issue of concern in Central Palm Beach County, the Blueway Trail project on the C-51 Canal, require closer study, background, and perspective since the last in-depth news report published in the Post almost 2 years ago, in December 2015?”

Before we proceed. . .

A special thanks, of course, has to go to NBC5/WPTV reporter Alanna Quillen. It was Quillen, back on August 10th that broke this story wide open after being ignored for so long by the press and news media.

But one thing is for certain:

The article published in the Post did not rise to the standard of reporter Brooke Baitinger’s article in the Sun Sentinel datelined Oct. 6th, three days prior to the Post article. And an observation from this blog on October 9th following that Post article:

What’s being missed here is all the hard work by Commissioner Omari Hardy paid off. Several times Hardy asked for a resolution of support for the Blueway Trail project to be placed on the Commission agenda and he finally had enough of the delays on August 15th. The next regular meeting was on September 19th, right after Hurricane Irma, so the resolution Hardy wanted was on the October 3rd Commission agenda.
And besides, “Resolution 50-2017 Supporting the C-51 Boat Lift” passed unanimously so it’s over and done with. And did you know, on the very same night the City of Lake Worth passed a resolution of support for the Blueway Trail, the City of Boynton Beach did so as well, unanimously. That wasn’t reported in yesterday’s Post article. Boynton Beach became the 16th “Resolution of Support” for this exciting regional project in Central Palm Beach County.

and. . .

Focusing on just one aspect, a testy exchange between Commissioner Omari Hardy and Mayor Pam Triolo may sell a few more newspapers but doesn’t provide information or the context the public needs to stay informed like the news reports in the Sun Sentinel and NBC5/WPTV did.

The final result from KABAB:

Is the news blackout at The Palm Beach Post
still in place: “Yes”!

And “No”.

KABAB acknowledges in their final report the Post needs to do more. Much more. But newspapers are under tremendous pressure these days to compete with blogs and other news outlets. All these years after deciding to chase after “the online chimera” the Post owners and editors must certainly be looking back and wondering if they made a colossal mistake when they shut down their printing presses 9 years ago.

Thus far, only a few newspapers like “The Gray Lady” (aka The New York Times) and the Tampa Bay Times, for example, have been able to turn a nice profit using social media with an online newspaper presence.

Anyhow. . .

Now that the issue about the “news blackout” is finally settled, hopefully very soon the public here in Central Palm Beach County will get more in-depth coverage about the Blueway Trail project from the “paper of record” in this County, maybe by a Post business writer or real estate reporter.

About KABAB*

The Kômmîttèe Ãvèrmênt Biweekly Advisory Board (KABAB) is a group of American expatriates, now retired on small pensions, that settled near the Balkans and are committed to settling matters fairly. Being outside the United States they have a unique perspective. The board meets in Greece and they skewer the data presented them:

Tradition has it something very similar to KABAB was created by medieval soldiers who used their facts provided from feudal officers and commoner witnesses about battlefield tactics. They would gather and “grill the officers over open-field fires.”

Note: the rulings and determinations by KABAB are dependent on the quality of the facts presented.