UPDATE: About the old news published in The Palm Beach Post yesterday.

It’s anyone’s guess why old news about the City of Lake Worth from mid-December 2017 made the front page ‘Local’ section in the Post yesterday, on January 16th, 2018. Last night, by the way, was the first Lake Worth City Commission meeting of this new year.

However, if that decision by the Post to publish old news yesterday was meant to drive the debate or be a distraction at the Commission meeting last night, well, it didn’t work. That old news about the Office of Inspector General “Audit Report 2018-A-001” of Lake Worth Water Utility Services wasn’t brought up even one single time. Not once. So. Anyhow. . .

“A local newspaper is really a public trust, part of the fabric of the whole community.”
 
—Quote. November 4th, 2017 in opinion piece by Timothy D. Burke, publisher of Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News, following news that both newspapers are up For-Sale. 

So just how old was that old news?

CBS12 reporter Chuck Weber aired a news report titled, “Lake Worth mayor [Mayor Pam Triolo] addresses Inspector General’s water utilities findings” on December 19th last year.

CBS12 scooped the Post
twenty-nine (29) days ago!

Definition of ‘scooped’: it’s a verb that means, “to get the better of . . . by obtaining and publishing or broadcasting a news item, report, or story first”.

Spread the word! Below is the latest old ‘news’
published in The Palm Beach Post.

The old news published in the Post, below the fold, was never even good enough for the Post’s Lake Worth Very Very Special Monday Cursory Print Edition (LWVVSMCPE). But guess what! Now this old news is even older today!

The OIG audit of City of Lake Worth Water Utility Services was released last year, on Dec. 18th.

And just today (Jan. 16th, 2018) this old news by Post reporter Kevin Thompson finally made ‘news’ in the newspaper — almost a full month after the OIG audit was released — and by the way the City’s municipal elections are coming up on March 13th, less than 2 months from now. Do you think this old news finally published yesterday is just a coincidence?

A lot more residents of this City need to remember what happened on Christmas Day last year in the Post’s LWVVSMCPE that day when a prominent City resident wrote, “For months I’ve been meaning to cancel my subscription to the tedious Palm Beach Post.”

This is just one more example of the shoddy news reporting we’ve come to expect from the Post.

And just as predicted last December the article doesn’t mention anything about what happened prior to 2012:

Audit finds $7 million in questioned costs at Lake Worth Water Utility

Guess what’s missing from the article in the Post?

Here’s a short excerpt from the OIG report:


“On September 30, 2011, the former Finance Director transferred $6,000,000 from the City’s Water Utility. . .”

Nowhere in the Post article does it mention anything
about what happened in 2011.

For reporters and editors at the Post it’s important
to remember political history in this City prior to
2012 doesn’t matter. Why? Because for them,
that’s just ‘old news’ now.

To read the OIG report for yourself click on
this link to download the document.

If you recall, Lake Worth City Manager Bornstein isn’t asking for much from the press:

“We [the City] are held to a higher standard,
they [the press] should hold themselves
to a higher standard.”