Mayoral Election Bias
The embarrassing finish to Key West's Hometown PAC's call to candidates led to vastly different reporting here and in the daily paper. In our E-Blast, I reported that Hometown blundered, by having Tony Yaniz challenged to stop speaking when he joked that he had decided not to run. My point was that the forum had plainly encouraged Tony and anyone else who was, in their words, “testing the waters,” to show up and speak.
The daily paper blamed it all on Tony, denigrating him nine times, and reporting 39 words of his speech. Mayor Craig Cates got not a word of criticism, while they reported 95 words of his speech. They also chose a photo of Tony appearing angry with moderator Todd German, who seems to be trying to take the microphone away from Tony.
I call this bias. And, hey, having different political opinions is more than OK. It can lead to a lively investigation of the differences between candidates. I am upfront about my preference for Tony over Craig. It's based purely on the issues. One was the two-waying of the Boulevard, which Tony fought for and Craig opposed. Another, of many, is challenging the city staff, which Tony does and Craig doesn't. I have written about these issues in the past and will do so in the future.
So there I stand. It's my opinion, under my byline. The daily paper has foresworn not only editorially endorsing anyone, but bans signed letters to the editor discussing candidates for office. However, they do print the worst kind of advocacy: unsigned personal attacks in their Citizen's Voice column. Far worse than a board editorial, or signed letters to the editor, they print attacks that are not only anonymous, but secretly chosen from who-knows-what range of comments that were submitted.
It is already common knowledge that the Voice stopped printing anti-dredging submissions when they began to reflect the overwhelming majority against dredging, as proven by the 3-1 vote in the referendum. They currently print far more Voice submissions critical of Tony than of Craig. And we the people not only have no idea who has written them, but how prejudicially selective they are of the submissions. They could blog all submissions, but there is no Sunshine Law for the media, and they don't.
As to the PAC event, I stand by my reporting. Hometown should apologize for letting a sitting public official, who took them at their word to speak while he is “testing the waters,” be challenged on the dais, where he was heckled and booed without any comment or censure of this bad behavior. People complaining of Tony's public conflicts with the mayor should have leaped up in outrage (Teri Johnston?) after witnessing the appalling behavior of Cates' supporters.
I've attended a lot of these events, and I have never seen heckles and boos, much less an attempt to muzzle an invited potential candidate. I am saddened especially by the fact that the esteemed Todd German, a friend I have worked well with in the past, was in charge, and primarily responsible for not letting the civil meeting descend into ignominy.
A particular problem is that Todd is on the Editorial Board of the daily paper. The paper is clearly pro-Cates in its Voice column, and in the clearly prejudicial reporting of this event in particular. They report Tony was “booed and heckled,” he “refused” to declare, he “insult[ed] the mayor,” he told the mayor to “Man up!”, he does “bully stuff,” he tried to “recover,” and still got “a chorus of boos.”
Can you imagine how the reporting would have gone if Tony's supporters treated Craig so atrociously? The headline would not have been, “Crowd boos Craig Gates.” It would have been something like, “Yaniz Supporters Act Badly.”
I also wonder if Todd would have let challenges to stop talking, heckles and boos to go unremarked by Hometown had it been Craig so suffering. Todd is compromised by his important relation with a clearly biased but undeclared newspaper. I don't know why he would want to keep both roles.
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Rick, I know Todd well. Don't see his being on the Citizen Editorial Board had anything to do with what happened between him and Tony at Hometown PAC's call to canddiates. Nor with what the Citizen reported. The Editorial Board does not have any say in what the Citizen reports. That comes from the Citizen's Editor and Publisher. Or so has been my observation.
I wish you would tell your readers how to go to Hometown's website and open the video and watch the event you keep lamenting. Here's how.
Open http://www.hometownkeywest.com, and when that page comes up, scroll down to the You Tube icon on the right side of the page. Click on the You Tube icon. The Hometown video of the whole Call to Candidates will come up. Slide the white ball below the video rightward to maybe the 57.5 mark, which is when Craig Cates speaks for 2 minutes. Then comes me, and what I said which set up what then happened when Tony went up to speak.
If people don't know what I said, they won't really understand what both Todd and Tony referred to about me being insane, I said during my preceeding comments, at a recent Angela Court meeting, Craig Cates and I had agreed that anyone who wants to be Mayor of Key West is insane; because of all the hell the Mayor catches; it's a hell job.
Your angst, Rick, over what happened at the Call to Candidates and in the Citizen's next day report, which you so disapproved, might now be moot following Margaret Romero enterring the mayor's race last week. Looks to me she gave Tony time to decide if he was going to run for mayor, and when he didn't say at the call to candidates that he was going to file, he said he was thinking about it and was listening to his consitutents, and when he didn't later file, she filed.
I heard from a few people that Tony and Margaret made a deal last year: Tony would support Margaret in her race against Craig, and if she didn't win, this year she would support Tony in his race against Craig. Might be tough for Tony now to file for mayor and say he is a better candidate than Margaret, after he tried so hard last year to get her elected.
There is the other candidate, to whom you often have written praising him for what a great job he does with what he publishes at www.goodmorningkeywest.com and keeping l local politicians feet held to the fire. So, if Tony doesn't file for mayor, and since you told me Craig lost your support when he rejected Father Steve Braddock and me as his advisors on homelessness in Key West, who will you back for Mayor t his year: Margarent, or me?
Ain't politics a heap of fun?