D’ANNE MICA DUI – IS IT “NEWS” OR IS IT ”LASHON HORA?” -- WHY WON'T FLORIDA JOURNALISTS REPORT ON D'ANNE MICA'S LOBBYING INSTEAD?

D'ANNE MICA DUI Booking photo posted by right-wing FOX NEWS


Exactly where is the nexus to public policy in the press reporting that Congressman JOHN LUIGI MICA’s daughter has been charged with DUI? Associated Press, please answer in this space. FOX NEWS and Roger Ailes, please answer in this space.

The story in yesterday’s St. Augustine Record (and 20 other places) was sensationalistic and a waste of ink. Celebrity DUIs (whether involving starlets or lobbyists) are dull unless there’s something more (like death, injury, a school bus or attempted case-fixing).

We’d rather learn more about D’ANNE MICA’s lobbying than about her liver (and Blood Alcohol).

D’ANNE MICA is an adult.

D’ANNE MICA is not an elected official.

But D’ANNE MICA is a public relations person and a lobbyist, working with PAUL McCORMICK in MICA-McCORMICK STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, lobbyists for controversial landraping, wetland-filling developers, who are ruining Northeast Florida.

Ever see a story about that (outside of this blog)? I don't reckon you have.

Why?

Our Florida news media has been craven, weak, poltroonish, fawningly obeisant and non compos mentes when it comes to covering Rep. JOHN LUIGI MICA and his greedy family of lobbyists (two brothers and two children are lobbyists).

In particular, D’ANNE MICA has received no-bid contracts for public relations from recipients of government largesse, including government contractors and grant recipients like the Sanford Airport Authority, to which she was introduced as “Congressman MICA’s daughter.”

That’s news. That’s what journalists aren’t reporting.

Lazy no-account “Chain Gang” journalists like easy targets. For a good time, read Tom Wicker’s book, On Press (1977) about how journalists fail to cover politicians and businesses worth a flip.

So lazy, uninformed journalists (some tipsy drivers themselves) would rather report on the alleged drunk driving by the Congressman’s daughter. That’s easy.

Forget the presumption of innocence. Forget the fact she's not even a Congressional staffer. Forget that she's an adult -- it was a cheap, sleazy headline for the St. Augustine Record yesterday on the back page of the first news section.

Do you feel glad that you reported this "news," FOX, AP and Record? Really? Why?

Your organizations don’t have the tenacity, courage and perspicacity to report on the serial lobbying by the Congressman’s daughter, son and two brothers, basking in his influence and pocketing copious quantities of influence based upon the political influence of JOHN LUIGI MICA.

Real reporters dig deep for real stories. Real editors encourage them to dig. That would require going to the Sanford Airport Authority and other record keepers and obtaining information on who paid D’ANNE MICA how much and for what. That’s news.

But DUI by a private citizen – that’s gossp or “Lashon hora,” and painfully poor journalism. It’s unChristian, unJewish, unMuslim, unBuddhist and unHindu for FOX NEWS and the Associated Press to be writing news stories about the private misfortunes of a public official’s ADULT offspring where there’s no nexus to public policy, no death, no injury and no school bus involved.

The article didn’t even report that D’ANNE MICA is a lobbyist and PR person (or for whom).

The definition of Lashon hora is set forth below, from the Wikipedia article.

What do you reckon? Is it time for real reporting?