Record editorial on "fake news" takes unnecessary swipe at NY Times in last paragraphs

Why is the St. Augustine Record using The New York Times as a punchline? The Times covered a story the Record tried to cover up, and Sheriff DAVID SHOAR is still angry about it. They both have blood on their hands and guilty consciences. Thanks to reporter Walt Bogdanich for exposing the truth about the Michelle O'Connell case.

In an otherwise coherent editorial on February 26, 2017 St. Augustine Record Opinion Editor Jim Sutton took an unnecessary, unbecomng swipe at The New York Times in its last paragraphs.

Remember, dear readers, which paper spent enormous resources, working with PBS Frontline, to bring us the truth about the Michelle O'Connell case?
http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-gunshots/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/death-in-st-augustine/

Remember which "fake news" paper is still covering up for revolting, rebarbative, retromingent Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, the asinine authoritarian author of the "upside down gun" theory, part of a parallel universe in which guns recoil forward?

In 2013, brand-new Record Editor KATHY NELSON, a bullet in SHOAR's gun, attacked The New York Times and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walt Bogdanich for "parachuting in" and "not making any friends" with the Sheriff's Department that is still trying to cover up a homicide in the home of Deputy JEREMY BANKS on September 2, 2010.

Watching SHOAR and his journalistic accomplices at the St. Augustine WRecord try to justify the O'Connell coverup is like watching a duck try to make love to a football.

(NELSON was later fired for incompetence, but the Record never remedied its strange romance with Sheriff SHOAR).

So who put the fox in Jim Sutton's bosom about The New York Times today?

Could it be corrupt St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his surname from "HOAR" in 1994?

We in the data-driven, reality-based community often find the Record appalling, if amusing, as we do other local "fake news" outlets we could mention.

Mention of "fake news" calls to mind the cruelty of some "fake news" sites during the 2016 campaign, such as the one begun and ended by the estimable Flagler College Professor JOSEPH SAVIAK a/k/ "TAILER GUNNER JOE" (Joe McCarthy's nickname), a/k/a "JOE SIXPACK."

Fake "Associate Director and Associate Professor of Public Administration" at Flagler College, JOE SAVIAK is most noted for calling Bill Nelson an "anti-semite" and lambasting beloved Mayor Shaver with high-dollar secretive PAC attack ads. JOE SAVIAK reeks of the irresponsibility that led him, as Orange County Chief Deputy Sheriff, to respond to his failing the Bar exam by lashing out, writing the Bar Examiners and a Florida Supreme Court Justice, threatening "civil and criminal liability."

JOE SAVIAK's "fake news" failed miserably, while hardly noticed by the august St. Augustine Record, which never connected the dots between SAVIAK and those out-of-town hate mailings intended to defeat our reform Mayor -- mailings that involved the efforts of SHOAR's energumen employee, former St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS, who was seen taking them to be mailed. (HARRISS is most noted for dumping a landfill in a lake in 2005-2006: we caught him, called the National Response Center, brought in investigators.  Yes, the landfill is now back in a landfill in Nassau County, instead of contaminating our Floridan Aquifer at the site of the Old City Reservoir.  Yes, we've achieved quite a few victories since then -- more than 60 at last count, thank you.

Rebarbative JOE SAVIAK is a crony of Sheriff DAVID SHOAR and St. Augustine Vice Mayor TODD NEVILLE, a/k/a "ODD TODD."

Nasty, nattering nabob of negativism "ODD TODD" NEVILLE anticipated the repressive DONALD TRUMP's antics in 2015 by seeking to euchre his fellow City Commissioners to file a libel lawsuit against Historic City News for expressing an opinion on conflict of interest regarding DAVID BARTON CORNEAL's DOW PUD.

His pal SAVIAK is the condescending critter who actually said to me, "I have five college degrees and an eighteen page resume," before abortively, abusively and falsely threatening me with invocation of the Baker Act for "stalking" for telephoning him about his lies on Mayor Shaver.

Sound familiar? The same retaliation tactic was used by St. Augustine Beach city burghers against Tom Reynolds and William Rosenstock. These are bullies -- dangerous men and women we're dealing with.

So why did developer whore Sheriff SHOAR and sidekick JODE SAVIAK try to bury our beloved Mayor Nancy Shaver? She's honest, she's intelligent, she asks questions, and she published a letter in the St. Augustine Record on the Michelle O'Cnnnell case in 2013, calling for a federal criminal investigation, that's why. That was before she ran for office. Despite SHOAR/HOAR's money bomb, Mayor Nancy Shaver won re-election in 2016 in a landslide, defeating SHOAR's candidate, WFOY Hate Radio Station owner KRIS PHILLIPS.



Here's the Record's oddball editorial on "fake news," with its SHOAR-driven punchline -- reckon Sutton's crony, Sheriff SHOAR/HOAR is still feeling the sting of The New York Times' award-winning journalism on his coverup of Michelle OConnell's shooting?):

Posted February 26, 2017 12:02 am
EDITORIAL: Fake News in the eye of the beholder

“Fake News” is a concept seemingly born of the 2016 presidential election. But, depending upon your definition of it, fake news has been around for a long time. This time around, though, it seems much more specific. The best definition for it today might read: “Anything with which Donald Trump disagrees.”

One of the misconceptions of news is that it is meant to be fair and balanced. Actually that’s a comparatively new concept. And, from where we sit the correct on. Think Walter Cronkite. That was the heyday and he was the example.

Newspapers, historically, were anything but balanced. At the turn of the century most of the larger cities had three or four competing newspapers, each targeting a niche readership. There were conservative papers, liberal papers, dramatic papers and even ethnic papers. And it all worked out, apparently.

It’s called “advocacy journalism” and, again, it was the way things were done not so that ago.

And, from where we sit, journalism has circled back to that model, though now it’s the property of television.

The problem, though is, unlike the turn of the century when news fit existing biases on the up-and–up and in the open, television news now tries desperately to come off as level and fair. We know what we’ll hear when CNN reports a story and Fox reports it the other way around. They know how they’re twisting the news for target readers so, why this effort at acting “fair?”

So the tumor of biased news pops up on or TV screens, but it festers on social media. And that’s where the cancer of Fake News cripples our national sanity.

This isn’t finger pointing. Here at The Record we push our digital platform as hard as we can. But at least we attempt to control the rancor and outright craziness on our website. But no news organization has figured it out.

According to BuzzFeed News, during the final three months of the presidential election the top 20 Fake News stories on Facebook generated more engagement than the top 20 stories from real news websites.

Even the best news outlets can be guilty of lapses of page one propaganda. A story can be completely true and a headline can tell the lie. Russia, the U.S. and England competed in am Olympic race. England won, the U.S. came in second and Russia finished third. The headline the next morning in Moscow read: “Russia wins Bronze; U.S. finished second to last. “

American newspapers are being harangued for slanting news against President Trump. There’s certainly going to be instance of that, but by the same token he makes it awfully easy. And his assertion that the media is the enemy of the American people is an awfully big jump even for him. But Trump isn’t facing anything new. Richard Nixon couldn’t stand the press, but he sicced Spiro Agnew on them instead of taking it head-on. Agnew protested the “nattering nabobs of negativism,” remember?

The point here is that media try hard to do it right. None succeed always. But here at One News Place, we play loose with facts, we’ll be looking for another job. Maybe we’re simply old-fashioned.

But let’s end with a smile.

Donald Trump jetted off to his yacht off the coast of Italy, and decided to invite Pope Francis for a ride. It was a windy day. The Pope’s hat — his zucchetto — blew off his head and into the water.

Trump hopped over the transom and proceeded to walk across the water to retrieved the Papal property. News outlets across the globe reported the deed: Trump could actually walk on water.

The next morning the New York Times headline read: “Trump can’t swim.”

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Ed Slavin's response: Is that supposed to be funny, Jim Sutton?  Really??!!

We're not laughing -- your poor excuse for a newspaper is still too often refusing to cover the news without fear or favor, refusing to quote opponents of developers and conmen when we speak at meetings, showing all the signs of being allied with government and corporate advertisers and the power structure and Establishment in St. Johns County.

Too often, despite efforts and inspiration to practice "journalism," for a change, the St. Augustine Record epitomizes "fake news."

Watching the Record, even post-NELSON, is still too often like watching a duck trying to make love to  a football.  In short, "fake news."