I couldn’t resist adding the hyperlinks to the kicker of today’s most excellent Howard Troxler column, defending the St. Pete Times against the haters:
“As for the whole Not the Newspaper It Used To Be thing, I do agree, except for a couple of things, including: Two reporters using satellites, computers and two years’ time to show the destruction of Florida’s wetlands; dogged scrutiny of the state pension system; the single-handed uncovering of the Ray Sansom scandal (which was true even if the charges didn’t stick); investigations of the pharmaceutical industry and pill mills; the amazing coverage of the Dozier School for Boys; equally amazing stories of the Church of Scientology; the here-is-why-we-need-newspapers reporting on chemicals at Camp Lejeune; ongoing local investigations of everything from the Jim Smith land scandal in Pinellas to the Buddy Johnson circus in Hillsborough to the cracks in Tampa Bay Water’s reservoir; with our friends at the Miami Herald the most in-depth coverage of state government in Florida; the must-read Buzz for political news; the story of double-dipping public employees that led to a change in state law; the exposure of the “Taj Mahal” courthouse in Tallahassee; ongoing investigations of the mortgage fraud industry; the brilliant exposure of the scam called the U.S. Navy Veterans Association; one of the nation’s best sports sections; award-winning design, photography and visual presentation; the single-handed invention of a new kind of journalism called PolitiFact, which is spreading across the country, and which, in 2009, along with some of the best feature writing you will read, won the newspaper two Pulitzer Prizes in the same year for the first time in its history. I am leaving out a few hundred things. Other than that, it’s a rag.”