THE INSIDE JOB

VIEW FROM THE CUBIKILL

2007-07-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

History is written by the winners, and job descriptions are written by the bosses.

So what's it really like to work at South Florida's media outlets? Read what their employees allege – anonymously,
of course.

Needless to say, the usual cliches apply: Take these comments with a grain of salt, since some folks may have an ax to grind.

You can post comments any time. If you want to add a category, point out a mistake, ask a question, or – more likely, given this crowd – simply complain, post here or email.

Ocean Drive

2007-07-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Imitators have come (Las Olas) and gone (Lincoln Road), but Ocean Drive endures as the first and most successful style magazines that you look at, then carefully position on your $1,500 Fratina Due coffeetable but never actually read. That's not a slam. The over-sized style bible delivers what it promises: gorgeous fashion photography, society pictures that look like studio work, and portraiture that competes with Vanity Fair. All you need to know: In its 11 yearly issues since 1993, only two men have been on the cover. Diddy and Shaq.

The SunPost

2007-07-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

What started out as a typical small-town weekly covering Miami Beach (the Sun-Reporter) has, since 1985, become a regional news force distributed in 15 Miami-Dade cities (from Coral Gables to Aventura) in two zoned editions. Even Miami News Times has blessed its aggressiveness, calling it "the responsible newspaper this community needs." The SunPost declares a circulation of 50,00, and it's arguably the best-designed small newspaper in South Florida.

Palm Beach Daily News

2007-07-03T05:49:00.001-07:00

The newspaper of record for the wealthy island of Palm Beach is also one of the oldest publications in Florida, debuting in 1894. Known locally as The Shiny Sheet (because it can afford to print on high-quality paper), the Palm Beach Daily News isn't really daily: Like everything else on the island, it takes a break over the summer and publishes only twice a week. While it covers everything a newspaper should, the headlines are telling, whether it's news ("Ritz spa, fitness center to move"), sports ("Deadly polo accident stuns community"), or business (a regular column called "Managing Your Fortune").

Miami Today

2007-07-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

Despite its name, Miami Today is published weekly by its founder, publisher, and editor Michael Lewis. He's the paper and the paper is him. With a self-declared circulation of 32,000, Lewis targets business and civic leaders – "South Florida's Most Important Audience" is the slogan on the masthead. Unlike other small-newspaper publishers, Lewis has a news background and insists on the same from his staff. A former senior editor at the old Miami News, he's demanded straight news and nothing but ever since the first issue in 1983. Feature writers need not apply.

WPEC 12

2007-07-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

The Avis of Palm Beach County TV news, WPEC is second to WPTV in almost all aspects but definitely tries harder. Going on the air one year after its rival (in 1955), it took until June 2007 to finally oust the champ: WPEC had the highest-rated 11 p.m. newscast, marking the first time WPTV wasn't first in every news category. Another first: WPEC is the only station in the market to air a weeknight and Saturday 7 p.m. newscast. Since 1991, WPEC has been producing the newscast for the area's FOX affiliate, WFLX.

WPTV 5

2007-07-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

Palm Beach County's first TV station went on the air in 1954, and management claims, "Since the Nielsen Ratings service began measurement of the market in the '60s, WPTV has always been the No. 1-rated news operation." While that may be hard to verify, this isn't: WPTV has all the toys, including five microwave live trucks, one satellite truck, and two permanent remote news bureaus (in Stuart and Delray).

WFOR 4

2007-07-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

Despite a relatively late start in 1967 – a decade behind WPLG and two behind WTVJ – WFOR aired South Florida's first primetime newscast with "Eyewitness News at 10." Today, its anchors are all capable but perhaps overshadowed by bigger personalities on other stations. The best-known name (and edgiest talent) is commentator Jim DeFede, hired in 2006 after being fired by The Miami Herald.

WTVJ 6

2007-07-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

When it went on the air at noon on March 21, 1949, WTVJ became the first TV station in Florida and only the 16th in the country. It held a local monopoly for five years. In the '60s, WTVJ made two radical moves: hiring America's first female sportscaster (Jane Chastain) and South Florida's first black reporter (C.T. Taylor). But today, it's known as a throwback, still airing investigative and long-format pieces by reporters too old and journalistic (see: Hank Tester) for its sexier and shallower competitors.

iCreatives

2007-07-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

It's former name (TempArt Staffing) pretty much summed up its business: providing graphic designers and copywriters to ad agencies, design firms, and companies with internal marketing departments. iCreatives also offers Web design and programming – even Mac repair. Besides the Miami-Palm Beach office, iCreatives has four others in the United States, another in Brazil, and a new one in Toronto.

Daily Business Review

2007-07-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

With zoned editions for Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, the Daily Business Review prints more business-related news per weekday than all of South Florida's mainstream newspapers combined. It's especially popular among attorneys, with a daily legal section, weekly civil and criminal litigation columns, and coverage of jury verdicts and appellate decisions. So it's probably no surprise that the parent company is called American Lawyer Media.

Business Journal

2007-07-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

As one in a chain of 41 business weeklies, the Deerfield-based South Florida Busin ess Journal follows the successful formula laid down by its parent company, American City Business Journals, the nation's largest publisher of urban business newspapers. There's a big emphasis on real estate and law firms, with an online edition that stresses breaking business news (the better to compete against the three zoned editions of the Daily Business Review).

WPLG 10

2007-07-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

With origins dating back to 1957, Miami's WPLG-Channel 10 is a news station with lots of local firsts, including South Florida's first black prime-time anchor (Dwight Lauderdale in 1986) and even the first station with a helicopter (in 1982). Lauderdale is still there, anchoring weeknights at 6 an 11 p.m., and while he may be the face of the station, Michael Putney is the brains. Putney's "This Week in South Florida" (Sundays, 11:30 a.m.) is the most serious and in-depth journalism on local TV.

WSVN 7

2007-07-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

South Florida's original "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" station was the first FOX affiliate in the nation to have 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts, and it now airs an amazing – and market-leading – eight hours of local news every weekday, starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 11:30 p.m. All that original programming means Miami's WSVN-Channel 7 hires more people more often than any other South Florida station.

Zimmerman and Partners

2007-07-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

The 15th-largest ad agency in the nation has its headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and offices spanning L.A. to D.C. Zimmerman and Partners is also the largest retail ad agency for car dealers, representing 2,000 of them. If you're still not grasping the idea that this a big company, it's owned the even bigger (and sinister-sounding) Omnicom Group.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky

2007-07-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

A nationally renowned ad agency with offices in Boulder, Colorado and Miami, Crispin Porter + Bogusky has a reputation for rather edgy and distinctly oddball work, from the anti-smoking "Truth" campaign to commercials featuring German engineers and rappers selling Volkswagens. Their arty reputation comes with another: lower pay than at other ad agencies churning out more "normal" work.

Miami New Times

2007-07-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Florida's largest alternative weekly was also one of the state's first, when the New Times chain (later sold to the Village Voice) bought a small biweekly called The Wave in 1987. Today, Miami New Times reports a weekly circulation of more than 100,000. While the Miami editorial staff supported its younger cousin in Broward in the beginning, supplying reporters and allowing some stories to be reprinted, that was phased out within the first year. The two publications have been editorially independent ever since.

New Times BPB

2007-07-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Launched in 1997 to challenge XS (now City Link), the debut issue's first cover story investigated its competitor's publisher. While that seemed a dubious strategy at first, New Times Broward-Palm Beach succeeded well enough to force XS into a name change and a new direction: away from traditional alt-weekly government investigation (where New Times excels) and more into entertainment coverage for young men (which New Times doesn't do as much). The Fort Lauderdale-based New Times, like its big brother in Miami, is owned by the Village Voice, which has 17 similar publications nationwide. It reports a weekly circulation of 70,000.

City Link

2007-07-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

Originally called XS when the Sun-Sentinel created it in 1991, this was one of the first alternative weeklies in the nation launched by a mainstream daily newspaper. There was some criticism at first, but that ebbed as the entire alt-weekly industry began merging down. XS was renamed City Link in 1997 and later transferred from the Sun-Sentinel to Forum Publishing Group. It reports an audited weekly circulation of 53,000.

Forum Publishing Group

2007-07-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

As a subsidiary of the Sun-Sentinel, Forum Publishing Group's original business plan was to keep other small community weeklies from sprouting on Sentinel turf. Thus, Forum's 29 publications mostly cover the same Broward and Palm Beach County territory the Sun-Sentinel does. But in 2007, the Sentinel downsized its own community news coverage and replaced it with FPG stories selectively lifted from its city weeklies (Delray Forum, Pompano Forum...) and monthlies (Parkland Gazette, Weston Gazette...). FPG also publishes six zones of the Jewish Journal, an in-school weekly called Teenlink, and the alternative weekly City Link, which has its own entry here.

The Stuart News

2007-06-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

The flagship of Treasure Coast Newspapers, The Stuart News is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, which has lumped its four area papers under one website, tcpa l m.com. Even its self-reported circulation figures are combined: The Stuart News, Vero Beach Press Journal, Port St. Lucie News and Fort Pierce Tribune report a total circulation of 106,000 daily and 118,000 on Sunday – but the company doesn't offer separate numbers for each paper.

The Miami Herald

2007-06-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

The nation's 27th-largest newspaper, The Miami Herald has a daily circulation of 272,000 (342,000 on Sundays). The Miami-based paper has won 19 Pulitzer Prizes, starting in 1951 and continuing into 2007 (Debbie Cenziper, now at The Washington Post, for affordable housing coverage).

circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, May 2007

Sun-Sentinel

2007-06-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

The nation's 38th-largest newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel has a daily circulation of 227,000 (319,000 on Sundays). The Fort Lauderdale-based paper has never won a Pulitzer Prize, although it's hired Pulitzer winners from other publications and had former staffers win them elsewhere.

circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, May 2007

The Palm Beach Post

2007-06-30T11:10:00.001-07:00

The nation's 57th-largest newspaper, The Palm Beach Post has a daily circulation of 175,000 (205,000 on Sundays). The West Palm Beach-based paper won a Pulitzer in 1970 for Feature Photography (Dallas Kinney's portraits of migrant workers), and The Post's photo staff continues to be nationally regarded to this day.

circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, May 2007

LRP

2007-06-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

With a whopping 120 industry newsletters produced out of its offices in Palm Beach Gardens (and also in Pennsylvania and Virgina), LRP is a leading trade publisher. From Personal Injury Verdict Reviews ($375 for a one-year subscription) to No Child Left Behind Compliance Insider ($197) to Death Care Advisor ($235), LRP has newsletters for many esoteric professions – along with members-only websites, pamphlets, and guidebooks.

Biscayne Times

2007-04-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

This monthly has a pedigree. Unlike many community newspapers that are either run as vanity projects or bled for whatever slender profits can be found, the Bis cayne Times is owned and edited by former Miami New Times editor Jim Mullin. For 18 years, until 2005, Mullin grew the alt-weekly from 24 pages to 176, overseeing a staff of 25 that won numerous state and national awards. Now his staffbox lists just one reporter and an art director. But it's still about the journalism. While his paper is distributed from downtown Miami to Northeast 135 Street, Mullin added a Liberty City "neighborhood correspondent" and has delved into the plump pensions of some retired city officials. Mullin says buying a smaller paper instead of working at a bigger one is a "worthwhile gamble."

American Media, Inc.

2006-06-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

While it's best known as a publisher of supermarket tabloids like Star and National Enquirer, AMI owns a total of 16 publications – including the best-selling country music title (Country Weekly) and the best-selling men's health title (Men's Fitness). But only a handful are published out of its nondescript headquarters in Boca Raton's T-Rex Center (formerly the IBM campus), and all of those are tabs: National Enquirer, Globe, Examiner, and Weekly World News.