Anyone who read the glowing story on Kent Sharples plastered Wednesday on the front page of the Daytona Beach News-Journal can relate to steroid slugger Mark McGuire's refrain before Congress in that he's "not here to talk about the past. Certainly, it is not in my place to tell the News-Journal how to report the news, but as someone with a vested interest in the media, as well as being a taxpayer and a family man, I find the print media becoming more and more a marketing arm of the power elite.
The glowing story on Sharples just reinforces that perception. The fact that Sharples, the former president of Daytona Beach College, accepted an offer from five of the most powerful leaders in the business community who put up hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money and their faith in him to head up the newly established CEO Business Alliance, is tremendous news. Especially in this downtrodden economy.
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VolusiaNews.net file photo / Daytona State College President Kent Sharples gave the thumbs up and put on a brave face as he was being shown the door with a million-dollar paycheck in mid-November. Former State Attorney John Tanner, with the prophetic empty glass turned upside down, led the way as the college's "chairman of the board."
Sharples did more than a "stint" as described by the News-Journal in his eleven years with the college. He was a leader personified. A man of great respect, who transformed what was a small two-year community college into the giant it is today.
So it was great news that Sharples answered the call by these business leaders to make economic development a reality in luring small-to-medium size companies here.
That five people would each commit to putting up $100,000 annually for three years is absolutely amazing. They are International Speedway CEO Lesa France Kennedy, NASCAR Vice Chairman Bill France, Consolidated-Tomoka Land Co. CEO Bill McMunn; Brown & Brown Inc.Chairman J. Hyatt Brown; and Mark LaRose, CEO of Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center and Florida Hospital Oceanside.
Sharples is the new president of CEO Business Alliance, the privately funded venture This effort is in tandem with two other entities, the public/private subsidized Team Volusia as well as the county's longer standing Economic Development Division. Sharples' counterpart, Helen Cauthen, who started earlier this month for Team Volusia, has the same task: Recruitment of business and the prospect of much better paying jobs for a workforce struggling to survive.
It's no secret that Volusia County's unemployment ranks among the highest in Florida and those who have jobs struggle to feed their families and pay the rent or mortgage.
Besides unemployment, foreclosures are another major problem. So any real attempt to attract light-tech, aviation, boating, motor sports and other such companies is worth the effort of these new public and private partnerships.
With that said, I was surprised the News-Journal showcased itself and its editorial board as the conduit for the big announcement of Sharples' return to prominence.in a "breaking news" story Tuesday on its website that was short on details and informing readers to look for the full story in Wednesday's newspaper.
That the News-Journal's new owners would thump their chests with the announcement is one thing, but leaving out basic facts such as th specif salary for Sharples and when he started, is something altogether different.
They can't be that desperate to sell papers can they?
The point of the Internet is to give the public news that is important "today" -- not tomorrow.
The so-called breaking story avoided any mention of Sharples' sudden demise Nov. 18 and the $1.2 million, plus other benefits in a "separation agreement" that called for his exit the very next day; nor was there any mention of the fiasco that was the American Music Festival with the $1.8 million the college lost in fronting the money.
As I wrote Tuesday in reporting the News-Journal's "breaking news" story on its website after discovering it after 5 p.m. it jumped out to me as lacking any real details other than to say Sharples and three of the five prominent business leaders -- Kennedy, Brown and McMunn -- made the "announcement" during a meeting with the newspaper's editorial board.
The story was posted at 2:04 p.m. on the newspaper's website, and let readers they could "read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Daytona Beach News-Journal." I'm willing to give the News-Journal the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they needed more time after the big meeting to flush out details such as how much Sharples was being paid and how they felt about the potential backlash of the public considering the weeks of intense news coverage that had Sharples up against the ropes.
Of course, the News-Journal suddenly showed an interest in looking out for the vendors who went unpaid as a result of the disastrous festival, the News-Journal being the biggest of them all at $75,000 in marketing and advertising.
So when I met my business partner, Peter Mallory for breakfast Wednesday, we were absolutely stunned there was no mention of Sharples' $1 million-plus contract buyout to get rid of him, led by none other than the college board's chairman, former State Attorney John Tanner.
When I picked up Wednesday's newspaper, which was left on a table in our breakfast eatery, I read the story aloud to Mallory. Besides the giant photo at the top of the front page, no mention was made of the circumstances of Sharples' demise from the college or the million-dollar sendoff. The article went into detail about Team Volusias's recent hire Cauthen, but no mention was made of her $125,000-plus salary either.
It's understandable they wouldn't want to embarrass the power elite visiting their editorial board with a write-up that had Sharples out of his job just before Thanksgiving. The News-Journal article did state that the $500,000 collectively put up by Kennedy, France, Brown, McMunn and LaRose would provide for the monies needed for Sharples to go about his new job.
This is how the newspaper explained it: "Other than the salaries for Sharples and his assistant, whose hiring has yet to be announced, the rest of the alliance's annual $500,000 budget will be spent on business recruitment, including travel expenses, Brown said."
OK, but why not inform the readers what portion of that $500,000 would be allotted for Sharples' salary? Perhaps Brown didn't want to get that specific, but the readers were not told if the question was even posed to him.
The News-Journal went out of the way to present a glowing story about Sharples while ignoring the substantive facts of why he was no longer with the college.
People chiming in on my conversation with Peter Mallory were turned off by the lack of details, the biggest being: So how much is Sharples getting paid?
Even our waitress put in her two cents, explaining she was struggling on a single income to help put her daughter through college at Daytona State. She was livid that not only the college lost the $1.8 million in the American Festival fiasco, but another million-plus was spent to get rid of Sharples and then more on top of that to pay for an acting president and the added cost of recruiting a permanent successor.
As the waitress pointed out, "They take what little money I have in my taxes and the tuition" costs for a college that is the cornerstone of providing people the opportunity for a college degree, others job training and serving as a haven for at-risk high school kids who otherwise might be relegated to getting a GED, if that.
But in Wednesday's newspaper, Volusia County's daily newspaper of record, the story read like a giant press release. It was long on P.R. quotes and short on details. And obviously background that truly puts Sharples' immediate past and his present opportunity in context.
And not to be undone, the News-Journal gave County Council Chairman Frank Bruno the opportunity to spin the public relations even further in his support of the Kenny, France, McMunn, et al, with this gem of a quote: "They're all bright and intelligent people who are all putting their own money into this," and "They've all got to have confidence in Kent or they wouldn't have hired him. ... Hopefully, it pays off for Volusia County."
Hopefully it will pay off for Volusia County? Are you kidding?
The waitress, after hearing my reading aloud of Bruno's quote: "They're all getting richer because of us and then they expect us to bail them out" when disaster strikes.
Then 1:30 this morning I went online to the News-Journal's "opinion" section expecting to read about Sharples' new opportunity.
Instead, the offering was "Board paid small price for Sunshine violation."
Of course, State Attorney R.J. Larizza is called to task for his office's decision to punish the public Bert Fish Hospital Board for negotiating in secret with the private Adventist Health Systems for violating Florida's Sunshine laws by making its members pay $35 each to take an online course in open government and a collective $250 donation to a non-profit entity supporting open government.
The News-Journal opines: So the board will pay a total of $495 for failing to fulfill its obligations to the public under the Sunshine Law. "Boy, that'll teach 'em to pay attention to the public's right to know. Pay $35, take an online course and review some materials prepared by an attorney for Adventist Health System who argued the merger didn't violate any laws." That's a fair observation.
But the "spin" is not as strong here as it has been on the news pages where the News-Journal has prided itself as being on top of virtually every aspect of the ongoing litigation pushed by the Bert Fish Foundation along with rival hospital giant Halifax Halifax Health Systems against the Adventists and Bert Fish whose "cure," "do over" or whatever that was done after a series of secret meetings came to light. The foundation hired one of the best Sunshine law attorneys in Jonathan Kaney Jr.
In Tuesday's newspaper, Larizza was demonized for what Kanrey dismissed as a slap on the wrist. "We depend on that office to enforce the Sunshine Law," Kaney is quoted as saying. "What I see is studied indifference (to the law)."
And before the Adventist have a chance to respond in the very last sentence of the story, the News-Journal has Halifax Health Systems President Jeff Feasel, calling Larizza's decision " 'weak" and 'a slap in the face' to all public boards that follow the law."
Feasel has a legitimate stake in this suit, fronting some of the legal costs to the Foundation as the two hospital giants continue their battle for control of New Smyrna Beach's much smaller hospital.
While the Sunshine Law applies to government, the public depends on full disclosure from the media of its conflicts of interests in the form of advertising in the form of the more palatable-sounding "marketing agreements."
These private financial arrangements and the actual news coverage often comes into conflict even as newspaper publishers insist there is a dividing line between news and advertising.
With full disclosure, the public would know how much money the News-Journal receives from the hospitals, the colleges and even the speedway in the form of marketing, a much broader brush than the basic and traditional advertising .
With full disclosure, the public would have been informed that Kaney was the former general counsel to the News-Journal. Sure, it may very well be common knowledge, but full disclosure in print gives the reader a clearer understanding of the stakeholders.
The News-Journal is right to investigate and expose perceived wrongs such as the hospital merger. But that task is made much easier when the reporter is being spoon fed. Kaney is a master at lending his assistance to News-Journal reporters like he did in support of his dear friend, John Tanner, is his battle with special prosecutor Harry Shorstein and his failed attempt to have a grand jury's findings on Tanner from being made public.
Tanner paid a steep price, though in his quest in keeping secret details of that report in how he dealt with Flagler law enforcers in how they treated one of his daughters during a minor arrest.
Still, Tanner found his way to the media spotlight late last year through his sudden appointment and quick ascendancy as chairman leading to Sharples' ouster. What a shot in the arm for Tanner should give in to temptation and try to wrest his old job back from the first-term.
I interviewed Larriza on Tuesday after the News-Journal article about the criticism of him and political implications. Larizza told me he understood rocks would be thrown his way, even before he had a chance to get that press release out to the only other media outlet that cares: mine.
And so the spin continues in Volusia County with print media tied so close to the power elite in the private sector and government as well. Those oft-mentioned marketing agreements have deep tentacles with Daytona Beach and Volusia County governments, especially with CRA and advertising authority monies.
The News-Journal is a major benefactor of its marketing agreements with the private and public sectors.
And while the News-Journal gets the lion's share of the county's money in advertising and marketing, scraps go to the print media weeklies, Fort Pierce-based Hometown News, the DeLand Beacon and The Observer in New Smyrna Beach.
While the Beacon pushes hard on news, the other two are more blatant in their packaging of "advertorial" news. And while Bert Fish hospital board members were indeed breaking Florida's Sunshine laws, the Observer's ownership was securing tens of thousands of dollars in advertising through a "friendship" with Bob Williams, the former CEO who cried poverty to New Smyrna Beach city leaders in successfully getting out from under the hospital's tax commitments with the CRA .
Two weeks later, these same NSB officials learned in the News-Journal that Williams had become a millionaire, if he wasn't already, in the wake of the merger with the Adventists.
The Observer as you will read in the coming days as we resume our series "Lott of Influence," not only has the Observer benefited through Robert Lott's ties with Williams as a former Bert Fish board member while thousands of dollars in advertising from a supposedly destitute hospital. But the paper, whose editor gladhands at every turn when he's not sleeping at city commission meetings, also benefits financially from ties with the local CRA and oodles of "legal advertising" monies from New Smyrna Beach and the county. That's because his rates are less than the News-Journal, even if its circulation is suspect. The governments don't care as long as they satisfy the statutory requirements.
If the year 2010 proved anything, the lines between public and private power brokers and print media desperately trying to stay relevant in a 21st-century digital world,reporting of real stories like how the American Music Festival was being financed in the first place was non existent.
Back then, Sharples enjoyed major positive coverage as did the concert promoters and the power elite. But when the time came for the advertising/marketing bills to be paid, Sharples was suddenly the goat and Tanner was again reliving the media spotlight.
You wouldn't have gotten that impression with the way the news was spun, first online Tuesday with the breaking news teaser and the gigantic and glowing story Wednesday on Sharples' shocking rise back from goat to good guy.
Let me be clear: Lesa France Kennedy, Brian France, Bill McMunn; J. Hyatt Brown; and Mark LaRose are hard-working and industrious business owners who love their community who support charities, the arts and understand that helping Volusia County grow economically through good-paying jobs is paramount to everyone's success, including their own.
So, yes, Kent Sharples truly is the man for the job just as he was at Daytona State College those 11 years. The News-Journal didn't do them any favors with its Sharples spread.
I can understand where the newspaper would want to do right by the community leaders who were looking for good press. There could have been a sidebar story to make the connection between past and present. The News-Journal knows all too well that in a 21st-century digital world, Google offers a plethora of the highs and lows of doing business in Volusia County.
It's the journalism that comes with this website that is attracting readers and the emphasis on same-day coverage with people understanding the news here is generated by one member of the working press.
People in Volusia County want answers. They are tired of the print media spin and monopoly on news coverage. We're no threat to the News-Journal, but as David vs. Goliath, we are producing the hard-hitting stories absent from print media like our major breaking investigative story on the Oak Hill police scandal and our exclusive interview with the woman caught in the love triangle that led to murder.
Peter Mallory is a strong believer in relying on the private sector for our growth. He knows Kent Sharples very well. Like Tanner, he served on the board, leaving just as Sharples was being wooed to take over the News-Journal Center. Like me, Mallory understands what really led to Sharples ouster from the college.
It wasn't the American Music Festival. It wasn't the student housing flap.
It was Sharples' willingness to take over the News-Journal Center, by far the biggest taxpayer-funded albatross.
Mallory and I predicted back then that the News-Journal Center would come back to haunt him and the college just like it did the now-watered down print daily that put several hundred loyal employees out of work to make way for a new owner looking at the bottom line.