It’s getting to the point that whomever is in charge of setting up the front-page of Broward’s Sun-Sentinel needs to be offered one of those voluntary buy-outs like the ones being handed out at the Palm Beach Post.
For the third time in as many weeks, the front-page of the Pulitzer Prize winning Sun Sentinel inexplicably downplays the clear-cut story of the day — today that being the hope of a deal to end the government shutdown.
Scrolling through Kevin Cate’s Above the Fold service, which offers a scan of each of the state’s major newspapers’ front-pages, you’ll see that stories about the shutdown practically scream from the Herald, Times, Tribune, etc.
The Tampa Bay Times‘ devotes several inches to “Senate works on short term deal”, while the word ‘DEAL” gets at least four inches on the front of the Tampa Tribune. Stories about the prospect of a deal are the lead stories on the front-pages of every major newspaper, except for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Sun Sentinel, although it’s hard to blame the SHT for putting the start of stone crab season up front.
Meanwhile, the Sun Sentinel leads with a, um, riveting analysis of how dust clouds keep storms at bay as well as the cost of senior housing. The government shutdown gets an a one-inch inset box.
The Sun Sentinel is a major newspaper. Again, it won a Pulitzer Prize last year. Yet it’s front-page reads like a small-town weekly.
Two weeks ago, the Sun Sentinel all but omitted any mention of the beginning of the government shutdown, whereas every other newspaper in the state led with that story. On September 17th, the day after the deadly shootings at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. — a story which led all of the other major newspapers in the state — the Sun-Sentinel gave the story less prominence than a story titled, “Kids learning in the lap of luxury.”
