Tavares, FL - Dec. 23, 2011 I am beginning to think that Lake County is becoming the local farming club (like baseball) for the Orlando Sentinel and for other news reporters.
They send their newer reporters here, then move them to Orlando once we break them in... or vice versa.
Anyway, longtime Orlando Sentinel reporter Steve Hudak was moved from the Lake County Board of Commissioners "beat" to the Orlando area for the Sentinel. We didn't have a "file" picture of Steve, but this picture is a good facsimile.
His replacement is Eloísa Ruano González.
Here is one of her first articles:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-concert-south-lake-20111220,0,1479803.story
One of the problems in losing an experienced reporter is they know significant background on the local government methods and officials, and it will take time for any new reporter to get up to speed and not be snookered by self serving quotes from officials or knowing when staff is snookering the officials. One example is the North Lake Hospital District issue, or the long running debate over the Emergency Operations Center, budget fiascos, impact fee actions, etc.
It isn't just Hudak's beat, but the Orlando Sentinel reporters covering the Lake County School District have changed three times since I started FiscalRangers.com, and their most recent addition this year is Erica Rodriguez from Texas who has actually written some pretty good articles. But, without seasoned reporters, the School Board can run stuff through the budget, or hide discussions on union wages behind closed doors and not be challenged by the beat reporter.
But, many more changes have occurred with the Daily Commercial coverage, I can't even keep track of who is covering what. Now that I think about it, the only local Lake County coverage reporters with a consistent tenure are Berndt Petersen from Channel 9, Heather Sorentrue from News13 (Brighthouse cable, south county) and of course, Lauren Ritchie, Orlando Sentinel's Lake Section columnist. Tracy Jacim from Fox Orlando 35 started covering Lake County about a year ago, but her weekend anchor "shift" starts on Wednesdays, so she misses the really good stuff at the Lake County Board meetings, like "what did Sean Parks do this week?" Speaking of those meetings, READ Jimmy Conner's blog with a copy of a Daily Commercial article on Sean Parks.
Speaking of News 13's Heather Sorentrue, she just started maternity leave, so good luck and hope they aren't quadruplets . Her interim replacement is Dave Dmarko. News 13 is on Brighthouse cable TV, which is only in south Lake County, so many of us never see her reports unless you look at the website.
And, many people might not have noticed, but the Villages Sun newspaper has a reporter, Livi Stanford, who has been coming to some Lake County Board meetings as well as the Capital Facilities Advisory Commission. However, I don't read about the Villages, and they don't publish her articles online, so I do not know how in depth her coverage is.
Update: I forgot to include Ralph Smith's WLBE AM790 radio show "Lake County Roundtable" every Wed at 11am to noon. He covers local and national politics, and sometimes fills air with something about gators. This picture is of Ralph (in black, kind of like the Men In Black chasing aliens) and myself at WLBE recently.
As long as we are talking about Lake County news coverage, the publisher of the Daily Commercial, Ron Wallace, left recently without much notice, and no news on where he was going. I left three messages for three different people there to ask for details, and didn't get one reply from any of them. So, maybe there is an upheaval there also? Maybe Twitter owns them now? But, they seem to be writing longer and more detailed articles on local politics, so I might resubscribe, because I can rarely figure out their website and not all articles are there.
I would encourage you publishers and assignment editors out there to provide some consistency in our Lake County news coverage, especially on politics. The press was once known as the fourth estate due to their influence in exposing government fiascos. We encourage as much of that as possible, since government is a monopoly and any media coverage makes the public aware of their decisions and actions.
I also would encourage the TV stations to actually store and publish their video reports on Lake County, and not delete them after a few days. Without them, there is no history on some of the goverment actions here in Lake County. Sometimes, they publish the text transcript of the reports, but retention varies.
BUT, getting back to our headline, we still wish a very good welcome to Eloisa and good luck to Steve in his new ventures., and happy mommy track to Heather.
AND, thanks to all the press for covering Lake County government news – without you, we would have no clue what antics they were up to (well, except for those pesky blogs).
vj
