SOUTH FLORIDA POLITICAL REPORTER BITES THE DUST OVER COMMENTS

Back in the early part of February, the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Broward County political writer/reporter Buddy Nevins was the featured speaker to a group of Lauderdale Beach Republicans, and as I posted at the time:

Nevins announced that he had "abandoned" the Democratic Party in favour of the GOP, and when asked why he reportedly said "To vote for Charlie Crist in the primary". Needless to say, Nevins' remarks brought cheers from the party loyalists.

But he wasn't finished. According to Norman's post (Bob Norman's South Florida-based blog The Daily Pulp):

He then told the Republican room that there was a “liberal” bias in the Sun-Sentinel newsroom. To prove it he pointed out that there were a lot of gay and lesbian employees working there.

“But he took a lot of questions from the crowd and he basically made comments that the media is liberal,” Wolfe told the Pulp of the meeting, which wasn’t recorded. “And he made some comments about how people wore their sexuality on their sleeve in this community and especially in the newsroom and that it reflects the liberalism [at the Sentinel].”

To illustrate his point, Nevins mentioned that he used to sit next to the president of the gay and lesbian journalists’ association.

Today, Sun Sentinel editor Earl Maucker announced in a column that Nevins has been taken off the political beat, noting that his comments "...irreparably damaged his credibility as a political reporter. And he damaged the credibility of this newspaper." He will remain with the Sun Sentinel, but covering other stories.

It doesn't matter what political party he was speaking to in this type of instance. What Buddy Nevins did was simply wrong. I can fully agree with Maucker when he writes that:

"In today's world, where there is such righteous indignation and partisan radicalism, there is no room for questionable judgment or even the perception of a conflict."