Daily Loaf

After nearly five years of documenting the inside story of Tampa Bay and Florida politics, my time here is coming to a close.

I have accepted a yearlong appointment as the Freedom Forum Visiting Professional at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, where I am teaching four sections of investigative journalism and editing this fall. For the past four years, I have worked to complete a Master of Arts degree in Mass Communications from the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg, and teaching was a goal of mine that the editors at CL have always supported. I have already started working on campus this week, while finishing up some projects for CL and editing the blog through the end of this week. Read the rest of this entry »

The campaign for Best Local Blog in the Creative Loafing Readers’ Poll is getting serious; note the campaign photo at right.

Not everyone’s a fan. One jaded voter responded to the question this way:  “There’s no such thing.” We also got “no,” “none” and “I hate blogs” (which may be the name of a blog, I’m not sure).

But the 100-plus blogs nominated so far in the category suggest plenty of our readers would disagree.

The leaders at the moment? Here they are in no particular order (as the host says on I can’t remember which reality show): Read the rest of this entry »

On this week’s very special Reel Projections podcast, Host Joe (that’s me) is joined by PoHo Wayne Garcia for a conversation about the career of director John Hughes, who died on Thursday at the age of 59. Joe and the PoHo play audio clips from Hughes most famous movies and dissect the director’s influence on the 1980s specifically, and on film-making in general. And go here for video clips of Hughes’ films.

Listen to the podcast here.

Podcast player after the jump …

Read the rest of this entry »

Crossposted from Political Whore blog

Because Creative Loafing Political Editor Wayne Garcia would be far too modest to tell you himself, I’m reporting that “The Political Whore” won first place in the category of Blog-Affiliated last night in the Sunshine State Awards, the Florida-wide prizes given out by the Society of Professional Journalists/ South Florida. New Times Broward Palm Beach’s “The Juice” and the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel’s “Broward Politics” came in second and third, respectively.

And Wayne wasn’t alone in bringing back first-place honors for the Loaf. Food Editor Brian Ries won the top spot in Food/Beverage Writing for “Anywhere But Here,” his story on the lack of healthy food options for Florida families on public assistance. The Miami Herald and MIAMI Modern Luxury took second and third places.

Brian also took a third place in Criticism for his review of MJ’s tapas menu when it was under the direction of Domenica Macchia. And CL’s theater critic, Mark E. Leib, took second place in the same category for his review of the innovative American Stage production of Hamlet. The Naples Daily News‘ Harriet Howard Heithaus took the first-place spot.

Finally, the entire staff of Creative Loafing won kudos for our website, cltampa.com, placing third in the News Web Site category. I like the judges’ citation: This is not your typical news site. cltampa.com represents a new way of presenting news and information to its reader/user. Through a simple design, Creative Loafing offers a wide collection of headlines from just as many distinct sources. (Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and the Orlando Sentinel took first and second in this category, respectively.)

More judges’ comments follow after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a secret I can no longer keep. It burns my soul and pains my conscience. I had an affair. I loved a man powerful in Florida politics, and he loved me back. I cannot reveal his name. My honor and his lawyers do not permit me. I will refer to him only as C. He currently seeks more power, and I know that rumors will begin to fly, so I submit my story publicly to save us both, and our love, from the public’s harsh scrutiny. Read the rest of this entry »

Our 2009 Summer Guide will be hitting newstands today, chock full of ideas on ways you can spend your summer vacation. If you don’t want to hunt down the print edition in the physical world (it’s hot outside!), you can stay cool and find all the Summer Guide content online here.

As part of putting the issue together we asked people, “what are you doing on your summer vacation?” Those answers appear throughout the issue and will be posted to Daily Loaf, Tampa Calling and Political Whore over the next few days.

To get things rolling here on Daily Loaf we have Holley Sinn (that’s her below) and Jerome Ritchey, the hosts of Tampa CBS affiliate WTSP’s morning-chat show Studio 10, talking up their summer plans after the jump. Also, a programming alert: Be sure to tune in to Studio 10 tomorrow morning (10 a.m. on channel 10) to catch CL Editor David Warner and interns Lily Reisman and Hannah Walk discussing the summer guide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight on The Political Whore blog we’ll be offering a live, off-the-cuff take on Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. Some of you may have caught our live blogging of Hillary Clinton’s speech on Tuesday. We had so much fun, we’re doing it again.

So, will it be a disaster of epic proportions or the inspiring coronation of the Democratic nominee for President? Tune in and log on, we’ll all find out together.

(Photo credit: Bobster1985)