If you are wondering why the stories in your local newspapers are starting to look so similar to other newspapers, it might be because they are following the new business model of South Florida newspapers: eliminating competition. All the major South Florida newspapers, Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (now called SunSentinel), and Palm Beach Post have had big staff cutbacks recently. So who is left to cover the news? The skeleton crews still working at the newspapers don't have the capability so they came up with a solution: pool their resources and share their stories. A story in Friday's Sun-Sentinel, I mean SunSentinel, explains the brave new world of journalism (emphasis mine):

The top editors of the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post and the Sun Sentinel announced today a content-sharing initiative that the editors say will serve South Florida readers with unprecedented local coverage while maintaining the competitive nature of each paper.

Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor of the Herald, John Bartosek, editor of the Palm Beach Post, and Earl Maucker, editor of the Sun Sentinel, announced the sharing arrangement, in which each newspaper can publish stories from one of the other newspapers or web sites.

In each case where an article from one newspaper is published in another, that story would carry attribution to the contributing newspaper or web site.

The three editors, in a statement released Friday, said they believe they can protect the competitive character of each publication by limiting the content sharing to municipal, governmental, courts and political coverage, police reports and entertainment. Enterprise and Investigative stories would be off limits from the sharing agreement, they said.

"Our goal is to better serve our South Florida audiences while protecting the individual brands and identities of our respective newspapers," a release from the three editors said.

"As each newspaper experienced recent staff reductions of our reporting staffs, we believe sharing some content assures thorough coverage, particularly in overlapping areas, and allows us to direct even more resources to enterprise, watchdog and investigative reporting exclusive to each newspaper."

The initiative will begin in September.

The editors put a happy face on this but what it really means is that the South Florida newspapers will be serving up primarily homogenized news. Their readers aren't buying it either as you can see from a sampling of their comments:

In other words in order to further misinform the Southern Floridian masses while maximizing our profit we are merging three newspapers into one ensuring that you, the public, get the same misinformation from one source as opposed to three separate sources.

i gotta say, i ask myself almost every morning "why do i still subscribe to the sentinel?" i mean it has gone downhill so much that it's like they've jumped the shark as far as saving money v. putting out a decent paper. if things are that bad then just shut it down. i love reading the paper while eating breakfast, but i really do feel like i'm getting ripped off. it's frustrating, there's like no stories anymore.

So what you are really saying is there is going to be only one newspapers in south florida.

so will the Democrats enforce the fairness doctrine here? Or are they just after those who they consider "right wing?'

Sun Herald Post?
Sun Post Herald?
Herald Sun Post?
Herald Post Sun?
Post Herald Sun?
Post Sun Herald?

The papers have been in decline for a long time. I only subscribe on Sundays now...and only for the coupons!!!!!

The big question now is that since the three South Florida newspapers will be consolidating their news, will they also chip in and share the same Diverstiy Queen?

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.