Let me place my biases front and center.

I am no fan of the Miami Herald.  it’s beholden to the cruise industry which pays it for cruise advertising ads.  The Herald’s "business" editor, Jane Wooldridge, is the former travel editor for the newspaper. Although she graduated with me from Duke in 1980, she is at the opposite of the spectrum.  She unabashedly praises the cruise lines whether they are right or wrong.  

I have written some unflattering articles about both the Miami Herald and Ms. Wooldridge which you can read here, here and here.

Unlike the L.A. Times, the New York Times, or other newspapers with some sense of investigative journalism and professional integrity, the Miami Herald is a journalistic mistress to the Miami-based cruise lines.

So it was no surprise to me that when Carnival CEO Micky Arison decided to give his first interview after the Costa Concordia disaster, he picked his friends at the Miami Herald.  They were happy to offer up some softball questions for Mr. Arison for him to pitch the cruise industry’s talking points.

Arison and the Carnival president Howard Frank touted the wonderful safety record of its subsidiary Costa, saying such unchallenged drivel as: "we as a company do everything we can to encourage the highest safety standards."

Arison whined: “No matter what I would’ve done, I think I would’ve been criticized.” 

He touted Carnival as offering a "great vacation value, a great product, a safe product at a fantastic price.”

The assessment by Arison’s next in command Howard Frank was more of the same, referring to Costa as a "great company and a great brand, with a terrific management team and with a great future."

Today, the cheer-leading by the Miami Herald continues in its article "Getting the Cruise Industry Back on Course."

The Herald touched on the recent troubles afflicting the Costa brand with the capsizing of the Costa Concordia and the fire aboard the Costa Allegra, as well as cruise over-boards and norovirus cases. However, it was careful to call upon cruise line executives and cruise lines fans to place the cruise into a positive light.

The article calls upon the usual cruise line shills like Carolyn Spencer Brown, who recently wrote an article for Conde’ Nast Traveler.  She falsely represented that no one died on the latest Carnival cruise ships which caught on fire – read my open letter to Ms. Spencer-Brown for the truth – and she blamed the parents of a 16 year old girl who was the fancy of a NCL pedophile child porno collector assistant cruise director in a stairwell of the cruise ship.

The Herald was careful not to include any survivors of the Concordia disaster, representatives of victim organizations or neutral experts to comment on the nasty state of affairs of the cruise industry.