Dear Blog,

I have betrayed you. I have been disloyal for days, and now I will have to play catch-up. I’ve been busy promoting my book. A great time in Boston largely due to Marilyn Riseman, a dear friend and one of the world’s great characters. And the events on the island have been overwhelmingly successful. There was a sold out luncheon at the Pundits Monday and a standing room only event in the evening put on by the Palm Beach County Historical Society. I was so worried that the book would be so controversial that it would create problems for me, and I have a wonderful life in Palm Beach. But just the opposite. People have been overwhelmingly supportive. I’ve made new friends, and been new places, and it’s been generally marvelous.

There’s been just one exception and that’s the Palm Beach Daily News. I won’t bore you with the details, but the piece that Bob Norman has written a piece about Shannon Donnelly and the Palm Beach Daily News in New Times is the talk of the island. You can read it at: http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2009-02-05/news/shiny-sheet-sellout/

What Norman doesn’t say is that a group of Palm Beachers are contemplating starting their own daily newspaper. That’s how bad they think the Daily News has become. I’m astounded at the response they are getting. I think people have moved beyond being afraid of the paper to being rather embarrassed that the Shiny Sheet is the public image of our island. So many serious stories are not covered or are written about in the most twisted, desultory way. There are terrific reporters on the paper. The problem is not with them so much as with the editor and publisher. The reason Cox doesn’t do anything in my opinion is that the paper makes money. But it’s on a downward trajectory in almost every respect.