A Castle on a River

Tampa's news nexus is located at a beautiful plot along the Hillsborough river. The Sheraton Riverwalk is across the way; the unmistakable clay-colored spires of the University of Tampa are directly adjacent. Inside it's dark core, rows upon rows of televisions display questionable programming: an interview of Kid Rock by a big-breasted blonde, Judge Joe, and a soccer game.

Down from the second floor are the studios. Two tall stools flanked a tall nightstand holding two coffee cups: pure morning show. The next set was the news, with its separate walkways leading to weather and sports sections. Only at places like Disney or Universal Studios have I seen other disenchanted and seemingly haunted sets.

Fallen symbols of our society surrounded us. Broadcast has been repudiated for being shallow, soft and sycophantic. Fortunately, the quiet, raspy man who greeted us was anything but these unpleasant adjectives.

Steve Andrews emphasized being tough, but respectable. He gets what he wants from sources and has only suffered the occasional death threat. A sign of a good journalist in my book!

Like everyone we meet, Andrews was full of great stories. The point of all of them being this: you can use public records to circumvent the tired broadcast practices of regurgitating wire stories, entertainment news and dueling political bobble-heads.

Judge Stringer, the focus of one of his anecdotes, was just disbarred this morning, according to a story written by Steve Andrews. Which I am looking at right now. Whoa! Things just got cosmic.

Stringer is a legend in the Tampa area. He was the first black judge in Tampa Bay and a role model to everyone growing up in the post-civil rights era. None of his colleagues ever had anything negative to say about him, said Andrews - to us, not in the article. I know, it's all very surreal.

What Thomas Stringer did, was funnel money from a debt-ridden stripper "friend" into personal bank accounts. His "friend", stripper Christy Yamanaka, made records of everything Stringer did in her favor. She recorded their phone conversations, made copies of bank records and held on to all the receipts.

Andrews' professionalism brought Yamanaka to him in the first place. At first he thought she was just some crazy person trying to discredit a legend. In the end, after she'd told her story, Andrews knew he needed the judge to talk, and talk he did once he realized what was going down.

When I look at it now, maybe the only reason broadcast can get away with holding people accountable and being hard-hitting is to include elements of the trashy. Then again, that just might be the human condition - elements of the trashy.