EDITOR: Why Florida banks failed is an important story

Published: Sunday, July 28, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 10:31 p.m.

If you glanced at the front page of the Sunday Herald-Tribune, go back.

Take your time and read the first installment of ?Breaking the Banks,? an investigative series by Anthony Cormier and Michael Braga that shows conclusively how top-level greed, arrogance and mismanagement led to many of Florida's recent bank failures.

The story is important. Plus there's more to come.

We've invested considerable time, resources and newsprint to publish this important series. The story will dominate the Herald-Tribune's front pages through Wednesday. You'll also find exclusive documents and profiles of all 68 failed banks in our searchable project website, www.HeraldTribune.com/breakingthebanks.

?Breaking the Banks? is no more an indictment against bankers than a plaid shirt worn with plaid shorts is a fashion statement. Anthony and Michael set out on a quest ? to find out why so many Florida banks failed ? and came back more than a year later with answers that should alarm the governor, lawmakers, prosecutors and, most importantly, taxpayers.

This project couldn't have happened without Florida's sunshine laws. Only transparency can correct transgressions.

In Raymond B. Vickers' book ?Panic in Paradise: Florida's Banking Crash of 1926,? the Florida State historian and former state regulator emphasized the importance of public disclosure in examining bank regulatory systems.

Notes Michael, ?So far, Florida is the only state that lets the public have access to documents that reveal the secretive world of banking, and the Herald-Tribune is the only newspaper that has made use of those documents.?

We're proud of the work done by Anthony and Michael, two veteran reporters who embody the best of investigative journalism. In the past year, the Herald-Tribune changed its ownership, publisher and executive editor. All of those changes didn't matter. In an isolated corner of our spacious newsroom, they kept plugging away -- cross-checking thousands of documents, making hundreds of phone calls and weaving together a story of risky behaviors that could have been prevented.

Great journalism doesn't operate like pizza delivery. The best work takes more than 30 minutes and comes with plenty of detours. Anthony and Michael pushed to get reports never before released, then followed a splintered money trail that took them from the Panhandle to the Everglades.

Nor does great journalism evolve in a vacuum. Anthony and Michael called on trusted banking experts to look over the stories and offer insights. Editors Matt Sauer, Tony Elkins Jr., Deb Winsor, Jeffrey Rubin and Jennifer Borresen filled invaluable roles, from planning to presentation to line-by-line editing. Digital programming gurus David Adkins and Patrick Carroll took on the complicated coding issues.

Readership preferences are changing, and that creates a conundrum. We hear from those who harken back to those days, when classified advertising sections were thick and Walter Cronkite was a nightly dinner guest. We're also aware of comments from online regulars who impulsively criticize everything from the speed of news updates to the relevance of story selections. (Only in online story discussions will you find critics who waste their time dwelling how we wasted their time. Pointing out such irony, though, is like convincing a certain New York mayoral candidate to stop texting.)

Yes, the world is changing. But ?Breaking the Banks? shows that we inherently believe in the importance of watchdog journalism. In print. And digital.

?This is different. This project is like a deep breath of fresh air. It's big and bold and expensive. It takes on really powerful interests. And it's the kind of sweeping narrative that only newspapers do well," Anthony Cormier says.

?Our readers may go elsewhere for their memes and cat pictures. But they still come back to us for the important stuff."

Bill Church can be contacted at bill.church@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4991. Follow him on Twitter @BillChurchMedia.

Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130728/columnist/130729698

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