Part 17 (1/2)
* Category Three Tourists are from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Maine and the Amish country of western Pennsylvania.
* Category Four Tourists are from the Sunbelt.
* Category Five Tourists are from New York, which means they're practically local.
* Category Six Tourists are from elsewhere in Florida, and of marginal news value.
In our quest to report every single offense committed against tourists, we have conveniently broadened definitions. A ”tourist” is no longer just a person who comes for vacation; it can also be somebody who's down here to see relatives, or make airplane connections.
When we're not really sure why they're in Florida, we refer to them as ”visitors.” This catch-all term suggests the same innocence as ”tourists,” and generates the same public outrage.
Some locals complain that the new obsession with tourist crime is rooted mainly in economic panic. True, robbers tend to steal from our winter visitors the thing we Floridians cherish most-their money.
But only a hard-core cynic would insinuate that our interest in protecting tourists stems from anything but true compa.s.sion. Someday, if we've got any left over, we'll show the same concern for the folks who live here year-round.
Blacking out Channel 7 unplugs the local color June 5, 1994 Thousands of tourists are being deprived of one of South Florida's greatest cultural treasures, the nightly newscast on WSVN-Channel 7.
To protest the station's preoccupation with crime, some hotels have begun blocking WSVN's news from their guests' rooms. This stringent step is being taken to guard the tender sensibilities of visitors, in the same way that grown-ups lock the cable box so the kids won't sneak a peek at the Playboy Channel.
The Continental Cos., which owns several local hotels, declared that it was fed up with WSVN's nightly dose of violent video. Another hotelier complained that tourists ”look at Channel 7, and they're afraid to go out on the street.”
So what? Many folks who live here are afraid to go out on the streets, and it's got nothing to do with Channel 7. It's that evening lullaby of semiautomatic gunfire and police sirens that tends to discourage social excursions in some neighborhoods.
True, on a slow news day, anchor Rick Sanchez can make a routine domestic shooting sound like a sniper attack on an orphanage. But any out-of-towner who doesn't recognize silly hype when he sees it deserves to be scared out of his trousers.
Queasy tourists we don't need. Give us the tough ones. The wily and the battle-hardened. The adventurers.
The hotels' contention that one reckless TV station can frighten off business is a backhanded compliment to Channel 7's cold-blooded programming strategy; people do watch. On the other hand, there are nights when even MacNeil-Lehrer scares the h.e.l.l out of me. The world can be a scary place.
Whether they're from Oshkosh or Oslo, most of our tourists aren't easily intimidated. Gun battle on South Beach? No problem. Tonight we'll go to the Grove.
Whatever horrors might appear on the TV screen at six and eleven, these intrepid travelers won't waste their precious vacations cowering in a $150 hotel room. They will put on bright telltale clothes. They will go outdoors. They will spend money.
Unless they've been living in a cave for the last 15 years, would-be tourists are well aware that Florida has guns, drugs, nuts and social unrest. To s.h.i.+eld them completely from the daily flow, hotels would be forced to zap all local news off the cable.
Channel 7 merely offers a more elaborate smorgasbord than the others. Sure, it's everything the critics say it is-sensationalistic, lubricious and irresponsibly gruesome. If Jeffrey Dahmer lived here, Channel 7 undoubtedly would be his favorite station.
Yet its hard-gore news format has drawn good ratings, worldwide press attention and imitators around the country. Like it or not, Channel 7 is famous.
That's why hotels such as the Grand Bay in the Grove and the Pier House in Key West shoot themselves in the cash register by yanking Rick Sanchez off the cable: Channel 7 itself has become an exotic tourist attraction, to be mentioned in the same breath as Parrot Jungle or Everglades National Park.
People who come to South Florida expect to see blood, and Channel 7 is often the only place they can find it. Take that away, and you've got some mighty disappointed tourists.
Forget the cheap souvenirs. They want lurid anecdotes of shopping-mall shootouts and Dumpster dismemberments to take back home. Otherwise, what's the point of risking a vacation in Miami?
If hotel owners were smart, they wouldn't take the Channel 7 newscast off the tube. They'd put it on Spectravision and charge $7.50 to see it, just like they do with slasher movies.
Perfectly seasoned? Half-baked August 20, 1995 Miami's new tourist slogan was unveiled last week, to mixed reviews.
If you haven't yet heard it, here goes: ”Greater Miami & the Beaches: Perfectly Seasoned.”
The image will emblazon T-s.h.i.+rts, novelties and a fortune's worth of worldwide advertising.
Lots of readers have phoned the newspaper to offer comments, half of them rather unflattering. Much of the criticism is aimed at the clunkiness and redundancy of the phrase ”Greater Miami & the Beaches.”
Evidently the slogan's authors are striving to reach the most feebleminded of potential visitors-those who might come to Miami and not know there's a beach, and those who might come to the beach and not know there's a mainland.
I submit that we shouldn't be trying to lure travelers who cannot independently deduce, from the names, that ”Miami” and ”Miami Beach” are in the same general locale. These are folks who'd be much safer in the firm, watchful custody of a bus line tour guide.
Another problem with the new ad slogan: Why must it say Greater Miami? The purpose of such a distinction is puzzling. Is there a ”Lesser” Miami that we don't know about? And, if so, why doesn't it want tourism?
Perhaps the origin of the logo's wordiness can be traced to the tide of the agency that commissioned it-the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. (Note the ”Greater” and, of course, the ampersand.) It's very possible the advertising firm that wrote the slogan-Turkel Schwartz & Partners!-was instructed to repeat the ”greater,” no matter how awkward and pointless.
Don't underestimate the civic pressure put on these harried, though well-paid, copy writers. Past tourist slogans became memorable for the wrong reasons.
Miami's ”See It Like a Native” campaign provoked a huffy reaction because the poster featured a beautiful snorkeler who had misplaced her bikini top. In hindsight, those were the days of innocence.
Later came Florida's unintentionally ironic ”The Rules Are Different Here”-presented in the wake of riots, soaring homicide, immigration chaos, and open debate about animal sacrifice. While that particular slogan was quickly put to rest, it took years to recover from the snide jokes.
This time, clearly, the ad agency was under orders to be very, very careful. Puns, quips and metaphors undoubtedly were screened with an eye toward avoiding controversy.
The result was ”Perfectly Seasoned,” which (although it evokes pot roast more than it does Ocean Drive) could've been worse.
Think about it. Once the agency decided to use cooking jargon in the tourism pitch, many less palatable expressions could have bubbled to the top: Miami-Marinated in Magic!
Or: Miami-Sauteed With Excitement!
Or even: Miami-Naw, That's Just the Shrimp You're Smelling ...
Well, you get the idea. And while ”Perfectly Seasoned” might sound half-baked, I understand what tourism promoters wanted in their new slogan-something different enough to be noticed, yet bland enough that it couldn't possibly frighten people away.
Forget tourists, residents need crime warning March 20, 1997 A Florida sheriff is in hot water for telling tourists to stay away because ”it's very dangerous” down here.
As if this is big news. As if anyone who hasn't been living in a sinkhole doesn't already know we're the nation's premier sun-gun-and-psycho destination.
Yet, judging from the harsh feedback, Lee County Sheriff John McDougall might as well have stomped on the state flag. For a public officeholder in Florida, spooking tourists is a mortal sin. It's considered much worse than taking bribes.
”I would tell them not to come,” McDougall said last week on the Today show. ”I wouldn't tell anyone in my family to come to Florida right now. I think it's very dangerous.”
The sheriff was referring to the ongoing release of hundreds of career felons from state prisons. He advised visitors to steer clear until the convicts committed new crimes and got rounded up again by lawmen.
No sooner had McDougall uttered the words than tourism-industry honchos launched a dyspeptic counterattack. The question is why.
Tourists are notoriously difficult to scare off, and it's unlikely that the sheriffs melodramatic sound bite will have a big impact. After all, this isn't a new rash of rental-car attacks-it's just another politician hungry for a headline.