Replies

Greer and Martha Lenderman* have both used the same PR company.

That PR company has a partner who worked for Florida newspapers.

Wayne Garcia spent 13 years in daily print journalism as a reporter and editor for the Gainesville Sun, Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times. Most recently he was editor-in-chief of ReviewNet, where his work founding the on-line site was awarded Best Online Newspaper (Small) by Editor & Publisher/The Kelsey Group.

Is this PR-newspaper connection affecting the way Florida papers cover Terri's case?

*Martha Lenderman is the wife of Greer's fellow judge. She is also on the Board of the Hospice that Terri has been in. (The PR company heped her in her campaign for State Rep. ---District 51 - 1998, it helped Greer in 1992)

Wayne Garcia [who's with PR firm that handled elections of both Greer and Martha Lenderman-- a Board Member at Terri's hospice] spent 13 years in daily print journalism as a reporter and editor for the Gainesville Sun, Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times.

Is this PR-newspaper connection affecting the way Florida papers cover Terri's case?

Samples of columns in St. Petersburg Times:

1. Terri Schiavo unlikely to recover, doctor says (September 24, 2002, By Times Staff Writer)

She has been in a persistent vegetative state for more than 12 years.

2. Governor as guardian - in whose interests?, MARY JO MELONE. Aug 28, 2003

As for the governor's call for a guardian, Schiavo already has one who's quite legal - her husband, Michael Schiavo. He's just not the guardian Schiavo's parents want. He favors the removal of her feeding tube. They don't.
Schiavo's fate has been batted about for years upon years, with appeal after appeal, testimony from expert after expert, to the point of absurdity.

3. Ethical storm swirls after a final meal, ANITA KUMAR, April 25, 2001

As the bitterly divided family of Terri Schiavo awaits her death, the Catholic Church declines to take sides. [snip] With food and water, she could have lived decades longer but in the same persistent vegetative state she has been in for 11 years. [snip]Dr. Vince Perron, associate medical director at LifePath Hospice in Tampa, said patients who no longer receive nutrition usually become unconscious after two or three days. They slip into a comalike sleep until they die in another two days to two weeks.
"People don't suffer," Perron said. "It's a peaceful, comfortable way to die.