Best TV Station

WPLG didn't win just because Dwight Lauderdale is the smoothest MF-er in the history of news broadcasting. No, Lauderdale may be suave, but that doesn't change the fact that his material is sometimes as shallow as the royal gene pool. No, the real reason WPLG is the highest-quality TV station in South Florida is Michael Putney, who has for years kept burning the flickering flame of local political television journalism. His Sunday show, This Week in South Florida, is practically the only place you get to see debate among local candidates. His take on politics is usually pretty astute, the product of more than a quarter century of reporting experience in South Florida (he wrote for the Miami Herald back when it was worth a damn). And he's something of a Renaissance man as well, having recently played the title role in the theater production of Trumbo, about the blacklisted writer. Putney, if one must find a fault with him, could learn a little something from Dalton; he needs to crack the hypocrites and liars populating South Florida politics over the head a little harder. It's in him -- he just needs to do it on the tube.