By: Joe Strupp In his other life as a popular novelist, S.V. Date, staff writer for
The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, has spoofed almost everything Florida, taking jabs at NASA, Daytona stock-car racing, and state politics. But his latest satire, "Deep Water," to be published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in October, hits closer to home with a direct shot at his former employer, the
Orlando Sentinel, and its coverage of Disney World.
Date, 37, who worked at the
Sentinel for seven years, told
E&P, "It's something I wanted to get off my chest. The place has become very corporatized."
The novel focuses on the fictional Waldo Whipple World and its cozy relationship with the
Orlando Advocate, which keeps a reporter from writing critical stories about the theme park. The book describes the paper as "a big-city daily that had become not only more shamelessly boosterish and incestuous than the smallest town rag, but, even more troubling to reporters as a class, as tightly wound as the worst corporate bank."
This fictional appraisal "is not too exaggerated," Date said. "With any hometown company," he noted, "it is hard to do critical reporting without ruffling feathers."
Sentinel Editor Tim Franklin responds: "Our coverage will speak for itself."
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