As the war lines begin to take shape in the November and August number one general elections, 3 virtual media sites have marked their ideological corners in hopes of tilting the outcome in their own way.
Websites differ greatly in their policies, ranging from ultra-progressive to decidedly pro-business and pro-development. Neither do politicians and politicians who love or hate.
The recent highest on the scene, 4TLH, proclaims that its goal is to “educate and inform” about politics rather than opposing a specific candidate. However, he recently published an op-ed calling City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow “anti-Civics. “
The online page was launched last month with former Leon County Commissioner Bryan Desloge and former Florida State University Vice President Lee Hinkle. He has claimed ties to former Tallahassee Democratic democrat Skip Foster, who does not say if he is involved.
Desloge said 4TLH was designed in part as a reaction to Our Tallahassee, another of the websites that were created last summer. Our Tallahassee, run by PR bob Lotane and crusade agent and former lobbyist Max Herrle, presents itself as a “cross-platform medium. “providing a “progressive perspective” on existing events.
Herrle has ties to Matlow, County Commissioner Brian Welch and City Commissioner Jack Porter and heads two state political action committees.
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Their sensational stories and headlines have criticized existing City Hall and Blueprint 2020 leaders, adding Mayor John Dailey and senior appointed officials. approved.
The Grow Tallahassee website, which had early ties to local developers, the Ghazvinis, spoke out against Matlow and Porter, who make up the progressive wing of the City Commission.
The organization, whose board of trustees includes local architect Gina Conn, developer Bugra Demirel and local entrepreneurs, also operates a PAC,
None of the organizations disclosed their donors outside the political action committee’s repositories. All three have been criticized as “black money” operations aimed at sparking the 2022 local elections, in which no incumbent has remained unchallenged.
Even the Leon County Republican Party has jumped into the online political page game, recently launching an ironic online page calling Tallahassee mayoral candidate Kristin Dozier a “queen of the mandate,” for her of the coronavirus mitigation measures that have been hotly debated since the pandemic began. It includes a photo of Dozier, who leaves the county commission to run for mayor, adorned with a Photoshop-retouched crown.
It’s unclear how much internet traffic any of the sites attract or how many voter reviews could change. Their stories and opinion pieces also circulate on Facebook and other social networks, in paid posts.
The landscape of partisan networks, whether they are called new media or not, has skyrocketed in recent years, said Matt Gertz, principal investigator at nonprofit news outlet Media Matters.
Sometimes they fill the void in the deserts of local political news. Other times, they are a dumping ground for opposition research, hoping that it will be picked up through mainstream media outlets known for fighting for objectivity and well-balanced reporting.
“What happened is that in this opening, you see new publications emerging with a variety of other resources and investment mechanisms and they seek to fill that gap,” said Gertz, whose paintings focus on disinformation in conservative media. The outlets are very credible and do a wonderful job. Sometimes they don’t.
Gertz, who reviewed the 3 websites, said they all seemed interested in revealing, at least in part, who they were and offering enough data for readers to figure out their ideological perspectives or tendencies. He added that it was difficult to fully characterize them because he was not familiar with the workings of Tallahassee politics.
“You can see a situation where political actors are trying to create an online fake news page to help their candidates,” Gertz said. “You can see a situation where other people are looking to do nonprofit journalism in an environment where a lot of other sources, so they’re looking to fill a niche market. I saw worse things than that. “
4TLH stated its purpose in corporate presentations presented in March: “Educate the public about Florida’s issues; increase voter registration and voter turnout; and legalize all acts through the law. “
Desloge said the concept for 4TLH was from the same fabric as Village Square, a nonprofit he co-founded years ago: a civil verbal exchange on issues without the heavy injection of rhetoric and partisanship.
He said the online page is designed to give a voice to the business community, which he says has been “mistreated” in recent years. He also said it’s a direct reaction to hyper-progressive attitudes and to Our Tallahassee, which he said is about “rotation and rhetoric and one aspect of the equation. “
“What is lost in our network and in most communities is the ability to have a civilized verbal exchange about the facts,” Desloge said. “You have a small organization of other people publishing data that would be, in most places, false or misleading and that portrays our network in a bad light. “
Our Tallahassee and Matlow named Foster, who left the Democrat in 2019 and recently created his own public relations firm, as the website’s engine.
Matlow noticed a series of virtual breadcrumbs that returned to Foster, adding a quote from Ricky Gervais in a story about 4TLH that Foster posted on social media in February and similar language Foster used in a Village Square forum he hosted last month.
Matlow said Foster was the credibility that comes with the name of his former newspaper editor in component to help David Bellamy, Matlow’s opponent in the race for seat 3 on the City Commission.
“I see it,” Matlow said, “Skip Foster as a former editor has a new media format with ties to David Bellamy and John Dailey for the purpose of overturning the election. “
Foster, who in the past had told the Democrat he would not paint in political campaigns, has neither shown nor denied involvement.
“Sometimes I communicate about customers. Sometimes I don’t,” Foster said in an interview. “When I do, it’s because I do it. “
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The online page recently took a turn to Matlow, anonymous local government “advisers” and affiliates who he says have championed “anti-civility. “The story, which doesn’t come with a signature, comes with a call from President Barack Obama urging others to reach out to others in the wake of the 2011 shooting of the U. S. representative. USA Gabrielle Giffords.
“Unfortunately, local elected officials and their advisers ignored Obama’s advice,” says the account, which points to recent offensive texts directed against black elected officials. Racist speech, “you have transparent characteristics in local government. “
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LLC, the nonprofit website, includes Desloge and Hinkle as co-chairs and George Grimsley, a local CPA, as treasurer. Grimsley’s company employs accountant Andrew Gay, Dailey’s Crusade treasurer Bellamy and County Commissioner Nick Maddox. administrators of the Chamber of Commerce and is indexed as treasurer in several PACs.
The chamber and Matlow have had a long-standing dispute dating back at least last summer, when the commissioner boycotted the business group’s annual convention because of ties some of its participants had to the FBI’s investigation into public corruption. House responded by promising to “cultivate candidates” with “resources to advance our network. “
House Speaker Sue Dick, in a writing following an April 30 Florida Politics article, denied the chamber’s involvement in 4TLH. Desloge also said the camera was not involved.
“4TLH is not a House organization, it was not formed through the House, and the House does not provide it with any money,” Dick wrote. “The 4TLH organization was not under the control of the Chamber or the Board of Directors. “of the House with a submission or a request. All these statements are also valid for other detained media that operate in this space.
Camera and Matlow Lines:
Desloge declined to disclose 4TLH’s investment resources or donors for the site outside of himself and Hinkle. But he said 4TLH would not approve or approve candidates, either in call or investment. It does not administer a state political committee.
The address indexed on Piedmont Drive is shared through two PACs, Progress TLH, Inc. and All Voters Vote, Inc. , and is home to the Grimsley offices.
The Progress TLH PAC is chaired by Drew Jones, director of VancoreJones Communications and dailey’s former crusade manager, who worked as a lobbyist and had government contracts. All Voters Vote is chaired by Glenn Burhans Jr. , also a registered agent for 4TLH. Gay is also indexed as treasurer of this PAC.
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None of the PACs have received a cross-through contribution since 2020. Over the past year, All Voters Vote has spent approximately $4,500 on crusade funding for Grimsley.
Desloge, who served 14 years on the commission before Welch defeated him in 2020 with Herrle’s help, said he was dismayed by the chaotic tone of public meetings and politics lately. it doesn’t take a look to spin the electorate.
“I don’t care about everybody’s politics. I care when other people can’t have a civil discussion and it becomes ‘You’re a bad user if you don’t agree with me. ‘ And unfortunately, that’s where we are today,” he said. .
Grow Tallahassee entered the political scene some time after the 2018 election, building itself as an unstructured organization of other people who have embraced pro-development and smart expansion perspectives in the capital.
In 2020, the organization formed a PAC and began approving and financially supporting applicants such as City Commissioner Curtis Richardson and former City Commissioner Elaine Bryant. The PAC has remained silent until now in this election cycle.
He had early ties to the Ghazvini family, one of Tallahassee’s most sensible developers. However, Justin Ghazvini left the board earlier this year and now sits on the House board of directors.
The PAC’s registered agent is Emmett Mitchell, an attorney for the Tallahassee crusade and government, and the group’s chairman is Demirel. Mitchell is the registered agent indexed in several conservative-leaning PACs in the state.
Since the 2020 election, Grow Tallahassee has traded beards with Progressive Tallahassee supporters. His opinion page attacked Matlow and Porter in a series of columns, calling them anti-growth and criticizing their opposition to Blueprint’s $27 million credits for the maintenance of Doak Campbell Stadium.
Most of the back and forth came from columns and social media posts through Grow Tallahassee board member Jared Willis. In March, Willis posted a photo of Matlow and Porter together at a political fundraiser. He also filed an ethics complaint against Matlow to disqualify him from the final vote on stadium funding.
Willis posted the photo after Porter took and shared a photo of several senior city and county officials traveling together on a Delta flight. Both sides said their photos raised questions about whether officials were complying with the Sunshine Act.
The fight:
Willis, who graduated from law school and is for the bar exam, said he will leave the board of trustees of Grow Tallahassee and its PAC amid what has been an ongoing reorganization of the group’s board of trustees. It intends to remain concerned about local politics in one form or another.
“I am an advocate at the center and Grow Tallahassee has given me a wonderful platform to stand up for our business community,” Willis said. “This election cycle will be a fight for the soul of Tallahassee, and I started thinking about how I can expand my platform to have a more effective interaction. “
Demirel, who is the developer of the SoMo Walls redevelopment assignment on South Monroe Street, said members are giving advice to lawmakers on policies that will lead to “smart growth” and more investment in economic development.
Grow Tallahassee hosted a series of roundtables focused on issues such as the medical marijuana industry, the development of North Tallahassee, the expansion of Welaunee, urban infill, growth, and social equity.
He said the organization had still set its appeals in the 2022 election. Donations from crusades are not accepted at the roundtables, he said. All fundraisers are properly ranked, he said.
“Everything we do will be public. We have nothing to hide,” he said. “If we are going to raise the budget for the CAP, it will be announced. It may not be in the scenes or in the dark.
In addition to supporting commissioners “who will prioritize smart policy over re-election,” the group’s purpose has to plan ahead to accommodate Tallahassee’s inevitable growth.
Firm demirel. Grow Tallahassee isn’t a new media site, but he admitted that analyzing politics and publishing reviews on elected officials and public affairs means it fulfills that role to some extent.
He regretted the tenor of the political discourse.
“We are uncomfortable with the poisonous populism used through national political actors, which has now been incorporated into our local politics,” Demirel said. “This prevents us from having productive political discussions, creating a dysfunctional local government. “
CORRECTION: An earlier edition of this story said that Commissioner Jack Porter and Our Tallahassee co-founder and political agent Max Herrle were dating. After the post, they clarified that they were dating at the time.
Contact Karl Etters on ketters@tallahassee. com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.
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