Fla. reporter fired after calling news release on DeSantis event 'propaganda'

[demmiblue]

An Axios reporter in Tampa said he was fired this week after he responded to a Florida Department of Education email about an event featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), calling the news release “propaganda.”

Ben Montgomery said he received a call on Monday evening from Jamie Stockwell, executive editor of Axios Local, who asked Montgomery to confirm he sent the email before saying the reporter’s “reputation in the Tampa Bay area” had been “irreparably tarnished.”

The news release sent Monday afternoon said DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had hosted a roundtable “exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education.” It also called for prohibiting state funds from being used to support DEI efforts.

“We will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” DeSantis said in the statement.

Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, replied to the email three minutes after getting it. “This is propaganda, not a press release,” he wrote to the Department of Education press office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/15/axios-reporter-ben-montgomery-fired/

Link to tweet

[bullimiami]

1. fired for daring to tell the truth. axios is weak.

must assume higher ups are consulted before a firing.

axios is not worthy. they should change the name to adynamos.

[2naSalit]

2. Well...

That's going to be around for a spell. I see some serious legal problems for ronnie in the near future.

[malaise]

10. Axios is BananaReTHUG propaganda

Period

[Botany]

3. "reputation in the Tampa Bay area" had been "irreparably tarnished."

Ben Montgomery's reputation was not “irreparably tarnished” but instead it has
been elevated. He wrote the truth and that is what a good reporter should do.

An Axios reporter in Tampa said he was fired this week after he responded to a Florida Department of Education email about an event featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), calling the news release “propaganda.”

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Florida news industry is backward.

I could have told you that. The Orlando Sentinel had a policy in place in the nineties that allowed the backwater suburbs to continue operating their good ole boy scams. This policy helped suppress important information that would have helped residents avoid voting in a corrupt public official for a second term. It definitely hurt my community, because it gave the City and the circle of corrupt bastard to prop in their key fixer on our board, and he approved documents that cemented responsibilities for the residents. It was a masterful stroke in an operation that began by a group that took over the power of local government to provide cover for the corrupt group that was interfering with the rights of a developer that they did not like.

And the Orlando Sentinel? Everything that we sent to them to try to provide light to what was happening was sent to their Seminole Office, where that editor buried the information. He was part of the conspiracy, in my opinion.

This is who they were back then, and I have no reason to believe that's changed.

The only exception to that was a paper from Pinellas County that is now defunct.

[Dustlawyer]

5. I was attacked by the Florida press after the 2010 BP oil spill.

I represented oil spill victims across the Gulf Coast and traveled in my bus doing town hall meetings to update my existing clients and sign up new ones. The 2008 crash impacted Florida really hard and the oil spill killing tourism exacerbated the crash effects. The media were hard hit as ad revenues went into the toilet. BP spent huge sums to rehab their image which the media desperately needed. I learned that strings were attached that prevented them from reporting about oil spill victim impacts. In fact they seemed to be rewarded for attacking oil spill plaintiff attorneys. They would ambush me along with the private investigators hired by BP.

Just understand that our media are, to a large extent, are controlled by their big corporate advertisers. The McDonald’s coffee case was reported as a runaway jury, frivolous lawsuit. It wasn’t because all of the media got the facts of the trial wrong, it was because McDonalds was a huge national advertiser. I laugh when I hear about America’s so called, “Free Press.”

[MOMFUDSKI]

7. Axios sucks.

And so does BP. My original claim for damages from BP was to have been $32K PLUS and I wound up with $16K after they shut it down and reopened it. Who got how much money stuffed into their pockets on this deal?

[Dustlawyer]

13. I got into a little trouble expressing my thoughts on this so

I will just state facts. The Plaintiff’s Steering Committee (PSC) received $700,000,000 from BP and Halliburton as long as the Class Settlement was never overturned. The PSC were the only ones who could challenge the settlement they agreed to. If overturned the PSC waived the 700 million. 2/3 victims received $0 under the settlement.

[MOMFUDSKI]

15. Thanks for that.

Worse than I even realized. So many really hurt by BP got nothing. Just not right.

[Poiuyt]

6. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is an expert in fascism and has written several books on the subject.

[mcar]

8. I've read his morning column for a few years

since it's based in Tampa Bay. I just cancelled it. How dare Axios bow down to that fascist?

[Chainfire]

9. It shows how much power DeSatan has in the state, and how unashamed he is to use it.

[jaxexpat]

11. It also clarifies just how sparsely located and pressure-sensitive are Florida's interests.

These interests are directly connected to the political (economic) powerbrokers' influences over their particular state/region-based scam. There are only two primary interests in Florida. They are tourism and property development. Everything exists to feed these two industries. These interests require minions with just enough knowledge, skill or expertise to maintain the kind of good-ole-boy business model in place. It is an agreement, political and economic, which relies on unlimited social misinformation and mass dependence of unchallenged assumptions. To the extent it is not already a criminal enterprise, Florida is ripe for an organized crime takeover. The shakedown/shakeup is ongoing. By controlling a mere majority of these points of sensitivity, the "top men" in their regions, DeSantis can effectively get away with whatever he sets his sights on throughout the state. So far, he has labored tirelessly and ruthlessly to that end. The PTB, both good and bad, in the "Sunshine State" cannot keep up.

And that, folks is his greatest vulnerability. The guys he's corralled into letting him play "boss" are not the most trustworthy types.

[BWdem4life]

12. Fascism is snowballing.nt

[Mad_Machine76]

14. I wonder

if we will eventually find out that he picked up the phone and called somebody at Axios after they heard about it?