Florida's Press Corps, Pressed And Cored

The Galtian Republic of Rick Scott apparently supports an adversarial press, mainly by Gov. Scott doing everything he can to piss off reporters and doing it whenever possible to the point where even Politico is calling him on it.

Early skirmishes between statehouse reporters and new governors are routine, a standard matter of prerogatives and turf. But the Florida fracas has been unusually heated, and it has particular import because Scott is perhaps the most ambitious and unconventional of a new wave of conservative leaders eager to flex executive muscle, and because the contrast with Crist is particularly “neck-snapping,” as a reporter put it.

Crist opened his term by fulfilling a promise to loosen the strictures that his predecessor, Bush, had put on public access, making information and aides unusually accessible by the standards of modern government. Crist — an obsessive follower of the press and of his own image – gave his personal cell phone freely to members of the Tallahassee media, and projected a personal warmth and interest in endless conversations with the press. He freely answered questions about everything from local business to national politics to his own sexuality. He made a point of keeping reporters’ favorite brands of beer in his office fridge.

To Scott’s allies, it was untenable.

“Some in the press corps were spoiled” by Crist, said Alberto Martinez, a Republican strategist and Crist critic. “He showered them with access and attention bordering on the ridiculous in order to win favorable coverage.”

Scott still offers gaggles, but rarely goes off message. He prefers local television stations around the state to Tallahassee’s correspondents, and will even roll out his budget plan outside the capitol, where reporters are still adjusting.

“They’re new at running a state, particularly Florida that’s had this tradition of openness,” said David Royse, executive editor of the News Service of Florida. “He came in saying he’s going to be an outsider and he has been.”

Scott is no stranger to corporate hardball. He left his post as a health care executive in the 1990s when his company, now known as Columbia HCA, rejected his plan to fight federal fraud charges it later settled for more than $1 billion. He once invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 75 times in a civil deposition. But he was visibly unprepared for the mob scene that greeted him when he filed his candidacy on June 17. Scott unhappily answered 20 minutes of questions from a gaggle of reporters before making his escape.

“Unaccustomed to questions from people he can’t fire, the wealthy Naples businessman had no idea elected officials are regularly waylaid in elevators, parking lots and lobbies by Tallahassee journalists,” wrote the dean of the statehouse press corps, the Tallahassee Democrat’s Bill Cotterell.

Well, there's that and the fact the press might actually say something the Rick Scott doesn't like, and by God in America we don't put up with that, or something.  Keep making friends, Ricky.