The economic collapse and decline of print media has created a void slowly filling by pretender, quasi-news sources that pretend to be fair and balanced journalism. These look and "feel" and advertise themselves to be, from all appearances independent journalism. But they are not. These are not blogs, like ours. Nor are they websites that clearly state for readers their political preferences, like DailyKos. One of the emerging efforts to slant news content by imposing a filter at the state level is in Florida through online media published by Sayfie Media LLC.
According to his corporate website, "Justin Sayfie is a founding shareholder of Blosser & Sayfie. As an attorney and government relations consultant, he represents clients in a variety of industries, including land development, health care, education and transportation. Prior to co-founding Blosser & Sayfie in August 2001, Justin worked as a senior policy advisor, spokesman and chief speechwriter for Governor Jeb Bush. In these different roles, Justin assisted Governor Bush with development of public policy initiatives and legislative strategy, management of Florida’s thirteen executive state agencies and press relations. Prior to joining Governor Bush's Administration, from 1995 to 1998, Justin practiced environmental and land use law at the Miami office of Greenberg Traurig. There he represented property owners seeking development and environmental approvals from state and local regulatory authorities."
Sayfie was the first GOP insider to aggregate online news in Florida. His sites follow along the fiction of offering "Your morning cup of politics unleavened by backroom agendas." That's the Sayfie News.
The Sayfie Review is a also news aggregator, re-publishing articles by newspapers and calls itself, "What Florida's Most Influential People Read Daily". But look in the archive through the search field on the compelling ballot issue in 2010: Florida Hometown Democracy. The citizens movement will appear on the November 2010 ballot and would require popular vote to change local comprehensive growth plans. The measure is freaking out the Growth Machine. It is strongly opposed by the "environmental and land use law" community such as represented by Greenberg Traurig et al.; the Sayfie Way. Enter "climate change" in the search field, and nothing comes up. Under 'global warming' for 2009, only a handful of stories. On the other hand, dozens of stories for 2009 come up under "FPL", for the state's largest utility-- Florida Power and Light.
Marco Rubio-- the insurgent, "conservative" candidate in the GOP primary for the US Senate-- is all over the Sayfie filter. Rubio is the stand-in for Jeb Bush as the new hope of the GOP. In calmer days, Gov. Crist -- who is increasingly threatened by the Rubio insurgency-- gave the Sayfie Review a heady thumbs-up, buried by his own praise: "The Sayfie Review has the highest "power quotient" of any publication in the state and is the only publication that Florida's political and opinion leaders read daily. Florida Governor Charlie Crist says, "I read the Review daily, and find it an indispensable way to get the latest news from around the State."
The boilerplate says, "Over the past six years, we have developed a bipartisan readership that includes the Florida governor's office staff, White House staff, members of Congress, Florida legislators, Florida government officials, lobbyists, members of the capitol press corps, TV reporters around the state, editorial board writers, Florida newspaper columnists, bloggers, business executives, political consultants, and party activists. SayfieReview.com is truly what Florida's Most Influential People Read Daily." Although the website feeds into traditional "balanced" and "fair" media, (it's Hotline Sites button leads to sites that feature advertisement by the Pew Charitable Trust and the National Journal, Sayfie's interest in mobilizing information feeds as "balanced" is better understood through the consulting and political strategy/lobbying effort he coalesced under NetPower Strategy: "Phil Musser, Justin Sayfie and Max Everett have joined forces to combine their experience in managing winning campaigns and successfully executing new media practices to form NetPower Strategy - a new media consulting firm at the forefront of the intersection between politics and technology. NetPower Strategy will provide turn-key new media solutions for political, corporate and issue advocacy campaigns." Everett was the Chief Technology Officer for the 2008 GOP national convention and the White House.
It is impossible to know from its websites how the Safie Media interests are funded, but a recent advertisement in Tallahassee to add staff indicates it is a growing business. The Sayfie effort is bipartisan as Fox News: only, the Florida version.
10 comments:
Well done.
"...pretender, quasi-news sources that pretend to be fair and balanced journalism"///like eyeonmiami?
Thank You.
Great post. They are a political machine for the FL GOP. They are also on Facebook and Twitter and their "news" items are questionable.
Our blog doesn't hide a point of view behind a shield. Agree or disagree: we are exactly what we say we are. It is an entirely different species of web-based organization acting as a front for undisclosed interests, aggregating news from the mainstream media and providing a filter that obscures its agenda/s.
At the checkout line today, my daughter questioned if Brad and Jennifer were really getting back together. I told her that you can't believe those publications, yet, there they are. Someone is buying them and people believe what they read in these rags. I even said how much fun it would be to make up stories with no basis on fact and get paid for them.
Children need to be taught to question everything they read. Critical analysis use to be a top priority of our education system. Now, with curriculum that is based upon the FCAT testing (a present to us by the Jebster and Co.) our children are taught how to properly answer questions on a test. If the school doesn't get the correct "grade" it will lose money and administrators lose jobs. Critical thinking and questioning skills are no longer necessary. It's all about the test, the test, the test. Just fill in the correct bubble. House prices go up and down depending on the grade of the local school! It is insanity. I hear adults say "Oh, that's a "C" school, as if that's a way to evaluate what's going on in the school.
Parents, please teach your children to question. Question what you read and what you see. Always question authority. It is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign that you are a thinking human in a free society. Our public schools want the students to look the same, act the same and think the same. It is up to the parents to break that cycle and show our kids to always, always think critically.
tom
Great points. We're teaching kids to fit into the Age of Stupid.
Wasn't Sayfie appointed to the MDX? The same Sayfie who promoted stronger ethics and financial disclosure for all MDX Board members? The same Sayfie who then resigned subsequent to the passage of stronger MDX ethics and financial disclosure requirements?
even as a democrat, i read sayfie review. just because these sites exist doesn't make them evil. they have just as much of a right to speak, aggregate, etc., as sites such as TPM, HuffingtonPost, etc.
www.FortReport.com is a news agregator service that has progressive news. it is what it is.
Read it.
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