Marco Rubio, The Today Show, Eureka Garden, and journalistic malpractice

Senator Marco Rubio let NBC’s Today Show know where he stood after its (non)-coverage of his visit to Eureka Garden in Jacksonville Friday.

“@TODAYshow could have done a real service doing story about abuses in public housing and HUD. Instead focus on political speculation”

“Owner of #EurekaGardens has similar slum like conditions in projects across multiple states. But @TODAYshow wants to talk about polls & Trump”

“Invited @TODAYshow b/c told us they would focus on terrible living conditions at HUD projects like this. They turned into political piece.”

Indeed, for those who have been covering the Eureka Garden story for a year — as FloridaPolitics.com has — there is a jarring disconnect between the coverage the Today Show offered in “Where does Marco Rubio go from here?”,using the dilapidated backdrop of the Section 8 apartment complex to talk about Rubio’s political future instead of the issue at hand, and the story that Rubio correctly said it should have covered.

As those who watched the Today Show footage might have seen, I was walking behind Rubio and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry as they toured the property with camera crews. My theory was that TV would get a story that the print would not get in the post-event press avail.

As is often the case, my instincts were right.

Rubio’s comments throughout the walking tour of the property, with visits to three separate apartments in which the politicians spent some minutes reviewing conditions and talking to tenants, had nothing to do with the 2016 presidential race, as we reported Friday afternoon in the first story to come out of the senator’s tour of the property.

Instead, Rubio was focused on the neglect of the property, talking to a representative of Global Ministries Foundation about the owner/operator not following through with commitments to make substantial repairs as they said they would.

A good example came early in the walk.

Pointing to where a crew was stationed to work, Rubio told media that “they started all that repair work two days ago when they heard I was coming.”

“Seventy-two hours ago,” Rubio said, it wasn’t happening.

From there, walking to a unit, Rubio was told that the front stairwell was the only one that could be used, because the back was closed down.

Looking at the dilapidated metal framework, well past its usable life, Rubio said “this isn’t far behind.”

Later on, Rubio called Global Ministries Foundation “an old-fashioned slumlord” whose nonprofit status, Rubio said, was a dodge to “avoid property tax.”

He then said the group’s feeble simulations of repair work were “all a show.”

“They only do anything when people make noise,” Rubio added.

That sounded like a senator worried about the conditions in which those people have to live.

Marco Rubio’s political future is uncertain, and whether he supports Trump or not to a meaningful degree likewise is also uncertain.

What is much more certain and meaningful: the hellscape reality at Eureka Garden, a facility that has failed its tenants in every imaginable way: moldy units, leaky gas pipes, and tangible improvements only made when the cameras are on.

As he pointed out. Many, many times.

One major thing Rubio pointed out to the press that the Today Show did not cover: the systemic flaws that allow so-called non-profits like Global Ministries Foundation to buy these properties, collect federal money, and go on their merry way without making the properties livable.

Rubio then went on to put the entire system of 501(c)(4) nonprofits on blast, saying that the model was for them to do “minimal maintenance” and give a “couple of tenants extra-special care” to bluff their way through HUD inspections.

Then the senator vowed he would push for all Global Ministries Foundation units to be examined when he returned to D.C. on Monday, to ensure that Global Ministries Foundation “never again” gets federal money.

He added that the situation at Eureka Garden is “in no sense isolated” and quite likely is replicated elsewhere, adding that GMF’s “C4 status is laughable.”

Rubio commented on the “bidding war” interested parties have in the GMF portfolio, in a way that deserved mention by the Today Show.

“Bidding war? I thought these were nonprofit. What are they doing with the profits?”

That was the real story The Today Show could have told. A story affecting people’s lives.

Not interesting to them.

More interesting? A tired, old political horse race story.

The Today Show owes Marco Rubio an apology. More to the point, it owes Jacksonville and the tenants of Eureka Garden a do over.