Matt Shirk comms director blasts Action News Jax for ‘out-of-context attack’

On Monday, Jenna Bourne of Action News Jax revealed that Robbie Foster, communications director for 4th Circuit Public Defender Matt Shirk, “barely swipes in at work.”

By “swipes in,” Bourne meant Foster using his ID badge to get in the building.

And by “barely,” Bourne meant that Foster used his card to get into the building 24 out of 71 days tracked from the beginning of September.

Foster took issue with the television report. And told us what he thought.

“Anyone who thinks the job of communications director, external affairs, or public information officer is a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday job is only the kind of ignoramus that could run a story like last night on Action News Jax,” Foster said.

“People are tired of news organizations drumming up stories from nowhere,” Foster added, “about a nobody like me.”

“It’s no surprise that Action News is third in the ratings,” Foster continued, going on to describe the story as a “total out of context attack’ and an attempt to get “really great screen time in a bigger media market.”

[Note: Action News is not actually third in the ratings, and is actually first with the 25-54 demo in many time slots].

Foster, when asked if he’d been to work more than the 24 days Bourne suggested he’d been in the office, said “more than not.”

“The claim is that I only worked 24 days because I swiped my card 24 times,” Foster said, noting that he’d traveled a lot in the period, including trips to Orlando for the Republican Party of Florida quarterly meeting, Houston, and California, where he went in November.

Foster noted that, while on his Houston trip, he “got a call on Saturday from a reporter who wants to know what’s going on with Matt Shirk,” an indication of the nonstop nature of his job.

“I don’t get to punch a time card, to check out. I have to answer every single call and email. Just like I had to do with Action News,” Foster said. “I called back when clocked out.”

“In this job,” Foster said, “you roll over in your bed and the first thing you do is check text messages” to see if a reporter has an inquiry.”

The job can’t be “defined by key swipes,” Foster said, noting that he’d used a manual key for a pragmatic purpose.

“I don’t want people to know where I am,” Foster said, adding that the far-flung nature of the 4th Judicial Circuit can take him anywhere from Amelia Island to Green Cove Springs on a given day.

“There’s a lot of times you need to be at the courthouse in Amelia Island or Green Cove Springs,” Foster said, to “disseminate” information to the media.

Foster took “multiple days of leave without pay,” which he wouldn’t have done, he said, were he “gaming the system.”

“If I were going to pull a fast one,” Foster added, “why would I put in for leave without pay?”

Foster believes that this story, and others that have materialized in recent months targeting the Public Defender’s office, was planted by political adversaries of Matt Shirk.

Up to 75 percent of the office, Foster claims, “voted for Charlie, don’t like Matt, don’t like me, and resent the pay raise” Foster got when promoted to his current position.

“They’re going to have a rude awakening with Charlie in office,” Foster predicts.

Foster also takes issue with the idea that he was “hired for no other reason than to get Matt re-elected,” as a “reward for political loyalty rather than service.”

Foster took issue with “why they felt the need to mention that my father is a judge” also.

Foster notes that his family is involved in public service, and “I’ve dedicated myself to the community to get the right people elected who should be elected.”

“I don’t know why they paint me as someone who tries to fleece the taxpayers,” Foster said.

Action News Jax, for its part, stands by the facts in its reporting, and intends to run a follow-up story at 6:00 p.m.