Phil Ammann
Newspaper editors are certainly entitled to hold an opinion; that is why there are Op-Ed pages.
In the case of the Tampa Bay Times, the lines between content and its bottom line begin to blur after an online editorial featured a prominent banner ad which takes the exact same position as the op-ed.
While it may be a coincidence, it’s a coincidence that raises more than a few questions.
Keep Our Constitution Clean, which calls on the Constitutional Revision Commission — an “unelected body of political appointees,” as its website proclaims — to “exercise restraint and reject proposals that detract from the Florida Constitution’s purpose.”
The group popped up in a banner ad on the Tampa Bay Times website, most prominently on the page of the editorial: “Don’t fall for Constitution Revision Commission’s tricks.” As one of the Times’ regularly rotating banners, the ad likely appeared elsewhere on the site.
In this instance, an ad critical of CRC work and processes just happens to appear where the Times editorializes — critical of CRC work and processes. Advertisers saying the same exact thing as a paper’s editorial board could be just coincidence. Perhaps.
Nevertheless, in its campaign against the CRC, Keep door Our Constitution Clean is a 501(c) organization, and as such, uses dark money with no disclosure of revenue or expenses. Keep Our Constitution Clean is not registered as a political committee, but instead as a business entity listed with the Florida Division of Corporations — which does not have to disclose its funding source.
Also, records show the group shares an address — 888 S. Andrews Ave. in Ft. Lauderdale — with a handful of other organizations giving political money almost exclusively to Democrats. Names include Representative Democracy PC, Floridians for Ethics Accountability and Responsibility, among others.
Some of the state and local candidates (and organizations) taking money from those entities that share the same address as Keep Our Constitution Clean: The Florida Democratic Party, José Javier Rodriguez, Margaret Good, Jennifer Webb, Wengay Newton, Attorney General hopeful Sean Shaw, and incoming Democratic leader Kionne McGhee.
While the Tampa Bay Times is quick to take people to task over transparency, shadow groups and the like, it is certainly interesting they accept ad money from a group doing exactly those same things.
Of course, correlation is not causation. Sharing the same office space as several strongly Democratic-leaning political committees does not necessarily make them one in the same.
But, then again, one has to wonder.
