Does Adam Smith really belong on list of Florida’s best political reporters?

Each time this year, there are nominees for awards that leave many scratching their heads. This is true whether it be the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, or The Washington Post‘s list of best state-based political reporters.

Yesterday, The Fix’s Chris Cillizza unveiled his list of the best “scribes covering state and local politics. They rarely get the attention of their colleagues at the national level but are often covering the very politicians and national trends that come to impact the broad political landscape.”

Now, I don’t want to criticize Cillizza too harshly for his questionable choices as it relates to the Florida press because The Fix has for three years running named SaintPetersBlog one of the best state-based political blogs and one of the best political Twitter accounts.

That said, Cillizza’s inclusion of the Tampa Bay Times‘ Adam Smith on the 2015 lists suggests The Fix does not pay close enough attention to the state of the Sunshine State’s media.

The first indication of this was, at first, Cillizza only mentioned Smith and the Miami Herald‘s/POLITICO’s Marc Caputo. Not soon after hitting the publish button on this post, Cillizza was inundated with criticism via social media that he left off several of the best political reporters in Florida, most notably the Associated Press’ Gary Fineout. Cillizza quickly updated his list to include Fineout, the AP’s Brendan Farrington, and the Naples Daily News‘ Matt Dixon.

As grateful as we all were that Cillizza improved upon his list, it still does not explain why Smith was included, other than Cillizza’s mention of Smith as a “longtime stalwart” of state-based political reporting.

So, because Smith has been doing his thing for a long time, he gets grandfathered in to the current list?

This decision is not as bad as leaving Ava DuVernay off the list of Academy Award nominees for best director, but it’s still inexplicable.

Smith is not only no longer in the Top 5 of Florida political reporters, he may not be in the Top 10.

Caputo, Fineout, Dixon, Dara Kam, Mary Ellen Klas, Tia Mitchell, Michael Van Sickler, and Carol Marbin Miller all belong on the list before Smith does. A strong case can be made for television reporters Mike Deeson and Noah Pransky being on the list before Smith.

Other than his color-by-the-numbers features, like Winner/Loser of the Week in Florida politics and Florida Insider Polls, what has Smith brought to the political conversation this past year?

Sure, sure, he and reporter Michael Kruse wrote a mind-numbingly long profile of former Gov. Charlie Crist, but it so missed the mark that it was quickly discarded — even by Crist’s political opponents.

Smith’s byline was largely missing from the Crist vs. Rick Scott campaign, going weeks at a time without filing a story and only posting a quick entry on the Buzz blog (most often about another reporter’s work.)

Smith spent most of 2014 on his hands, not weighing in on most of the salient issues of the day, such as the state’s blockbuster redistricting case.

What’s most disappointing is Smith has perhaps the most prestigious platform in Florida political media. He’s the political editor of the largest newspaper in the Southeast U.S., yet when a genuine political player has a story they want to leak, they most often turn to Caputo, Dixon, Fineout, or Klas.

Ask yourself, what was the last big scoop Smith, supposedly one of the two best political reporters in the state, broke?

Now ask yourself how many scoops Caputo, Dixon, Fineout, Kam, heck even John Kennedy or James Rosica have had THIS MONTH?

Yesterday, after seeing Smith’s name on The Fix’s list, I tweeted that Smith is a lot like the Notre Dame football program. His overinflated ranking is based on the past, not the present and certainly not the future.