Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Florence SnyderMarch 31, 2014

Florida agency heads have been lying to reporters, spinning like dreidels, and withholding public records since the Chiles administration. So let’s give Rick Scott’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner points for breaking new ground with his prior restraint on journalist, author, Florida State University (FSU) professor and all-around state treasure Diane Roberts. Roberts is an eighth […]

Florence SnyderMarch 19, 2014

Editor Lenore Devore thinks reporters should look at the wheat to be found in public records, and not the chaff of press releases peddled by taxpayer-supported ministers of disinformation. So when the Lakeland Police Department’s “public information officer” stonewalled a young police reporter looking to flesh out details of a shooting, Devore did what good […]

Florence SnyderJanuary 13, 2014

Muckraking matters, but the true test of a newspaper’s mettle is its day-to-day commitment to telling ordinary stories in extraordinary ways. Florida lost one of its most gifted — and beloved — storytellers Saturday when Tim O’Meilia, 65, succumbed to cancer. O’Meilia leaves behind wife Debbie, sons Rolly and Casey, and generations of Florida journalists […]

Florence SnyderDecember 5, 2013

Arthur England was an unpretentious man. Unlike a lot of retired traffic magistrates, he did not want to be called “Judge” after he left the Florida Supreme Court in 1981. It was easy to forget that for all of his professional life, he really was the smartest guy in the room. England, who died Aug. […]

Florence SnyderSeptember 25, 2013

With the passing of Dexter Douglass, Florida has lost one more of its dwindling supply of lawyers who make friends out of clients, and leave them in better condition than they found them. Douglass hung out his shingle in an era when law was a respected profession and lawyers aspired to be the person in […]

Guest AuthorSeptember 19, 2013

I’m thinking of moving back to Tallahassee because I understand there’s a new line of work available for folks like me. I used to be a public relations professional there, helping clients generate interest in their issues, communicate more effectively with the public and avoid missteps in the dicey world of state politics. After years […]

Florence SnyderSeptember 8, 2013

Context Florida Publisher Peter Schorsch got it wrong — dead wrong — when he suggested in his Sept. 5 Saintpetersblog post that reporter envy might taint coverage of “the Chris Clark imbroglio.” Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas broke the story that Florida’s power elite spent the week chewing over, praying over, and […]

Florence SnyderSeptember 3, 2013

As Sen. Eleanor Sobel and Interim Department of Children & Families Secretary Esther Jacobo were practicing their talking points for last month’s Tri-County Legislative Delegation Town Hall, the Miami Herald was toting up bodies for its explanatory journalism headlined Killing our kids. Veteran reporter Carol Marbin Miller knows where the public records are, and she’s […]

Florence SnyderApril 15, 2013

Mad Men is back on television, reminding us how far the science of selling has fallen since the Age of the Three Martini Lunch. Don Draper, the sexiest advertising man not really alive, and his partners at the fictional 1960s Madison Avenue agency Sterling Cooper Draper, might seduce their secretaries and play their wives for fools, but […]

Tag: Florence Snyder

Florence Snyder: Detzner praises “witty” speaker, then cancels her lecture

Florence Snyder: It’s Sunshine Week: Meet a young woman from the Old School

Florence Snyder: Palm Beach Post’s O’Meilia, gifted storyteller, dead at 65

Florence Snyder: ‘Judge’ England was the smartest guy in the room

Florence Snyder: Dexter Douglass: Helping real people with real problems

Jim McClellan: Lobbying the news media? Not likely

Florence Snyder: Columnist wrong to suggest envy might taint coverage

Florence Snyder: State is failing the vulnerable children in its care

Florence Snyder: Today’s ‘Mad Men’ More Insipid Than ‘60s Originals