Florida’s Top 5 Fake News Reporters for the Week of 1/2-1/9

Florida’s Conservative Voice Presents Florida’s Top 5 Fake News Reporters of the Week: Every week, FCV will rank the worst reporters covering Florida politics. Our team, and readers, have noticed a stark uptick of fake news “journalists” that are consistently lying or misleading the public on Florida affairs in politics, ranging from Governor Ron DeSantis to COVID-19. In an effort to promote more journalistic integrity, these individuals will be cited for their attempts to mislead the public.

January 10, 2021 Updated 5:00 P.M. ET

5: Travis Akers

Akers, who has been featured in Newsweek and writes from “Hola Sober,” reported on Twitter that Governor Ron DeSantis’ “first press conference of 2022” held last week comes as he “faced statewide criticism of being absent from public view over the past three weeks while COVID pillaged the Sunshine State.”

Akers, seemingly not a member of the Governor’s press email list, is not aware that DeSantis has had active work schedules throughout the entire month of December, with the exception of a couple holidays and, perhaps even more important, his wife’s cancer treatment.

This left-wing narrative has been parroted on Twitter ad infinitum, and these “journalists” seem to fail to realize that Christmastime and having a cancer-diagnosed wife can lead to times where family comes first; not doing daily press conferences for a short period of time has nothing to do with the spread of COVID-19 or his performance.

4: Fabiola Santiago

Welcome back to the list, Fabiola!

Monday, Santiago published another horrendous Miami Herald opinion article titled “On anniversary of Capitol attack, Florida’s Gov. DeSantis dishonors democracy.” 

She opened the article by calling the anti-mandate and anti-government control governor an “autocrat” and blasted him for not saying “a word about domestic terrorists” (nobody has been charged with terrorism or insurrection in connection to the Capitol rally).

Aside from her fawning over President Joe Biden, saying he gave a  “brilliant” commemorative speech “rooted in history,” she expects DeSantis to accept what Biden and the Democrats say as true and call millions of Trump supporters insurrectionists. 

Hilariously, she drew on DeSantis “and his people arresting a respected civil rights leader” to explain how he is becoming a tyrant.

3: Cindy Krischer Goodman, David Fleshler and David Schutz

These three authors penned a Sun Sentinel article titled “Florida’s COVID cases and hospitalizations are surging, but the state has the second-lowest death rate in the nation. What’s going on? The coping-and-seething headline aside, the article contains blatant falsities that must be called out.

The authors are shocked that Florida’s death rate remains so low. One reason they ponder: Florida’s data reporting simply means we will not know the true death rate. Omicron has been surging for over a month. If people were dying in droves, we would know.

Second, they incorrectly claim that because of Florida’s “horrific death toll from delta and its acquired resistance and vaccination rates,” deaths are lower. According to the New York Times, however, Florida has over ten thousand less total deaths than California and Texas, and has only 2 thousand more deaths than New York (which has ~2 million less people). Florida’s low death rate cannot be explained to previous deaths; if this were the case, why is Florida beating California?

It seems like these reporters are very sad there isn’t more death in Florida. Sad!

2: Mary Ellen Klas

Welcome back to the Top 5, Mary!

Last week, Florida Power and Light (FPL) revealed very troubling information regarding the Miami Herald’s Tallahassee bureau chief, Klas: she inappropriately lobbied Florida state senators and abridged the line of impartiality as a journalist (which is what FCV has said for months).

In a press release, FPL detailed how they tried to expose Klas’ inappropriate actions. The Herald went on to commence a sly cover-up of her actions, fully knowing the extent of her wrongdoing with a letter sent to Miami Herald from the Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson:

“It has become clear that [Klas] is seeking to pre-litigate the 2022 redistricting cycle, pitting Senate counsel against expert witnesses frequently used by plaintiffs in litigation against the state, thereby creating a manipulated legislative record to be used in the courts.”

According to the letter, Klas was advocating for organizations that will “bring litigation against the Legislature.”

Klas, the now-exposed left-wing activist, NOT an objective reporter, should not be a trusted voice of journalism.

1: Dave Elias

In a Nikki Fried-inspired fake news report, Dave Elias of NBC2 parroted and amplified claims that DeSantis found 1 million expired COVID-19 tests “stockpiled in warehouse.”

Fried claims that DeSantis let these tests expire and did not distribute them to Floridiaians who needed them. Rather than fact check her, Elias parroted and amplified her message.

The truth: there was no secret stockpile of tests; DeSantis purchased the tests for the Delta variant surge. When those tests expired in September, they were promptly extended to expire much later in December. In fact, since July, Florida has sent over 3 million tests. 

These details were not included in Elias’ misleading report. Where are the liberal “fact-checkers?”