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    DeSantis Bashes the Media

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    Semafor is a new media company and outlet that was founded by two guys: Ben Smith and Justin Smith. It recently ran an article titled “Ron DeSantis is building his own media” and is now facing some serious blowback over its reporting on Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida’s relationship with the media.

    That article, which was run on Sunday and written by Semafor media reporter Max Tani, was primarily about how DeSantis tends to favor conservative media outlets, such as two new ones in Florida. The general contention of Tani was that DeSantis was stuck on favoring those conservative outlets because he wants easy interviews that help him build his popularity with a conservative audience and avoid tough questions that might derail his rise as a GOP star.

    Tani, tweeting about the issue, said “Ron DeSantis is building his own alternative conservative media ecosystem in Florida.” Similarly, Semafor’s Twitter account said, “The Florida governor has been freezing out the mainstream press and giving interviews to outlets backed by GOP donors.”

    Well, Team DeSantis responded with fire, pushing back hard at Tani’s claims and arguing that the legacy media had been frozen out because of its bias and bad reporting, not because of DeSantis’s desire to shy away from tough questions.

    Responding to Tani’s tweet, for example, Team DeSantis Rapid Response Director Christina Pushaw said “When your options are rabidly partisan legacy media, Democrat activists posing as a Capitol Press Corps, a pay4play Lincoln Project blog, and “new media” like Semafor (allegedly owned by Sam Bankman-Fried), of course it makes sense to cultivate an alternative.”

    Adding to that, she posted a quote of hers from earlier this year in which she said “if ALL conservatives simply stop talking to them, the legacy media will lose any shred of credibility or interest to Americans who follow politics. It won’t be worth paying for straight DNC opinion. We should use our platforms to build up new media.”

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    For reference, Semafor received some initial funding from Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, the cryptocurrency company that recently collapsed after being caught ripping off depositors. Hence the jibe from Pushaw about SBF owning Semafor.

    Pushaw also blasted Semafor’s inaccurate reporting, saying: “You don’t even fact check your own stories before publishing them, so why should @GovRonDeSantis talk to you? Fact: He talked with local TV stations in the last few months during Hurricane Ian and also did an interview with Telemundo.”

    Pushaw wasn’t the only one slamming the Semafor piece. Fox News Channel’s Joe Concha did as well, saying: “Is there a bigger joke than Semafor right now? So if we get this straight… DeSantis won’t appear on so-called mainstream programs like, you know, The View, and that means he’s freezing ‘media’ out? SBF can’t be happy with his big investment here. How big is that again?”

    Also joining in was Scott Wagner, who is the Vice Chairman for the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District. He tweeted, “Well, after 60 Minutes dropped all of its journalistic integrity and edited and falsified an entire piece, you don’t have to wonder why @GovRonDeSantis dumped those losers.”

    Mollie Hemingway, the editor of The Federalist, joined in the Semafor bashing too, saying “In an environment where corporate media are just straight up anti-GOP propagandists — and extremely proud of it — why is Ron DeSantis the only person taking it seriously? (Also major corporate media propagandists are obviously not ‘mainstream’ and should never be called that).”