FloridaCapitalTea was asked recently to look into the amount of money the city spends on media outlets. Our neighbors express distrust in the local media and their stories. Many express they feel like the media writes stories in a slant to better represent the city management at the cost of information to the public. While neighbors express trust in some outlets, we’ve seen a resounding distrust in the Tallahassee Reports run by Steve Stewart.
FloridaCapitalTea witnessed a gross misrepresentation and false information from Tallahassee Reports on several occasions, specifically regarding our firefighters and their pay. Why would someone call themselves “news” and publish information they know to be incorrect? When we asked this question, we were told to follow the money.
The City’s Checkbook
We started our search with the City of Tallahassee’s Checkbook. We observe that the city began paying Red Hills Journalism in 2019. The department the city pays them from is labeled “COMMUNICATIONS-PUBLIC INFORM” and “CAPITAL PROG & ENV COMPLIANCE.” We looked up the stories published directly after Tallahassee Reports was paid from “communications-Public inform” department.
While were are making assumptions here, we can’t help but wonder about the correlation between the payment and the stories published directly after publishing. Is this a coincidence that Tallahassee Reports writes stories that favor city management the day of or right after payment from the city?
The total cost the City has paid Tallahassee reports so far this year is $5,500. The total cost the city spent with Tallahassee Reports in 2023 was $16,370.
But that’s not all, Steve Stewart hosts a show on “Real Talk Radio 93.3” which is owned by Magic Broadcasting. The City paid Magic Broadcasting a total of $3,960 so far this year.
We compared Tallahassee Reports transactions with The Tallahassee Democrat and WCTV. The Tallahassee Democrat received more money from The City of Tallahassee in 2023. So far this year the Tallahassee Democrat has only received $37 dollars. We looked into the transactions in 2023 and found that one third of The City’s spending on the Democrat was for “Love your local Advertising.” They spent $10,409 on just this initiative. Most other charges came from various departments for subscriptions to the Democrat as well as a few other advertising pieces. There are no transactions for The Tallahassee Democrat from the “Public Inform” department.
The biggest difference between the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee Reports is their journalism status. While Tallahassee Democrat is a business and functions as such, Tallahassee reports is a registered non-profit blog site.
Red Hills Journalism Foundation
Red Hills Journalism foundation is listed on the Tallahassee Reports “About Us” page. Tallahassee Reports states this is a nonprofit 501c3. So, this presents a few questions: Is the city donating to Stewart’s journalism or is it a contract? Is Tallahassee Reports actually a business and not a non-profit as advertised?
A non-profit has limitations on lobbying as well as political actions. According to the IRS website “all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”
However, when we open the page we immediately see advertisements for Rudy Ferguson and Curtis Richardson. Scrolling through “Local City posts” we see many disparagingly written about Jack Porter. We were unable to immediately see any about Curtis Richardson. So we searched his name on their site. The most recent article written about him was July 19, 2023 and was his re-election announcement.
Searching Jack Porters name we found six posts written just this year with headlines that read
- City Commissioner Jack Porter, Rudy Ferguson & Louis Dilbert Answer Questions at Candidate Forum
- “Commissioner Jack Porter Silent About Who Paid for Her Travel Expenses to Progressive Conferences
- “DEVELOPING: City Taxpayers Fund Commissioner Jack Porter’s Activities with National Progressive Group”
- “Jack Porter Affiliated Group Issues Statement Supporting Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations”
While writing this post, Tallahassee reports published another two articles about Jack Porter: “Stewart: Jack Porter Plays Politics Amid JetBlue Exit” and “Equality Florida Endorses Jack Porter, Jeremy Rogers.” There are no additional posts about Curtis Richardson.
So if this is a non-profit that falls under the IRS regulations, are they adhering to the language used by the IRS?
What The Local Democratic Party Is Saying
A few months back we saw a statement released by the local Leon County Democrats. The Local Democrats state they are opposing the city’s funding of Tallahassee Reports. They cite it being due to it being “a heavily biased” publication.
We reached out to Ryan Ray, the chairman of Leon County Democrats, with a few questions of our own. Since we are mostly focused on the City’s spending with Tallahassee Reports, we asked him about Tallahassee Reports attempt to influence our politics.
FloridaCapitalTea: Has Leon County Democratic Party ever felt like Tallahassee Reports has played a part or intervened in any of our local elections?
Ryan Ray: Of course. Steve Stewart electioneers on his blog and on talk radio every week, attempting to sell a status quo establishment agenda to his (very few) Republican listeners.
I think that’s pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention to the local media landscape, though that term is used loosely with Steve. He is more of a propagandist.
Since he began taking large sums of local government money from the City, County and Blueprint, his entire worldview changed.
He went from conservative watchdog to insider lapdog, polluting the local conversation with paid bias, vitriolic attacks against good people, and press releases for his paying insider PR clients. It’s sad to witness his decline into angry irrelevance on his low-quality blog and unlistenable radio program.
FloridaCapitalTea: Which candidates do you feel Tallahassee Reports has helped or hurt in their campaigns?
Ryan Ray: Steve Stewart clearly supports the developer-funded Grow Tallahassee slate, as he did in 2022. He constantly obscures their record on issues like the 2023 property tax increase, and attacks their opponents in an unbalanced, dishonest manner.
Fortunately, it has little impact because principled conservatives have tuned him out as he loses any shred of credibility, while moderate Democrats and progressives have long rejected his Rush Limbaugh-style shtick.
FloridaCapitalTea: Is there any other opinion or perspective about Tallahassee Reports that you would like to share with our audience?
Ryan Ray: Steve Stewart should not receive tax dollars for his toxic misinformation. Almost everyone we have heard from about that agrees, across the political spectrum.
Steve removed Confederate enthusiast, pro-Robert E. Lee alt-right blogger Grant Holcomb from his website’s “Staff” page immediately after WFSU started asking questions about it earlier this year. Does this person who has written favorably about Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest still work with Steve’s government-funded political operation?
I would like to know more about that dynamic, which rightly offends and horrifies any normal Leon County resident.
Who Can We Trust?
FloridaCapitalTea found grossly inaccurate information in several of Tallahassee Reports posts. They amplify the City’s harmful rhetoric around the firefighters. Tallahassee Reports continues to do so even when presented with facts and evidence that state otherwise. The firefighter topic isn’t the only misinformation Tallahassee Reports has published. This is a pattern of behavior and not a one time mistake or “bad day.”
We rely on Media outlets to do their due diligence to provide us the most accurate information. Tallahassee Reports inaccurate information labeled as “news” is harmful to all other credible News outlets. The City encourages this inaccurate media site, further adding to the broken trust of the public in local government and news.
Steve Stewart sold out honesty and integrity for money paid for by tax dollars and has no remorse. He even has doubled down and defends it