A Florida state senator walks in to a Tallahassee bar. She sits down next to a big city newspaper reporter. They chat about the things that pols and newsies used to chat about in the 20th century, when both professions had better poll numbers than they do now.
The bar is owned by Andrew Reiss, who is entering his fifth decade on Adams Street, where he serves up hearty food and sturdy adult beverages to people who make things happen and people who report on the happenings. The senator is Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach. The reporter is Carol Marbin Miller of the Miami Herald.
Sachs was in town for a bill-signing; Miller was on furlough, the unpaid vacations which have become a staple of Old Medias 21st century business model.
Both women cut their professional teeth in a place where reporters got most of their news from people who were not afraid to talk to them, face-to-face, using all five senses.
That place is Sachs south Palm Beach County district, where Millers Florida journalism career began in 1983 at the Boca Raton News. The News in its heyday was owned by the late John S. and James L. Knight, whose presence continues to be felt through the fortune they amassed in the newspaper business, and left to communities like Tallahassee and Miami, where they once owned the local newspapers.
"Marbin, as shes known to friends in the journalism community, went on to earn a roomful of investigative reporting honors for The Palm Beach Post and the St. Petersburg Times. And somewhere today, the Knight Brothers are smiling about her recent multiple individual and team honors which include being named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for a stunning expose of how Floridas elders are Neglected to Death in assisted living facilities.
When Reiss opened his restaurant in 1972, the borders between politicians and the press were very porous, but everybody knew where the lines were. News people insisted upon getting information from primary sources, and primary sources were not afraid to speak for themselves.
Politicians and jounros still go to Andrews, but like the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story, they mostly stick to their own kind.
For Floridas sake, that needs to change.
Florence Snyder is a corporate lawyer in Tallahassee. She also consults on ethics and First Amendment issues. Contact her at lawyerflo@gmail.com.
