ORLANDO, Fla. (September 28, 2020) – State Representative nominee and Orange Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor Daisy Morales is now calling for the firing of an Orlando Sentinel reporter and the editorial staff who approved his September 22, 2020 article that was riddled with falsehoods appearing to sway the Florida House District 48 election, as well as the members of the editorial board responsible for writing the article endorsing her opponent on September 25, 2020 for their flagrant use of false information.
“Thank God all media reporting for our community isn’t controlled by the Orlando Sentinel,” said Morales. “A free press should tell the truth. The public, its elected officials, and the news industry must demand it. I’m demanding it now from the Orlando Sentinel.
“The Sentinel has lost touch with the community it serves when it comes to zero tolerance for false reporting, peddling distortion and misinformation. The Sentinel just gives more fuel to Trump’s claim of “fake news.”
Orlando Sentinel’s False Reporting
In the Sentinel’s September 22nd article, reporter Stephen Hudak falsely reported that Morales was absent from Soil & Water Board meetings from March 2019 to February 2020–an entire year. Morales immediately clapped back in a press statement supplying the facts—which could’ve been easily attained by requesting the Orange Soil & Water Board meeting minutes—and demanding the Orlando Sentinel issue an apology to the public and correct the false information.
On September 25, the Sentinel’s editorial board published an article endorsing Morales’s opponent, but took every liberty to slam her in the process—with still more false information.
The article reads in relevant part:
“People like Morales, who in a blog post criticizing a recent Orlando Sentinel story about her time on the board challenged readers to check her attendance at orangesoilandwater.org. The only links to minutes available from previous meetings are from the January and February meetings. There’s no information about who staffs the place and no phone numbers anywhere. Maybe that’s where Morales ran into problems.
“An effective supervisor would have at least gotten the website right after six years in office.”
The Actual Facts
“It’s a petty swipe, and more importantly, another outright lie,” Morales expressed in response to the website comment. “All they had to do was check the minutes, and if the minutes aren’t on the website, then it’s their job—their job—to follow up by contacting Orange Soil & Water Board Chairman and Secretary Michael Barber for the minutes. Had they done that, they would know that in the January 2019 meeting, Supervisor Dziekan and I presented a new and fully compliant website (which I paid for out of my own pocket) to the Board. The Board instead tabled the vote to approve the website because they wanted us to make some changes, but in the March 2020 meeting, Chairman Barber ultimately decided to have another website—a currently non-compliant one—made for free.
Better yet, a simple Google search would’ve done the trick. An article related to the website Supervisor Dziekan and I created is on the first page of the search results.
“And as someone who aims to provide value to the people, I wasn’t only instrumental in putting the site together, but I ensured that as many people, groups, and organizations knew about the website as possible, sharing it over 40 times on social media. I sent it to the Florida Department of Equal Opportunity to ensure it was in compliance with Florida law, as well as water management districts, the City of Orlando, Orange County Government and the Orange County Supervisor of Elections to ensure they had updated information about the new website to share with their residents and voters.
“The Orlando Sentinel failed to follow basic journalistic steps consistent with accurate and fair reporting. These articles are just lazy writing, and the writers responsible for them need to be fired immediately. With these falsehoods, the public now has to question the legitimacy of any of the Sentinel’s endorsements.
Orlando Sentinel’s Questionable Practices
“The Sentinel seems to be using as many resources as it can to maliciously attack me, said Morales. “The Florida Bar Association lists 24 different badges of constitutional malice by a media outlet, and it appears the Sentinel meets four of them with these articles:
– They’ve failed to conduct a thorough investigation before publishing serious and damaging allegations against me, which leads to:
– Omitting pertinent information to create a false impression
– They’re emphasizing unimportant events to support a defamatory statement (by using my absences while not acknowledging the absences of anyone else on the Board in order to discredit me, especially since the Soil & Water Board has no established policy on absences)
– They’ve refused to publish a retraction upon learning the errors in their story, even after I supplied them with the facts
“During the January 2020 meeting, which the Orlando Sentinel covered, they were aware of the Orange Soil & Water Conservation District Board’s dysfunction, but said nothing of the abolishment of Soil & Water Boards statewide in their coverage at the time. However, all of sudden in the editorial board’s endorsement article for my opponent, they point to me as a reason why Soil & Water boards are relics of the past and will likely be abolished statewide.
“During the primary, the Orlando Sentinel requested to interview me and I had a scheduling conflict. I did do an interview with El Sentinel, but the Orlando Sentinel responded by slamming me in their endorsement of Samuel Vilchez Santiago, saying that I didn’t deserve serious consideration by voters and publishing a false assumption that I was dodging questions about my meeting attendance. I called the Sentinel out on their false reporting then, too.
“Once I won the primary, the Sentinel once again requested an interview with my opponent and me and I once again had a scheduling conflict. They offered two dates: September 18, 2020 and September 25, 2020. I informed Barbara Jay, a member of the editorial board who was coordinating the interview, that I wasn’t available on the 18th, but the 25th was never discussed as an option again, and I received an email on the 17th thanking me for helping to confirm the interview, which I never did.
“Their response? Two articles with false information. It appears the editorial board’s endorsement piece is an extension of the false reporting from Stephen Hudak’s September 22nd article, because they continued to use the same false information–also known as the fruit of the poisonous tree–and this false information is being circulated by other media outlets who presume it’s factual.
“This malicious targeting appears to be politically motivated and the people responsible need to be fired.”
High Profile News Staff Fired or Suspended for False Reporting
Firing reporters and editorial staff for false reporting isn’t uncommon. ABC suspended chief investigative reporter Brian Ross and Newsweek fired a reporter for falsely reporting on President Trump, and CBS News fired four executives and senior producers back in 2005 for producing a false report on President Bush for 60 Minutes.
“The Orlando Sentinel knows this well enough, because they even covered Kathi Belich’s firing from WFTV back in 2016 after falsely reporting that State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s husband, David Ayala, had a gun felony charge,” Morales added. “The Ayala campaign said the same thing about Belich that I’m saying here: Belich appeared to be reporting false information to sway the election, and it appears the Orlando Sentinel is doing the same thing.
“Speaking of political motivation, it’s interesting how things escalated from the recommendation that voters shouldn’t give me serious consideration during the primary, to me now being the worst Democratic candidate and that Democratic voters have an alternative in my Republican opponent. Nothing about me as a person changed between the primary and now.”
Why These Firings are Necessary
“Journalism has the highest standards because of the incredible power the media has to shape public opinion,” said Morales. “This is a big responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly or abused. And quite frankly, false reporting is an insult to the people’s intelligence.
“If Tribune Publishing has any standards about basic media principles and actually values its readers and subscribers, then they’ll remove the reporters and staff at Orlando Sentinel who are poisoning their brand and misleading readers by reporting false information.
“I will not sit on the sidelines and watch the Orlando Sentinel spread false information and do nothing when I’m armed with the truth and the facts.”
Media Contact: DaisyForFlorida@gmail.com | Campaign Website: DaisyForFlorida.com
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