DeSantis hates Florida media, but we sure are eating up his Martha’s Vineyard stunt

Speaking at the National Conservatism Convention in Aventura this month, Gov. DeSantis’ campaign director of rapid retaliation, Christina Pushaw, outlined her policy for dealing with “legacy media” outlets:

“Cut them off,” deny access and attack, the website Florida Politics reported.

But DeSantis sure knows how to bait journalists into giving him wall-to-wall coverage. His latest made-for-the-media stunt of sending unsuspecting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard was cruel and a waste of Floridians’ tax dollars. It was also the stuff of a wicked genius — though the jury is still out on whether it will backfire.

No politician in recent Florida history, other than Donald Trump, has shown such skill in using the same media outlets he reportedly abhors. If cable-news channels made bank while

Trump was in the White House, DeSantis is the hand that feeds a lot of fodder for news stories in outlets like, yes, the Miami Herald and our opinion pages.

It’s no secret that the governor has his sights on the presidency. DeSantis knows the key is staying relevant and rattling liberals. What better way than by dumping migrants in America’s enclave for the wealthy?

Many 2024 GOP primary voters get their news from Fox News and other rightwing sources that have been eating this up. But Fox News alone isn’t helping him achieve notoriety. Florida is still a thriving market for newspapers — the “legacy media” Pushaw talked about — no matter how much they’ve struggled in the past decade.

Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, owns more than a dozen papers in some of the reddest, and wealthiest, parts of the state, including the Panhandle and Naples, as well as in blue Palm Beach County. The Herald, the Tampa Bay Times, among the state’s largest papers, have enormous reach no matter how much conservatives like to say we’re only good for lining birdcages.

I’m no Pollyanna: Distrust of traditional media is real. I don’t deny that the financial pressure we’ve faced has led to cuts and layoffs that hurt local news coverage that’s crucial to democracy. Or that journalists could do a better job covering and understanding conservative voters and issues.

DeSantis has been good for the media, and the media have been good for DeSantis. This cat-andmouse game he’s playing with journalists is not new or original. It serves a dual purpose: evading accountability while fueling grievances against the “liberal press.” At the same time,

I’m sure DeSantis truly feels he hasn’t gotten a fair shake from journalists he considers represent that “liberal press,” though he’s managed to keep his name in headlines almost daily.

The question taxpayers and voters must ask themselves is whether this game helps the country. Is DeSantis helping solve our broken immigration system with stunts? Who truly benefits when he divides Floridians over LGBTQ issues, transgender athletes and his favorite punching bag, critical race theory?

DeSantis seems to fancy himself a puppeteer of public opinion. Can he go too far?the old adage that any publicity is good publicity is helping him. But DeSantis ought to be careful: The tide of public opinion can change in an instant.

Isadora Rangel is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. A shorter version of this column appeared in The Miami Debate, an online Opinion newsletter. It’s weekly, and it’s free. To subscribe, go to miamiherald.com/ themiamidebate.

There are a few things you should be asking yourself right about now.

Meaning you students who find yourselves living in places where selfappointed guardians of public morality have been busily banning books. This includes Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott wants to jail librarians who allow students access to novels he deems “pornographic.” And Tennessee, where a preacher in suburban Nashville held an honestto-Goebbels book burning to destroy such dangerous texts as “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”

It includes Pennsylvania, where one school district now requires a citizens panel to sign off on every book school librarians purchase, and

Arizona, where schools are required to publish a list of all newly purchased library materials. And naturally, it includes Florida, where Palm Beach County teachers were ordered to review books in their classroom libraries with an eye toward purging references to racism, sexism and other systems of oppression, under a new state law restricting the teaching of those subjects.

Not incidentally, this — Sept. 18-24 — is the 40th annual observation of Banned Books Week. It comes at what Publishers Weekly has dubbed a time of “new urgency” in the struggle over intellectual freedom. The American Library Association reports that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year, schools, universities and public libraries saw attempts to ban or restrict 1,651 different books. That tops the 1,597 books that were targeted all of last year — and last year was an all-time record.

So, yes, you should ask yourself a few things.

Ask yourself: What is it these people are trying to keep you from understanding or feeling?

What do they think is going to happen if a book challenges you, confuses you, validates you or just inspires you to see something from another point of view? Why are they so scared that you might think differently?

Ask yourself: Why is it that many of the books being challenged or banned are by people of color or LGBTQ authors or have themes of race or sexuality? What do the book banners and burners fear from your being exposed to such things? Is it that you might start asking questions that make them uncomfortable? If so, isn’t that their problem — not yours?

Ask yourself: Why is it so many of the people who want to ban books from schools are the same ones who have no problem letting guns in? They’re terrified that a book will put an idea in your head; why aren’t they terrified that a gun will put a bullet there?

Ask yourself: Are you some fragile thing, some piece of human glass who needs the sharp edges and hard surfaces of new ideas bubblewrapped so that you don’t shatter against them? Or are you not smart and capable enough to handle yourself?

Ask yourself: What is the difference between banning books in Iran, Russia, Cuba and other dictatorships, and doing it here? Is it that we’re supposed to be the ones who know better?

After all, this is still — purportedly — a free country. But that freedom is under siege, as vividly attested by new laws that muzzle teachers, by the ransacking of women’s rights under the supremely illegitimate Court, by schemes that keep people of color from voting, by the attack on the U.S. Capitol. And if voting and protesting are acts of resistance, this week affirms that simply reading a book is, too. In fact, one could argue that each of us has a patriotic duty to make a book banner mad.

Because here’s the thing: If you can’t read freely, how can you ever live freely?

Ask yourself that, too, while you’re at it.