The brief life and hilariously well-timed death of Ron’s personal right wing Wurlitzer

I found an article on The Florida Standard a few days ago while doing some research on another Florida fascist. It really increased my enjoyment of Dopenfuhrer DeShathis’ whining that the conservative propaganda apparatus dropped him for Dump.

You see, Ron had his very own, home-grown pro-Ron propaganda funnel. It was called The Florida Standard. The governor’s office worked directly with the outlet. Pro-Ron donors allegedly gave it money. And I’m using the past tense because despite all of that scaffolding the thing collapsed and shut down in December.

With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2024 presidential campaign continuing to hemorrhage support and staffers, not to mention struggling in all the state and federal public opinion polls, The Floridian has learned that the secretive pro-DeSantis blog, The Florida Standard, has fired all of its employees and will shutter its doors just in time for Christmas, and before Florida’s presidential primary election.

[…]

We expected this was going to happen, just not before Floridians were given a chance to vote, let alone Iowans.

The sources, who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity, said that the Governor’s office propped up the website and was giving it direction through several members of DeSantis’s presidential campaign and official office.

Seeking Rents detailed the workings of this particular sausage factory last February. Read the whole thing if for no other reason than to remember what reporting looks like, and that it still exists in this country.

Last summer, six days after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Tampa prosecutor Andrew Warren, one of the governor’s top aides drafted a public records request seeking copies of emails from Warren’s time as state attorney for the 13th Circuit.

DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske sent the proposed request to a writer at a newly launched conservative news website — who then submitted it to the State Attorney’s Office in his own name.

It was, records show, just the beginning of a collaboration between the DeSantis administration and The Florida Standard, which would go on to publish a story alleging that Warren might have misused taxpayer resources — a story that DeSantis staffers then promoted to others as if it were an independent piece of journalism.

The episode is a case study in how DeSantis, who is widely expected to run for president, has cultivated a network of sympathetic conservative news organizations that he and his strategists use to promote the governor — and attack his opponents.

I’m still looking for details on why the FS imploded in less than two years, but my working theory that is mine is that a right wing channel catfish got his grubby little pectoral fins on a big pile of money and nature ran its course.

According to a POLITICO profile story on the outlet’s CEO Will Witt, Witt said that “a dream” of his was to see his Florida-centric website be “emulated” around the country and “build this media empire.”

It appears that Witt’s dream has become a nightmare.

At least if any of those donors are really grouchy about the loss of their money. Otherwise, I’m sure Fuck will find his own level amongst all the other grifters and suckers. And grifters who don’t know they’re suckers. And suckers who think they’re grifters. And people who perfectly embody both qualities.

In the meantime, the Florida Standard represents another victim of the need to end these films on time. Or the intense greed of the people running it. Whichever.

In addition, DeSantis’s former chief of staff and current presidential campaign manager James Uthmeier, sat with The Floridian at the second Republican presidential debate in Simi Valley, California, and confirmed the governor’s office’s involvement with the media outlet.

When confronted about the worst-kept secret between the outlet and the Governor’s office, Uthmeier said, “Yeah, we made an effort to help them get going.”

Here’s hoping more right wing falsehood factories get that kind of help.