Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to make his first visit to Alachua County this year Thursday — but most local media outlets won’t be there to cover it.
The Alachua County Republicans office informed The Alligator and other local outlets it won’t allow press at their annual Ronald Reagan Black Tie and Blue Jeans fundraising event, where DeSantis is set to deliver the keynote speech. The blackout is the latest in a series of moves from conservative organizations to distance themselves from the press amid media distrust.
Organizers like Alachua Republicans state committeewoman Raemi Eagle-Glenn say the lack of a press invite is event protocol.
“We’re just being consistent with what we have done in the past,” Eagle-Glenn said.
The last time The Alligator covered the event was in 2020, when British conservative pundit Katie Hopkins, who’s been accused of violent Islamophobic comments, was the night’s keynote speaker. Press was initially allowed, but later ushered out of the building.
Conservative commentator and activist Candace Owens, who spoke at the fundraiser last year, also put it in her contract that the party must keep the content of her remarks quiet, Eagle-Glenn said.
DeSantis’ Alachua County visit comes a little more than two weeks before the general election, where he’ll face Democratic challenger former Rep. Charlie Crist in the race for his second term. Crist stopped at the Alachua County Democrats headquarters Sept. 24, where press attended and spoke with him.
The DeSantis campaign referred The Alligator to the Alachua County Republicans in response to requests for comment.
Any record of DeSantis’ speech will be similarly confidential, Eagle-Glenn said.
The Alligator and other media, instead, is only able to buy a $125 ticket — which is a donation to the Alachua County GOP — to the now sold-out event.
Harvey Ward, a Democratic Gainesville mayoral candidate and city commissioner, said the restriction is to be expected.
The nature of the event doesn’t warrant the level of privacy being asked, Ward said, and if anything, Republicans should want media outlets there to create publicity.
“There’s nothing wrong I guess at some level with having a gathering of friends to talk about plans for an election,” Ward said. “But once you become governor, you give some of that up.”
The fundraiser in the city of Alachua’s Legacy Park, located at 15400 Peggy Road, will mark DeSantis’ first trip to Alachua County since his speaking engagement at Clark Plantation in Newberry last year. There, he and other Republican officials like state House Rep. Kat Cammack and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody rallied for a lawsuit against a Gainesville vaccine mandate for city employees.
Private events like the fundraiser are allowed to restrict access under First Amendment law, as the organization isn’t a government entity that must guarantee press access. The location also doesn’t qualify as a public forum.
The secrecy stems from self-preservation, Eagle-Glenn said. With perceived partisan lean in the media, she said the local Republican Party thought it was better to keep the press out of the conversation.
Eagle-Glenn has tried to keep herself available as a public official, she said, and she hasn’t experienced any lean in her personal experience with media outlets.
Still, she said local Republicans feel wary of the press — and they’re not the only ones. Only 58% of U.S. adults have at least some trust in the national media, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center study. That includes 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 78% of Democrats and Democratic leaners who reported at least some trust in the media.
Local media fares better, according to the study, with 66% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats reporting some trust in these outlets. But the American public has lost some confidence in both channels of communication.
The 2021 data represents a steady decline of trust across the board. Of U.S. adults, 76% reported trust in national media and 82% reported trust in local media in 2016. Those numbers dropped 18% and 7%, respectively, over five years.
The distrust partially stems from a trickle-down effect from top elected officials. Some conservative campaigns — like DeSantis’ — tout an “us vs. them” approach that depicts the press as an inherently biased monolith targeting Republican candidates.
Christina Pushaw, the rapid response director for the DeSantis campaign, vowed to keep some journalists out of campaign events in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference last month, Fox News reported. She deemed some national outlets as Democratic advocates, causing the campaign to continue restricting media attendance.
Voters like Nathan Sagnip, a 20-year-old UF sports management and marketing sophomore, said this condemnation is valid, especially in Alachua County. In an area that leans blue, he said the opportunity for negative spin is too high to let reporters listen to the governor speak.
For events like the fundraiser, press blackouts are smart moves that allow politicians like DeSantis to control their own narratives, Sagnip said.
“It’s better for the DeSantis campaign that the press isn’t there,” Sagnip said. “It doesn’t give the media the chance to project the actual outcome.”
The ramifications of the skepticism have already taken hold on Alachua County outlets.
Though DeSantis responds to the media at scheduled press conferences, The Alligator has consistently struggled to reach conservative candidates like him and Cammack through individual requests for comment. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, UF’s sole presidential finalist, has also offered no media availability since his candidacy announcement.
Some voters feel keeping the media out limits the information available to them on candidates and key races. Breanna Johnson, a 20-year-old UF biochemistry junior, said the blackout stifles productive discourse and withholds the news from readers like her.
“Blocking out the press with a paywall is basically just a way to block out free discussion,” Johnson said. “Paywalling reporters is just kind of dumb.”
The firewall could prevent backlash and protests like the ones seen when Sasse first arrived on campus last week, Johnson said. But the safety measure, she said, also clouds political transparency.
The fundraiser will take place from 5-9 p.m. at the Legacy Park multipurpose room.
Contact Heather at hbushman@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.
Heather Bushman is a fourth-year journalism and political science student and the enterprise elections reporter. She previously wrote and edited for the Avenue desk and reported for WUFT News. You can usually find her writing, listening to music or writing about listening to music. Ask her about synesthesia or her album tier list sometime.
