Despite CongresswomanĀ Gwen Grahamās email tellingĀ supporters she wanted them to āhear it firstā of her possible bid for governor, two other media outlets broke the news before she did.
The admittedly inside-the-Tallahassee-bubble question is, who got the scoop:Ā POLITICO FloridaĀ or theĀ Tallahassee Democrat, Grahamās hometown newspaper?
For the record, Grahamās own email announcing her consideration of a run was receivedĀ at 7:08 a.m.
But POLITICO FloridaāsĀ Marc CaputoĀ had it in his Thursday morning Playbook email, crowing he had it first. FloridaPolitics.com received that email at 7:01 a.m.
Caputoās separate post on the Graham news is timestampedĀ 5:37 a.m.
āRemember you read the above story on POLITICO Florida, and not in other major Florida pubs first,ā he wrote in Playbook.
āThis way, as with other POLITICO scoops the past week (Trumpās campaign managerĀ falsely dissing the RPOF chair, a prosecutorĀ not charging him for batteryĀ in a separate incident), you can smile when other outlets try to fob off the news as if they broke it.ā
Not so fast, said Tallahassee Democrat executive editorĀ William Hatfield.
The newspaperās websiteĀ posted a story early Thursday headlined āGwen Graham announces possible run for governor.ā
In a Facebook post, HatfieldĀ wrote, āThis scoop went live on tdo.com at 5 a.m.ā
ā⦠Havenāt yet met Rep. Graham but have always heard that she is a hugger,ā Hatfield added. āI reckon a lot of us will find that out in the next couple years!ā
The story, written by Democrat veteranĀ Jeff Burlew, was last timestamped at 8:10 a.m., although the stamp resets every time the story is updated.
A recent court-ordered redistricting of the stateās congressional seatsĀ turned GrahamāsĀ 2nd District into a Republican-leaning one that the Democratic first-termerĀ likely would not retake.
The districtās new boundaries alsoĀ divide her home county of Leon in two.