On Wednesday, “the media world awoke to what, at first blush appeared to be a banger of a scoop over at Axios,” reported Tom Kludt for CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter. Mike Allen, citing “industry sources,” reported that BuzzFeed is “quietly making preparations to go public in 2018.”
Except this wasn’t a scoop.
As Kludt notes, Recode had it in November of last year. And here’s the Wall Street Journal reporting the same later that month.
Allen’s reporting of a tree that fell in the forest long ago is similar to Adam Smith’s reporting for the Tampa Bay Times.
“For now, Jesse Panuccio is the highest ranking Floridian in Trump’s administration” is Smith’s way of sharing with Times readers what was reported by FloridaPolitics.com TWO MONTHS AGO — that Gov. Rick Scott’s former general counsel is acting Associate Attorney General of the United State.
Of course, Smith won’t deign to give Florida Politics credit for this scoop, which has not been reported anywhere else in the Florida media.
Panuccio’s working for the Trump administration is not a secret. In fact, Pro Publica has a valuable resource listing more than 400 Trump administration hires.
But Panuccio’s hire was unearthed in February only because of this publication’s relationships with sources close to Panuccio. Credit should go where credit is due.
It’s a shame Smith can’t get off his high horse and give #FlaPol the kind of credit he gives other media outlets because there are some very interesting personnel notes (some, but not all first reported elsewhere) in this story.
